Legal Marijuana: Taxes vs. Black Market and Health

Legal marijuana: undisputed taxes and contested smoke

A forum user recalls that in Uruguay, marijuana is legal for residents and dispensed in some pharmacies, while another notes it is legalized in most US states, generating taxes and jobs. In Spain, it remains a prohibited substance, with domestic cultivation existing in de facto tolerance. Based on this contrast, an argument arises listing four pros—less black market, medicinal use, tax revenue, personal freedom—and three cons: health effects, increased consumption, and influence on youth. Ultimately, the debate is not sarracena but fiscal.

What the State gains by taxing marijuana

The economic angle has the most traction. Several users emphasize that a hierba industry cultivated in Spain would create associated jobs and tax revenue; one proposes taxing marijuana like tobacco, which already bears excise taxes without legality being questioned. They will smoke it anyway, legal or not, so it makes sense to collect revenue rather than leave it in others' hands. The comparison with the United States serves as a mirror: there, according to a participant, most states have legalized it, collecting taxes and creating jobs; its absence here is attributed to regulatory delays.

One user presents a scenario as a warning, not a wish: if cultivation is legalized, the "half of Spain" growing four or five kilos at home annually loses their business, according to his calculation. This summarizes the issue's contradiction: an underground economy functions, with or without administrative permission.

Another adds that de facto acquisition is already possible: hierba associations serve anyone who walks in. The law prohibits; practice, according to this account, tolerates. This gap between norm and reality is what some want to close from above (by prohibiting more) and others from below (by regulating once and for all).

Alcohol, tobacco, and opioids: the double standard

Against prohibition, the same mirror is always raised: alcohol and tobacco "kill" thousands every year yet remain available in shops and supermarkets. "Marijuana isn't that dangerous, yet it is illegal," summarizes a user, while substances with proven addictive potential are sold normally. It is the arbitrariness of the line, more than the substance itself, that is questioned.

The case most cited as a warning is the opioid crisis in the United States: a pandemic of addicts generated, according to this narrative, by pharmaceutical marketing strategies and ambition, which pressured regulators to authorize opioid prescriptions for moderate pain. Oxycontin, Purdue Pharma, and the Sackler family appear in this story. A user poses the underlying argument: many drug addicts seen on the street do not consume illegal substances, but prescribed medications.

In parallel, the argument of individual responsibility circulates: those who choose to smoke, drink, or self-medicate must accept the consequences without seeking external culprits. Personal freedom as a principle, not as a permission.

Why the discussion ended up about antibiotics

The conversation drifted to a parallel and much more technical health issue: over-the-counter sales of antibiotics. One side argues that bacterial resistance is a public health matter and that teicoplanin or ampicillin-sulbactam cannot be dispensed like aspirins. Another responds that resistance comes from antibiotic-fed livestock and meat, not from patients with cystitis, and that refusing to prescribe creates ordeals: emergency rooms, blood tests, and anti-inflammatories that relieve nothing.

Specific cases emerge. A dental abscess that turned into a night of unbearable pain because the hospital did not provide antibiotics. A pharmacy that refuses to sell a gram of a drug without a prescription but dispenses the 500-milligram presentation without problem. On the table, two proposals: health education starting in school and free access to common antibiotics, reserving rare ones for strict indications.

Smell, neighbors, and the right not to inhale second-hand smoke

Not everything is macroeconomics. There is frontal rejection that does not come from health or money: smell. It doesn't matter if you smoke it at home, because the aroma seeps into the neighboring house and some feel dizzy just perceiving it. It is the coexistence argument, the hardest to refute with statistics.

At the opposite extreme appears a concrete map: a user recounts that in a town in inland Málaga province, cultivation was visible and, he says, surveillance looked the other way, with elders smoking in the local bar. Written prohibition and practiced tolerance coexist without apparent friction.

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With these elements, the file remains incomplete in its most important part. There is no single estimate of what the Treasury would collect with a hierba tax, nor a calculation of how much consumption would actually rise if it were legal tomorrow. More is known about the dosage of codeine syrup than about the fiscal impact of the issue. There, exactly, the analysis stalls: no longer debating whether the market exists, but still failing to quantify who pays the health bill and who keeps the revenue.