Can legalizing pot save our economy and will it ever happen?

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days while reading about the current state of Greece. Today’s article in the New York Times talks about how America is on its way to a similar debt situation. Without some sort of new taxes or decrease in spending, in a decade we are gonna have a pretty tough situation here.

According to this report legalization of pot would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods. If, however, marijuana were taxed similarly to alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion annually.

So what do you guys think? Will this ever happen? How bad of an economic state needs to happen before people realize its worth doing?

I’m of the opinion that if alcohol is legal then pot should be too, but more so then that, I don’t think we can afford to give up on a swing of $14 Billion annually. Doesn’t really put a dent in our potential debt of a trillion dollars but its something.