Lawmakers considered reforming Indiana’s Marijuana Laws on Thursday. Democratic Senator Karen Tallian is troubled by the amount of money and time being spent on prosecuting marijuana crimes with little results and called the hearing earlier in the year.

“As a state legislature, we should look at our reasons for banning marijuana,” Tallian said. “Are we trying to punish people or are we trying to prevent something?”

In 2010, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized 60,844 cultivated marijuana plants in Indiana, the 15th-highest amount that year among the states.

In 2006, it cost the Indiana criminal justice system $148.8 million to combat marijuana, according to a study by Jon Gettman, a professor at Shepherd University in West Virginia. Gettman is a former head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Gettman said legalizing marijuana and taxing its use could raise about $50 million in annual revenue for the state.

“There is a rare consensus among economists of every political persuasion that legalization plus taxation would be such a policy that could work,” said Marc Bilodeau, an associate professor of economics at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Indiana is considered to have some of the country’s strictest laws against marijuana possession, specifically in small doses. Possession of 1 ounce of marijuana can lead to a maximum sentence of one year and a maximum fine of $5,000.

(Source: Indystar.com)