What does "the war on pot" have to do with your child's public education? Well, according to an Op-Ed in the New York Times, each year 750,000 Americans are arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana. That means that officers are being paid to arrest these individuals, those in the legal system are being paid to arraign and process these people, and when the case goes forward, government funds are being spent to prosecute these individuals and imprison them. These facts have been used to support the position that marijuana should be legalized in order to save money for more important government purposes, like education. Think about all the money that could be saved if marijuana were legal, and all the revenue that would be created if marijuana were taxed, or so the argument goes.
Putting aside your beliefs about marijuana and whether it should be legal or illegal, there's no denying that our public schools would benefit from more money. There's also sense in the idea that if we educate our children properly now, we won't have to pay for the ramifications of their criminal behavior later. Without getting too scientific, studies have shown that people turn to crime when they believe that the cards are stacked against them and they have no hope of advancing in society. Despair and desperation breed crime. So invest more money in the public schools as a preemptive strike now and nip the problem in the bud. The question is not whether to do it but how, and the government needs to make it a priority and figure this out.