Posted on 05/05/2007 8:07:29 AM PDT by dukeman
Yep. Drug abuse has tremendous societal costs.
“The economic cost of drug abuse in 2002 was estimated at $180.9 billion. This value represents both the use of resources to address health and crime consequences as well as the loss of potential productivity from disability, death and withdrawal from the legitimate workforce. This estimate has incorporated extensive new data, although several major components have been trended forward.”
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/economic_costs/e_summary.pdf
It never fails to amuse me how threads like this draw all the closet hippies out to the munchies table.
Marijuana is HARMFUL.
At least that’s what I learned in the 60’s....but,
I don’t remember why......
>>It never fails to amuse me how threads like this draw all the closet hippies out to the munchies table.
If you only knew! There are wagers every Pot thread on how many post before RobertPaulson shows up....
The over and under on this one was 24
:-) <————
Hah! They were probably too stoned to care anymore!
Personally, I have no interest in partaking of the cannabis myself; however, if it were to be legalized, perhaps I could earn some pin money by growing some crop on my apartment balcony.
Sure, a pot grower could grow a few plants and have a yearly supply, but there are other factors involved. First, even though it's called a weed to grow pot of top quality takes a little bit of work, just like it does to grow any vegetable of top quality. Second, a store would offer variety. Even wine drinkers would get sick of the same exact vintage every day, with maybe a few exceptions. Third, there are plenty of apartment dwellers and other urbanites who just couldn't grow pot wihtout buying hundreds of dollars in indoor growing equipment.
I'm sure plenty of people would grow their own and circumvent the legal market, perhaps even more so than home brewers do now with beer or wine, but there would be millions of people who would just buy it at a store if it were legal.
Marijuana was legal during Prohibition.
Apples and oranges. Legalizing only wine during Prohibition would not have had any effect on organized crime. Similarly, legalizing only marijuana today would have no effect on the gangs.
"You wanna bet that enforcement costs for illegal drugs absolutely dwarf enforcement costs for alcohol?"
We were discussing the amount of time spent on enforcement, not the amount of money. Stay on topic.
"at least 99% of cigarettes sold in the United States are sold legally through taxable channels"
Sure. Because 99% of cigarettes sold don't have the confiscatory sales taxes of New York and New Jersey.
"Would you support a law that would, say, reduce murder by 90%?"
No need. You answered my question. If the legalization of marijuana doubled or tripled teen use, you'd still vote for it.
*sigh* Work with me here. If both alcohol and marijuana were illegal, the correct answer to the observation that legalizing alcohol would still leave illicit sales of marijuana would be, "yes, and?"
Legalizing only wine during Prohibition would not have had any effect on organized crime.
It most certainly would have... see below.
Similarly, legalizing only marijuana today would have no effect on the gangs.
Oh really? Denying them a major source of income would have "no effect?"
During Prohibition, anyone who wanted to consume alcohol had to turn to criminals... whether they wanted to consume beer, wine, or liquor. Were wine to be legalized under those circumstances, not only would the criminals lose the income of the wine-drinkers, but many of the beer and liquor drinkers would decide to substitute legal wine for expensive, illegal, and dangerous alternatives, further reducing their income. Would the criminals be as weakened with only wine legalized as opposed to the general legalization of alcohol? No. Similarly, legalizing marijuana only wouldn't weaken the gangs as much as general legalization of illicit drugs... but it would weaken them.
We were discussing the amount of time spent on enforcement, not the amount of money. Stay on topic.
Time is money, considering that we pay law enforcement officers for their time.
Sure. Because 99% of cigarettes sold don't have the confiscatory sales taxes of New York and New Jersey.
Oh, so you would be willing to bet that most cigarettes sold in NY/NJ are sold through illegal channels, then? Please say yes; I could use a new home theater.
If the legalization of marijuana doubled or tripled teen use, you'd still vote for it.
No, if the legalization of marijuana doubled or tripled teen use, I'd dispassionately and rationally weigh the costs of the policy against the benefits.
Tell me, robertpaulsen, do you believe it's accurate to describe America as a "free country?" If so, could you explain exactly what "free country" means to you?
P.S. If banning guns would mean that one half to one third as many poor sweet darling helpless children would be killed by them, would you support it? What about if the same were true of banning automobiles?
“P.S. If banning guns would mean that one half to one third as many poor sweet darling helpless children would be killed by them, would you support it? What about if the same were true of banning automobiles?”
No ****.
I think we should ban sailboats. They serve no real purpose, they’re unreliable, and people die using them all the time. Plus, they pose a navigational hazard for commercial shipping.
Some people just don’t really understand the concept of freedom.
It's my analogy so you can work with me. Legalizing one drug among the many drugs that are illegal would have no impact on the gangs. Just as legalizing wine would have had no effect on organized crime during Prohibition.
"but many of the beer and liquor drinkers would decide to substitute legal wine"
I seriously doubt that.
"Denying them a major source of income would have "no effect?"
Marijuana represents about 15% of all illegal drug revenue. Plus it's smelly, bulky, and difficult to smuggle. Gangs will simply focus on all the remainging illegal drugs, both hard and soft, to make up the difference.
I would imagine organized crime felt the same about wine.
"Oh, so you would be willing to bet that most cigarettes sold in NY/NJ are sold through illegal channels, then?"
