(CNN) -- If there is one clear emotion emerging before November's U.S. congressional elections, it is that citizens across the political spectrum are  worried about  government spending and a perceived lack of government accountability regarding where tax dollars are spent. Oddly, the government's approach to the illegal drug problem -- which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $2.5 trillion since former President Richard Nixon first declared America's "war on drugs" -- has been largely immune from this concern. CNN iReport: You tell us whether it's time to legalize pot One dramatic exception is California, where Proposition 19, which proposes to "regulate, control and tax cannabis," will be on the statewide ballot on November 2. In California alone, the illegal market for cannabis, or marijuana, has been estimated to be worth about $14 billion per year, and the legalization initiative aims to redirect the flow of these massive profits from violent drug cartels toward government coffers.
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Evan Wood: Conservatives concerned by spending ignore cost of failed war on drugs
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$2.5 trillion spent on war on drugs; crime, violence, drug use are the result, he says
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Taxation on marijuana could generate $1.4 billion a year in  tax revenue, writes Wood
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Americans more likely to report marijuana use than people in Netherlands, he says, where it's legal
Interestingly, comparisons between the U.S. and the Netherlands, where cannabis is de facto legalized, indicate that despite the U.S.'s record rates of anti-drug enforcement expenditures, 42 percent of U.S. adults report that they have used cannabis, which is more than twice as high as that observed in the @placeholder, where only 20 percent report a history of cannabis use.