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 ...
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Alcohol is aruably the 'hardest' drug known to man. It does more physical damage to the body, and produces more profound intoxication and uncoordination than most other drugs.
There is no such thing as a "hard" drug. The hardness or softness of a drug depends on the user.
My pot smoking collegues can easily wait to get home to adminster their drug, while my tobacco smoking collegues start obsessing and craving well before lunch.
Good Gracious .... why did my post hit 12,000 times?????
"Three genrations have fallen for the shiznits"
Interesting term. I have no clue what it means, though. Sounds Yiddish?
HICCUPS?
Waaaaah!
Probably ought to be reclassified on account of the megalomania it induces in its users.
Same old thing said over and over still doesn't make it meaningful.
Brooklyn gets the shiznits all the time.
I agree with him the costs are large, and not just monetarily. But loss of freedom. America was created to be a free nation where the individual could make decisions and also the individual would be responsible for his or her own decisions. Aka liberty.
Whether or not marijuana is harmful or helpful should only be an argument to disuade or persuade people to use it, not an argument for outlawing the plant. That is if we are free adults. If on the other hand we are going to be a nation that rules over its subjects for their own good, aka social engineering, then those arguments matter for whether or not the plant should be legal for adults or not.
We never openly had that debate in America.. and infact it was the very socialist leaning people that came in during the depression like Roosevelt who outlawed drugs, and brought us incredible amounts of regulations that the nation hadn't known before.
In the abstract, your point is well stated. But the reality is that few realize that freedom is not free. It comes with the price tag of exercising responsibility to oneself and to others that may have to deal with an exercise of poor judgment. Failure to exercise freedom responsibly almost always results in idiot politicians stepping in and curtailing freedom, and even worse taxing the hell out of the rest of us. Law enforcement costs arise because someone endangers another through irresponsible exercise of freedom.
Well then I guess we disagree about methods. But I would prefer shame as a "regulatory" method that Judge Bork wrote about in several books to more Draconian laws passed in response to an irresponsible exercise of personal freedom. I used to laugh at liberals who argued that if we didn't have the Vietnam war and the space program we'd save money and could fully fund social programs. I assume that you are a responsible adult who can handle freedom. My question to you is how do you deal with those who can't handle unbridled freedom and harm others? Prison? A note sent home to Mom? It's more than just money. Self-regulation and responsibility is a bitch to follow through with.
I have no quarrel with your concept of limited government and true federalism. My gripe is with the butt heads that screw it up for the rest of us and cause idiot politicians to overreact with more regulations. My point is that individual responsibility is the best prophylactic to be used while being screwed by politicians, i.e., don't give them the excuse to mess with your freedoms. They go away when they don't have to deal with problems like dopers running amok.
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Marijuana Laws were passed more on the basis of Black Jazz musicians digging white chicks and some foolish Newspaper owners who had invested in forests rather than Hemp fields and decided to cause an uproar.
Potheads can grow their own pot, never bother their neighbours, smoke up then go to the kitchen for the munchies. Potheads never run amok anywhere. They move very slowly.
Alcoholics are far worse.
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