We didn't need that money anyway...

The budgetary impact of legalizing drugs would be enormous, according to a study prepared to coincide with the 75th anniversary of prohibition's end by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron. He estimates that legalizing drugs would inject $76.8 billion a year into the U.S. economy -- $44.1 billion through savings on law enforcement and at least $32.7 billion in tax revenues from regulated sales.

Miron published a similar study in 2005 looking only at the budgetary effect of legalizing marijuana, the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. That study was endorsed by more than 500 economists, including Nobel laureates Milton Friedman of Stanford University, George Akerlof of the University of California and Vernon Smith of George Mason University.

That would be $76 billion per year going forward. Think of all the failing automakers we could prop up with that kind of loose change!

This Reuters column goes into detail about the efforts of LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - and is worth a look if you aren't familiar with that organization.