Posted on 06/02/2005 4:40:30 AM PDT by Wolfie
Milton Friedman: Legalize It!
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.
"There is no logical basis for the prohibition of marijuana," the economist says, "$7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes."
Securing the signatures of Friedman, along with economists from Cornell, Stanford and Yale universities, among others, is a coup for the MPP, a group largely interested in widening and publicizing debate over the usefulness of laws against pot.
If the laws change, large beneficiaries might include large agricultural groups like Archer Daniels Midland and ConAgra Foods as potential growers or distributors and liquor businesses like Constellation Brands and Allied Domecq, which understand the distribution of intoxicants. Surprisingly, Home Depot and other home gardening centers would not particularly benefit, according to the report, which projects that few people would grow their own marijuana, the same way few people distill whiskey at home. Canada's large-scale domestic marijuana growing industry ( see "Inside Dope" ) suggests otherwise, however.
The report will likely not sway all minds. The White House Office of Drug Control Policy recently published an analysis of marijuana incarceration that states that "most people in prison for marijuana are violent criminals, repeat offenders, traffickers or all of the above." The office declined to comment on the marijuana economics study, however, without first analyzing the study's methodology.
Friedman's advocacy on the issue is limited--the nonagenarian prefers to write these days on the need for school choice, calling U.S. literacy levels "absolutely criminal...only sustained because of the power of the teachers' unions." Yet his thinking on legalizing drugs extends well past any MPP debate or the kind of liberalization favored by most advocates.
"I've long been in favor of legalizing all drugs," he says, but not because of the standard libertarian arguments for unrestricted personal freedom. "Look at the factual consequences: The harm done and the corruption created by these laws...the costs are one of the lesser evils."
Not that a man of his years expects reason to triumph. Any added revenues from taxing legal marijuana would almost certainly be more than spent, by this or any other Congress.
"Deficits are the only thing that keeps this Congress from spending more" says Friedman. "Republicans are no different from Democrats. Spending is the easiest way to buy votes." A sober assessment indeed.
High taxes and drugs. The places where liberals and liberaltarians shake hands and get wasted together.
LOL! Appreciate your opinion.
"If it wasn't for the violence surrounding the illegal drug trade, would there be any large movement for taking away your guns? "
Yes, it's about socialist control.
"If it wasn't for all the cash surrounding the drug trade, would cops be pullng people over randomly on the highway looking to take the money without due process of anyone who has too much cash? "
Yes, they randomly do drunk tests and many states pull you over if not wearing a seatbelt.
"If it wasn't for the drug war, wo"uld cops be executing so many no-knock warrants and occasionaly breaking down the wrong door? "
Who knows. Terrorists might live next to people that are wrongly taken down too. Doesn't make terrorism ok.
"If it wasn't for the drug war, would federalism have been done so much damage in the courts in the last 20 years? "
Certainly. LBJ's "Great Society" legacy are where the costs are from, and that is not particularly related to illegal drug activity.
His logic and reasoning in this instance seem pretty consistent with the rest of the body of his lifetime of work. The Nobel committee must have seen something they liked so, if he's still thinking and reasoning as he did when they awarded him the prize, maybe it's not he who is out of his mind.
I applaud Friedman on the rest of his extraordinary work. On this topic I disagree.
We'll stop pushing our "druggie agenda" in your face when you stop pushing your big government agenda in ours.
And yet the logic and reasoning that is behind this and his other work is consistent.
Mmm..k.
I'll take a guess that your view on the Constitution is more in line with LBJ than Justice Clarence Thomas.
Doesn't mean these people aren't cut-throats and thugs just because the only conviction showing is one for MJ.
I think plea bargains should be eliminated at the federal level.
"Responsible adults" don't use MJ.
The folks pushing for MJ legalizations have to understand that the rest of us are not stupid ~ we live here as well.
They need bigger guns, too, and much more ammunition.(/sarcasm)
It's not quite "racist", but could be construed that way.
Looking at it through economic eye$, he may be consistent, but the cost of irrational behavior on individuals, families and nations is incalculable. Not even an economist of Friedman's merit can calculate those numbers or that devastation.
If Americans had fewer restrictions put on them by the government - the amount of creativity & invention that would result would astound us. Our economy would be vibrant & alive!
We need to go back to a simpler society, where:
*People have to be held responsible for their actions.
*There has to be a sacred respect for life that transcends religion and governs our daily actions.
*Most people can work some kind of job, it might not be their ideal - but there's no excuse for someone getting government money for doing nothing.
*For the most part, children should be homeschooled.
*Small business owners should be given more incentives than large corporations.
*Government should be mainly concerned with taxing us only for things like maintaining a top notch military, highways, law enforcement, etc & leave everything else to John Q. Public.
*People should be free to follow the religion of their choice, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone.
The Robert Wood Johnson foundation sponsored Hillary's Health Care Task Force. They weren't very happy about the outcome of that either. They did, however go on to sit down with the ONDCP to help produce those "drugs = terrorism" Superbowl commercials, and write the DARE program, so they still have lots of points of entry to pursue thier agenda.
All that is missing fom the market for marijuana is the taxation that exists for booze and cigarettes. Added to it is the insane cost of prohibition that accomplishes exactly nothing except a drain in human lives and tax money.
The stupid (and I am being as kind and generous as I can be) war on some drugs is nothing but an employment guaranty for LEO's and the apparatus behind them in a pointless pursuit of possible 1%-3% of the traffic. It accomplishes nothing and costs a fortune.
I pay my taxes, own my home, get up at 5:00AM every morning and go to work, and vote. And I smoke marijuana. If that's not responsible enough for you, I don't care.
The DARE program was stopped at a number of the schools in SF Bay Area; because the kids were actually learning how to pick locks, etc. Meaning, DARE got "changed" -- from what seemed a "good program" speaking out and against DRUGS? It became something else. Parents made their views known. It had been a mandatory for school children program, as the program changed, the program was forced to become more "with parental consent".
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