Hi Mike.

Thank you so much for reaching out. I would love the opportunity to speak with you regarding the economic impact of proposed prohibitive synthetic cannabinoid legislation.

If I may front-load the conversation a bit, from an economic standpoint, US HR 1254 / Senate Bill 605 will have will significantly increase already over-burdened law enforcement, judicial and incarceration budgets, by creating a new class of criminal where none existed before. Please consider the following:

The Herbal Incense Trade represents an industry which is currently estimated to be worth over 5.4 billion dollars per year by NAHITA and other external sources (Paynter, 2011). If US HR 1254 / Senate Bill 605 becomes law, current industry taxable revenue generation and countless jobs will be lost to black market demand. This statement does not account for lost taxable revenue involving synthetic cannabinoid medical research, which is also significant.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of September 8, 2011, the population of the United states was approx 312,162,000.

It is estimated that at least 8% of the U.S. population use illicit drugs on a regular basis, regardless of prohibitive law. Based on Industry earning estimation, we assume that at least 1% of these consumers may have found legal therapeutic relief in Herbal Incense products. This would account for a potential consumption of herbal incense products by 3,121,620 people - in the United States alone.

The average annual operating cost per state inmate in 2001 was $22,650, or $62.05 per day. (Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Retrieved 08/05/2011)

If enforcement of US HR 1254 / Senate Bill 605 was actually successful, then incarcerating just half of the number of estimated herbal incense consumers (1,560,810 Citizens) would cost the Federal Taxpayers over $35,352,346,500 -A year - to prosecute a Newly Created Class of Criminals. These incarceration costs do not count the additional revenue needed to put in place people, systems and resources to investigate, capture and prosecute these consumers, or the follow-up probation monitoring costs for pre-releasees (estimated at $5,000/ year per probationee)

Because of this emerging economic data , we have witnessed a recent trend of many states, including New Hampshire, abandoning further attempts to create prohibitive laws that affect industries such as ours, who are creating jobs in a bad economy while responsibly employ synthetic cannabinoids to meet a market demand (this, aside from social impacts, legislative redundancies, and lack of historical evidence that market prohibition can produce a positive ROI and/or demonstrate success within its own merits)

I am generally available anytime on my cell phone, so please feel free to contact me directly @ (xxx) xxx-xxxx. Otherwise, I would be happy to call you at fixed time of your convenience.

Thanks for supporting Liberty and Please Celebrate your Freedoms Responsibility!

Rick Broider
President
North American Herbal Incense Trade Association
http://keepitlegal.org

P.O. Box 241
Belmont, NH 03220-0241
Phone: (856) 3NA-HITA
(856) 362-4482