If it’s 1933, you legalize alcohol and see the instant impact:

- Reduced law enforcement costs enforcing the wildly unpopular prohibition, increased costs for drink-related offenses

- Increased tax revenue from alcohol taxes

- Reduction in crime related to distribution and procurement of alcohol

Net-net, mostly everyone wins because those who sought alcohol during Prohibition generally got it, but at a higher price. Police can concentrate on other crimes. Expansion of an underground industries to become a major employer and producer of goods.

And, citizens can have a drink without fear of arrest.

Here we are 75 years later, facing two of the same issues: drug use is rampant, law enforcement costs are high (more thna $40 billion spent each year on it), and the economy is, well, lousy.

Why not apply the same concept to at least marijuana, making it legal, taxing it and reducing law enforcement costs prosecuting users, many of whom end up costing us even more money in jails?

Consider the stats:
- more than 800,000 arrests for marijuana each year – about half of all drug arrests

- 60,000 people jailed each year

- Meanwhile, marijuana is the leading crop in 12 states and one of the top three in 18 others and is said to be the most common drug in America.

- Taxes could bring in anywhere from $2.4 billion to $31.1 billion in revenue, depending on how big the sales really are. No one really knows the size of the market.

But it’s big. Really big.

Bottom line: what have we got to lose?

New technology + recession/bad economy = massive behavioral changes, that is, convergence.

In essence it means there is an acceleration of the previous trends like the decline of print and the movement online. It also means that consumers will cut back or be forced to cut back spending on things they don’t feel are of value while still using some of the digital devices in new ways like:

- Narrowing their access to the Internet to those devices they feel are of value, such as using an iPhone and even iPod Touch for access, retaining broadband while dropping other services like a home phone line or even going to a cheaper phone package while using devices to text more than talk.

- Dropping the few print subscriptions they still have to read everything online.

- Accessing TV through the Internet.

This is just the tip of things. The digital economy gives consumers more options, but has always meant that few people will be able to use everything. With a weakening economy, the devices will be narrowed even more but their uses will be expanded.

And, remember, the future is mobile.