Decriminalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States and federal prisons and an upwards of 750,000 in local jails for marijuana related crimes. Today there are over 1.5 million Americans serving time in an institution. If marijuana was decriminalized, these numbers were further be reduced again to below 700,000 inmates and save the taxpayers billions of dollars per year. The United States spends an estimated $68 billion per year on prisoners with a third of that number have been incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes including a sixth of those numbers as marijuana drug related offenses. A reduction in the prison population due to decriminalizing marijuana could save an
Healthcare reform debate in the United States 2005 and the 34% reported in 2002 for the 34 states supplying information in each of these years." The Congressional Budget Office has also described how the tax treatment of insurance premiums may affect behavior: In November 2009, "The Economist" estimated that taxing employer-provided health insurance (which is presently exempt from tax) would add $215 billion per year to federal tax revenue during the 2013–2014 periods. Peter Singer wrote in the "New York Times" that the current exclusion of insurance premiums from compensation represents a $200 billion subsidy for the private insurance industry and that it would likely not exist