More than 1%, that's for sure. What did the article say, a 50% drop in revenue? Plus buyers may also get the cigarettes from lower tax states, the internet, or from Indian stores.
My point is, legalizing marijuana and "taxing the hell out of it" may not produce the revenue expected.
Stick with drugs. And we’re talking about legalizing them, not banning them.
A lot of those Mad Max types wrote the stupid questions that Cesspool Matthews used in the Rep. debate.
Well, one more anyway.
Well, one more anyway.
Yes, as a matter of fact, it would have... again, see below.
"but many of the beer and liquor drinkers would decide to substitute legal wine"
I seriously doubt that.
Oh. So it's your contention that, if the population which preferred to consume alcohol in the form of beer were offered the following choice:
...the total number of people who'd prefer the latter choice would be zero?? I know you're smarter than that.
Economists call it the theory of "substitute goods": goods which are not exactly the same, but nevertheless whose markets are intertwined. A Ford Taurus is not a Nissan Altima... but if the supply of Tauruses goes up (and hence the price decreases), the demand for Altimas goes down. Even if most of the people who prefer Altimas to Tauruses would continue to do so, at the margins there are some who'd switch.
If the price of Macs goes up, the demand for PCs increases. If the supply of pens goes down, the demand for pencils goes up. And if the supply of wine goes up, the demand for beer goes down.
But even if this weren't true, even if every single beer drinker and every single liquor drinker would continue to stick with dangerous, expensive, and illegal alcohol rather than switch to safe, cheap, and legal wine... legalizing only wine would still have put a dent in the revenue of bootleggers. You see:
(Demand for beer + demand for liquor)
is less than:
(Demand for beer + demand for liquor + demand for wine)
...as long as the demand for wine is nonzero.
For about eight months prior to the enactment of the 21st Amendment, 3.2% beer was legalized. Do you think that had absolutely no impact on the size of the market for illegal alcohol? If so, do you believe that a) nobody bought 3.2% beer, or b) people who otherwise wouldn't drink at all decided to start buying illegal alchol, once 3.2% beer was legalized? Or do you have another alternative in mind?
Gangs will simply focus on all the remainging illegal drugs, both hard and soft, to make up the difference.
Make up the difference how? The gangs don't just get to decide how much revenue they bring in. There are two sides to that coin: supply and demand. If demand for illegal drugs falls (thanks to a large portion of the market suddenly shifting to legal drugs), revenue from illegal drugs will necessarily fall as well, unless the gangs have some way of repealing the laws of economics.
What did the article say, a 50% drop in revenue?
Which may be attributable to people smoking less (which is after all the purpose of punishing cigarette taxes), or getting cigarettes from other legal sources.
Plus buyers may also get the cigarettes from lower tax states, the internet, or from Indian stores.
Yes... an option which is open to them thanks to the legal market in cigarettes in other jurisdictions, and which brings none of the crime and other general scumminess brought about by having shady pushers standing on street corners.
My point is, legalizing marijuana and "taxing the hell out of it" may not produce the revenue expected.
How much do you suppose prohibition inflates the price of illegal drugs? What happened to the speakeasies and the bootleggers when alcohol prohibition ended? Are they still bringing in as much revenue as they did during Prohibition? How much is added to the cost-of-goods by the necessity of evading detection, of the lack of typical marketing and distribution channels, of the need for weapons and enforcers to maintain networks? The whole purpose of your woefully misguided drug laws is to restrict supply... which, as I hope you remember from Economics 101, increases price. Eliminating all those extraneous costs would leave plenty of room to tax the bejeezus out of marijuana (as the bejeezus is taxed out of alcohol and tobacco) and still force out the street trade as hopelessly price-uncompetitive.
Stick with drugs.
What's the matter, you can dish it out but you can't take it? This is my analogy, so you have to work with me. I want an answer: if the number of deaths to sweet innocent precious adorable little babies would be twice as high or three times as high if guns were legal than if they were banned, would you support banning them? Or are you in favor of child-murder? Or would you prefer to admit that your original question (oh won't somebody please think of the children!!!!1!) was stupid?
And we’re talking about legalizing them, not banning them.
Try to follow me here: legalization is the complement of banning. You're hypothesizing that X kids would use drugs with them banned, while 3X would use them with them legal. I'm offering the alternate hypothesis that Y kids would die with guns banned, while 3Y would die with them legal. When deciding policy, the situations are exactly parallel.
Or, if you're going to insist on the irrelevant distinction, here's the analogy reworded for you: it's currently illegal for police to burst into homes and seize private firearms. If legalizing such a procedure would reduce child mortality from guns by 50%-66%, would you favor it?
Yeah, heroin users will switch to legal marijuana.
"Make up the difference how?"
It's only 15%. They'll figure it out.
"and still force out the street trade as hopelessly price-uncompetitive."
Who wants cheap marijuana? Seriously. Other than marijuana users, that is. And they're only 6% of the population.
Do parents want cheap marijuana? Law enforcement? Employers? Teachers?
CAN it be cheap? Of couse it CAN. But why do you think it WILL?
"Try to follow me here: legalization is the complement of banning."
Then let's do the analogy the same way. If legalizing unlimited and unlicensed full-auto Tec-9s would result in the doubling in the number of deaths to sweet innocent precious adorable little babies, would I support legalizing them? My answer would be no.
But, you have no basis for any of your analogies. I do for mine.
Like that "clawhammer" atrocity?
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