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 ...
Yes. What is your brain on? Social engineering statism?
What possible difference can it make to you if someone wants to go home and smoke a joint? What conceivable right do you have, such that you can delegate it to the government, to interfere with the self-evident right of individuals to indulge in that pastime?
Oh. That's right. It drives up "our" health costs. Well, I can't think of too many human activities that couldn't be outlawed using that justification (including watching TV when you should be out exercising), assuming that such a justification was remotely conceivable as a basis for our laws.
Some conservative you are. One of those "Now-you-see the Ninth amendment and now-you-don't" conservatives.
I just don't understand you guys at all. Why do you support the use of federal tax dollars for such a blatantly intrusive, unnecessary and dangerous policy?
That is not at all what I said. There is a cost/benefits analysis under discussion. You apparently believe that the costs are understated. I think the study shows the opposite. The fact that Friedman and many other economists who specialize in studying this stuff come down on one side of the arguement means to me that I have to at least consider the evidence. You seem to want to dismiss it out of hand because of moral or other grounds. I take a bit more clinical view and come down on the side of the legalizers - and btw I don't smoke the stuff so you can skip the predictable ad hominem attacks.
I believe that when Nixon came up with the idea of the War on Drugs the budget was something like $200 million per year. Thirty-five years later and we now spend $20 Billion on the War on Drugs. Today, the drugs are more potent, cheaper, and more abundant. I may not be for legalization, but time has proven that spending MY money to fight the war is useless. Let the druggies get stoned, and cut my taxes.
End Note: those numbers may in fact be $20 million to $2 billion. I have the facts at home. Any argument about the cost is not irrelevant, because the argument is my money is being spent on someone else's problem. Throwing good money after bad money.
Throwing good money after bad money.
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I agree, especially given the fact that that Washington does not want to protect our borders, the "drug war" is a sham and a HUGE RIP-OFF OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER. It is a real paradox that Washington talks of saving money, less taxation, etc. (not the libs of course) yet they are WASTING HUGE amounts of our tax dollars. Washington is living on the edge now, taxing the public beyond confiscatory levels, and wasting so much of it. Boston Tea Party anyone??
I agree with Friedman. Marijuana is no worse than alcohol. The drug war should focus on hard drugs.
"Perhaps what we need is a diversionary strategy (post cannabis prohibition) to get the surplus LEOs into the Border Patrol."
Good idea. But I doubt they would relish the idea of exchanging their nice digs and big city jobs for one that might involve running around chasing illegals in the hot desert SW. Decriminalize. Wasting money and manpower on pot is way beyond foolish.
The WOD makes no sense until you follow the money. They rob from the taxpayers and re-distribute it to police departments for body armor and assault vehicles. The departments like it because they like the money it brings in. That's before we even consider their ability to confiscate and sell property.
Time to choke off the taxpayer funds to this silly war on our own people.
Border Patrol operates all over the US. Obviously we need to work on the borders themselves as primary, but at least some of these guys could make a living raiding businesses that hire illegals;>)
Hmm....lol....I don't know. I'm guessing drunkards are an even mix among the parties. Alcohol has more history behind it.
Doesn't opium has a history behind it, too?
The federal government has only one role, and that is the defense of the nation, and managing trade.
That's it, the federal government has no right to dictate to the states what they will or won't do
Unfortunately, that's what they have been doing ever since Abraham Hussein legitamized the destruction of state's rights for his own purposes.
But I do stand by my statement regarding the social and economic costs of legal drugs like alcohol. While I don't want to stop my neighbor from drinking beer in mass quantities, I also don't want him or her to beat their spouses or drive cars. As a former public defender, I saw many of these otherwise good "neighbors" do some pretty awful things while exercising their freedom to kill their own brain cells. BTW, don't make assumptions that everyone who visits FR is a Repussican (or a dummycrat) unless you've seen the voter registration rolls.
Amen.
Carolyn
I don't know the history of opium. But I believe the hippie, drug culture history is tried to modern liberalism. Plus, as a general rule, people who screw up their lives tend to want the government to bail them out. They vote liberal.
A belief based on...? Opium, by the way, goes back thousands and thousands of years.
So are you saying that you are an example of a Republican druggie?
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