Posted on 04/24/2006 12:33:31 PM PDT by davesdude
Executive Summary
Government prohibition of marijuana is the subject of ongoing debate.
One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale.
This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing marijuana – taxing and regulating it like other goods – in all fifty states and at the federal level.
The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion would accrue to the federal government.
The report also estimates that marijuana legalization would yield tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like all other goods and $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.
Whether marijuana legalization is a desirable policy depends on many factors other than the budgetary impacts discussed here. But these impacts should be included in a rational debate about marijuana policy.
http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/mironreport.html
Depends on what they are. It is a matter of matching the cost of screening against the effect of the drug. I care much more about an employee smoking crack than taking too much aspirin, ot an employee coming to work drunk than smoking pot three weeks ago.
Even those strongly in favor of the right to bear arms don't want Arabs walking around New York City legally with a nuke. Extreme example? Sure, but it makes the point that NO right is absolute. We just haggle over where the line should be drawn.
Apparently the question about the budgetary implications of mj prohibition are going to be argued in terms of the budgetary implications of having no laws of any kind. It seems that wherever the line is drawn, it's going to get moved to the far reaches of logical extreme. I figured we'd just let the strawmen fight it out.
But if mj were legalized, you'd start testing everyone, regardless of any cost/benefit consideration?
Which "14th Amendment argument" would that be?
Amazing, all the FReepers who are suddenly FOR the New Deal all-inclusive Commerce Clause when it comes to drugs. You hate to break it to them that if that goes down, so do all the federal drug laws. Except for Scalia - he'll vote his social agenda regardless of the principle.
I have a great deal of regard for Dr. Friedman, but he's wrong here.
As long as you're not headed down the path of arguing that bestiality and polygamy are protected rights, I think you are now on much firmer ground. I think that the argument against Federal laws regulating intrastate drug trafficking and use are logical and strong. In my estimation it might lead to a requirement to get a specific amendment to allow for the the FDA. Although foreign trafficking is still clearly regulatable in my opinion.
If I were an insurance company I would demand drug testing of all covered people and refuse to cover drug users.
...you would probably go out of business. Do you not realize the number of legal drug users you would be depriving your company? Or did you mean "illegal" drug users?
No. In fact, if I were running a tie-die operation, selling Che shirts to stupid white kids, or writing Op-Eds for the NYT I might require my employees toke up every morning.
That was a quick backpedal.
I don't recall your post nor was I refering to you...simply that for the most part, drug-users are not found at FR, so discussions of drugs, mostly riddled with sophmoric insults, are somewhat uninformed.
Uhhh, which right or rights are you claiming are absolute?
Prices vary quite a bit. In Holland, an ounce will go for $100 and up, priced by variations in THC content. I think an American would be very happy with their cheap stuff - which is usually Afghani, by the way.
Or is "no law is a bad law" your creed?
CRS Annotated Constitution
“The question, whether an act, repugnant to the constitution, can become the law of the land, is a question deeply interesting to the United States;” Marshall began his discussion of this final phase of the case, “but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest.”590 First, certain fundamental principles warranting judicial review were noticed. The people had come together to establish a government. They provided for its organization and assigned to its various departments their powers and established certain limits not to be transgressed by those departments. The limits were expressed in a written constitution, which would serve no purpose “if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained.” Because the Constitution is “a superior paramount law,” it is unchangeable by ordinary legislative means and “a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law.”591 “If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect?” The answer, thought the Chief Justice, was obvious. “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. . . . If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.
“So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.
“If, then, the courts are to regard the constitution, and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.”592 To declare otherwise, Chief Justice Marshall said, would be to permit a legislative body to pass at pleasure the limits imposed on its powers by the Constitution.593
Shoot them as they try and bring the cr@p over the border and a lot will get better.
Ask 100 people what a "trespassing prohibited" sign is prohibiting and I'll bet even a slim majority of potheads could get that one right.
Your use of that definition is just a semantic game
You only wish that were the case. Most every law is a "prohibition" against something. Can you really not understand such a simple point?
Bad laws poorly enforced are the worst of the lot.
I'll agree with you there. Good laws poorly enforced aren't much better.
You can approximate the cost of legalizing a substance that is already readily available. Near zero. Those that want it already get it (streat price is the only somewhat reliable indicator of substance supply). You don't like that answer so you spin and try to change to subject to immigration and other 'prohibitions' that you prefer to argue about.
Wrong. Wrong. And wrong. Near zero? You are kidding, right? You don't think drug usage would increase if legalized? I'm sorry, but it's hard to have a discussion with someone devoid of that much logic. European countries that have the most lax drug laws have the worst drug problems. Amsterdam is a hell-hole and center of drug trafficking in Europe. Their politicians have their fingers stuck in their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. They try to fiddle with the fringes of their laws and "fix" their problem of rampant and epidemic drug usage, especially by teens. Could it be because they relaxed their drug laws? OH, NO! They won't have any of that, and any time a police chief speaks out against the liberal drug laws, he's told to SHUT UP and just do his job.
I just love it when a pro-druggie points at alcohol and tobacco and whine "hey, those kill millions more than drugs and they are legal!" Well, DUH! Could their widespread use have to do with their legality? A bit, ya think? LOL Good grief. Yeah, so I guess the pro-druggies won't be happy until all drugs are legal and all are responsible for killing the same number of people each year. Well, at least the laws will be "fair" and "consistent" in their view.
It's obviously way too late to prohibit tobacco and alcohol. Those genies are out of the bottle. I'm certainly not in favor of letting more genies out of more bottles and then sitting back in 10-20 years fiddling away wondering about what to do about the horrific price (monetary and otherwise) our society is paying because we thought it made "economice sense".
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