In the Oakland Tribune, Josh Richman has an article titled "Hazy math: How much do we spend to incarcerate pot users? Not as much as they say."

Advocates of the marijuana legalization measure on California's Nov. 2 ballot like to tout the criminal-justice cost savings such a change would bring, but the numbers -- though a bit sketchy -- don't really back up that proposition.

It's hard to attach a dollar-savings figure to Proposition 19 legalization when many of the current activities for which people are arrested, charged and imprisoned would remain illegal.

And the governor's signature of a bill Thursday to reduce possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction, something akin to a minor traffic offense, means most of the prosecution and court costs formerly associated with such cases already have been eliminated.

The Yes on Prop. 19 campaign's website says that because the measure would move police priorities away from pot arrests it would save "hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year."

"It seems like real exaggeration," said professor Michael Vitiello, a California criminal justice expert at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

Few arrests

The fact is, California doesn't spend all that much on arresting and punishing nonviolent cannabis consumers.

Whatever legitimate arguments can be made for legalization, the claim that we will reap huge savings by no longer prosecuting tokers is not one of them. It is a fraud.

On the general question, Edwin Meese and Charles Stimson of Heritage Foundation have this op-ed in the Philly Inquirer.