What are we getting for the money we spend on prohibiting cannabis?

A FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY QUESTION FOR REPUBLICANS: WHAT ARE WE GETTING FOR THE MONEY WE SPEND PROHIBITING CANNABIS?

Forget the politics for a minute.

Forget whether you personally like cannabis.

Let’s talk about government performance and fiscal responsibility.

Wisconsin taxpayers have spent decades funding a government prohibition program aimed at controlling the cannabis plant.

So here’s the question:

What is the goal of the program?

Is the goal to:

• Eliminate cannabis use?

• Reduce cannabis availability?

• Prevent young people from using it?

• Eliminate the black market?

• Reduce crime?

• Protect public health?

• Keep cannabis out of Wisconsin?

• Or simply enforce the law because it’s the law?

Those are very different goals.

And if this were any other government program, we’d expect government to establish measurable benchmarks and regularly ask whether the program is actually achieving them.

So where are the numbers?

What benchmarks are we using to measure the success of cannabis prohibition?

How much has cannabis availability actually declined?

How much has cannabis use declined?

Has the black market disappeared?

Has crime associated with cannabis disappeared?

Are fewer young people using cannabis?

How much taxpayer money is spent on enforcement, prosecution, courts, incarceration and other costs associated with prohibition?

And perhaps the biggest question:

What would “success” actually look like?

Because after decades of prohibition, cannabis hasn’t disappeared.

The plant is still here.

People still use it.

An enormous legal cannabis industry exists in other states.

Wisconsin farmers, processors, retailers and consumers are still dealing with a complicated patchwork of prohibition and regulation.

And taxpayers are still paying for the enforcement of the prohibition model.

That doesn’t automatically mean legalization is the answer.

But it absolutely means the prohibition program deserves a serious fiscal audit.

Republicans are supposed to believe in limited government, accountability, measurable results, eliminating waste and making government programs justify their continued existence.

So let’s apply those principles to cannabis prohibition.

How much are taxpayers spending?

What are we trying to accomplish?

What are the measurable benchmarks?

And after all these years—are we actually getting the results we’re paying for?

If the answer is yes, show us the data.

If the answer is no, maybe it’s time to stop asking taxpayers to blindly fund a government program simply because we’ve always done it this way.

This isn’t just a cannabis question.

It’s a fiscal responsibility question.

And fiscally responsible Republicans should be willing to ask it.