17 states & Washington D.C. allow use of medical marijuana. New York governor Andrew Cuomo wants to decriminalize marijuana.

He would lower the penalty for those caught with a small amount of marijuana, 25 grams to a violation instead of a misdemeanor.

Cuomo has the backing of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. His city spent 75 million dollars on arresting and jailing people carrying small amounts of weed in 2010.

So what if other states decriminalized marijuana?

The U.S. could save 8.7 billion dollars in enforcement expenditures and generate another 8.7 billion dollars if we were to tax it.

That's a lot of green: 17.4 billion dollars.