Posted on 06/06/2005 8:42:41 AM PDT by Che Chihuahua
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - A founding father of the Reagan Revolution has put his John Hancock on a pro-pot report.
Milton Friedman leads a list of more than 500 economists from around the U.S. who today will publicly endorse a Harvard University economist's report on the costs of marijuana prohibition and the potential revenue gains from the U.S. government instead legalizing it and taxing its sale. Ending prohibition enforcement would save $7.7 billion in combined state and federal spending, the report says, while taxation would yield up to $6.2 billion a year.
The report, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," (available at www.prohibitioncosts.org) was written by Jeffrey A. Miron, a professor at Harvard , and largely paid for by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a Washington, D.C., group advocating the review and liberalization of marijuana laws.
At times the report uses some debatable assumptions: For instance, Miron assumes a single figure for every type of arrest, for example, but the average pot bust is likely cheaper than bringing in a murder or kidnapping suspect. Friedman and other economists, however, say the overall work is some of the best yet done on the costs of the war on marijuana.
At 92, Friedman is revered as one of the great champions of free-market capitalism during the years of U.S. rivalry with Communism. He is also passionate about the need to legalize marijuana, among other drugs, for both financial and moral reasons.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
We can barely handle the social and economic costs of "legal drugs" like alcohol. So instead of throwing our hands up in frustration like libertarians, why not use the same shaming tactics on dopers that we use on smokers?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1414976/posts?page=399#355
pong
It's part of the general sense of megalomania that most narcotics import. What is surprising is that feeling continues on into their brief, intermittent, periods of lucidity where they find themselves in FR trying to post.
Milton Friedman is no looney. He is a Nobel Prize (1976) winning economist. You may disagree with his conclusions, but he at least presents evidence to make his case.
Ending prohibition enforcement would save $7.7 billion in combined state and federal spending, the report says, while taxation would yield up to $6.2 billion a year.
------
Rather than legalizing MJ, to save tax dollars, WHY NOT MAKE ILLEGAL ALIENS I-L-L-E-G-A-L and multiply that savings number by about TEN OR MORE. Sorry Mr. Friedman, you are looking in the wrong place to save tax dollars. Pick the LOW-HANGING FRUIT FIRST!
So do the drug warriors who have turned the poor neighborhoods into war zones, and used the WOD to trample all over the 2nd, 4th, and 10th amendments.
The reason it will never end is because that $7.7 billion pays a lot of salaries in the law enforcement and prison industries.
Are you drunk?
Yeah.
The drug prohibition laws are what lead to the federal monopoly on health care.
Federal control is the reason health care costs are through the roof.
The Feds give free healthcare to any illegal alien who makes it across the border.
My question is: How do you feel about being a rabid supporter of socialize medicine via your rabid support of the controlled substance laws?
We can barely handle the social and economic costs of "legal drugs" like alcohol. So instead of throwing our hands up in frustration like libertarians, why not use the same shaming tactics on dopers that we use on smokers?
It makes me so angry to see the extent to which others wish to control their neighbors through legislation and regulation. The fact that the author of this opinion is a Republican shows the certain doom our nation faces. We are bound for socialism.
bingo!
Before the War on Drugs, nobody used those drugs.
Much of the really bad stuff out now, was invented during the war on some drugs.
I know lots of high ranking cops. They all favor decriminalization. Over a thirty year career, most come to realize it is a waste of time and does more harm to the Constitution than good for the citizenry.
But the JBT's do get to confiscate a lot of money and stuff without due process and they get to keep it all.
You'll see the War on Terror eventually go the same way, just like the War on Poverty.
MJ should be legal for the simple reason that any activity that a person engages in that does not end your right to pursue life, liberty and happines through either fraud or force should be legal.
Sad but true.
And druggies tend to vote Democrat.
My guess is that, like sodomy, these laws, even when hardly ever enforced, will be kept on the books so that prosecuters have something else to pile on a defendant.
What about drunkards?
When alcohol prohibition was repealed, guess where the 'revenuers" went - BATFE. Perhaps what we need is a diversionary strategy (post cannabis prohibition) to get the surplus LEOs into the Border Patrol. They stay employed doing something that is actually useful, and we get our freedom back.
It is sad but true. I generally don't get involved in the WOD disputes on FR, but lately I've started to. I don't understand why people can't see the inconsistency of their supposed belief in a limited federal government but then turn around and want all the money, all the laws, all the private property seizures in order to pursue this "war" on citizens of this country that THEY WILL NEVER WIN.
More and more I'm convinced that there is no turning back. We're bound to be a socialist state like Europe. I'm shocked by all the Freepers who cheer every time a cigarette tax is imposed or every time a city or state bans smoking but then will turn around in another thread and claim to be in favor of less government intervention.
The evidence is there: whether it's historical districts telling you that you can't have vinyl siding or a chain link fence, or the city council telling you that you can't smoke in a restaurant or the supreme court telling states that the federal government will not recognize medical marijuana laws.
Eventually the government's going to come for something that's important to you, but deemed inappropriate for the collective.
The four horsemen of the Socialist States of America are taxation, regulation, illegal immigration and public education.
The takeover is almost complete.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.