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.
The US government didn't even know how many people it had, to say nothing of how many were addicted to what.
The CENSUS was a failure so they threw it away without counting it.
This is one of the reasons we had to invent computers.
most people in prison for marijuana are violent criminals
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
If you want to believe you're a group, go ahead. Then try to get in your "co-group's" stash.
A group has some characteristic that can be used by the casual observer to define them in general. Your drug use is too erratic to provide anyone a definition. Besides, you guys seem to have this idea that you are invisible!
It's so difficult these days to know what you are really up to.
You might leave the rest of us a note so we know what part of your observation to get off on eh?!
Some companies MIGHT just use those as part of comprehensive tests used to identify, verify and to screen OUT, uptight, right wing, and religious zealots... of the statist variety.
nice.
I am a no pot person too...
but I can clearly see that the WARS we are declaring are really wars on our rights... for the good of the borg who are trying to run a collective.
You are missing the point. Using their own numbers in their own article, the USDOJ completely refutes their argument. The numnuts who wrote the article made a case against prohibition.
nobody missed that point.
great job.
You've lost me. According to the US Census of 1880, the population was 49371340. Did they forget to throw it away before counting?
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/censusbin/census/cen.pl
This is one of the reasons we had to invent computers.
You lost me again.
No, "druggies" is a brain-dead form of bigoted name-calling
People that use marijuana are a group of people and you claim each and every one is irresponsible.
They are individuals who use drugs irresponsibly and for purposes other than those for which they were intended.
More bigoted crap. More unsupported self-righteous nonsense.
If you want to believe you're a group, go ahead. Then try to get in your "co-group's" stash.
You are a loon. Attacking me is not going to change your bigoted mindset.
A group has some characteristic that can be used by the casual observer to define them in general.
So people that use marijuana are not a group (using you warped thinking). I believe "uses marijuana" is a characteristic Mr. Einstein.
Your drug use is too erratic to provide anyone a definition.
What do you know about my "drug use"? So you fancy yourself a mindreader - tell what drugs I use and what about my "drug use" you find "erratic"
You are bigoted little fool that makes crap up.
Link doesn't work. You'll have to go here and select the data from the 1880 census: http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/censusbin/census/cen.pl?year=880
First off that is not logic - that is your personal opinion - you might want to first TAKE Logic 101 before you start claiming to use it. Second, what is "around here" supposed to mean. Did you interview everybody "around here" to determine if they are all:
1. between the ages of 13 and 19
2. are irresponsible
Or is this just another bigoted comment
Now lets get back to what you said
Time for REVIEWING WHAT YOU ACTUALLY SAID 101
muawiyah:"Responsible adults" don't use MJ.
You did indeed make the bigoted comment that all adult marijuana users are irresponsible. Since you don't know every adult marijuana user you were forced to make your comment based solely on bigotry.
You are drifting off the topic.
They're not.
Experience suggests that just about everyone making an argument in support of unregulating drug use is an abuser. You may be different. Or maybe you're not.
First off, the country had increased its populated territory many times over, and secondly, there were tens of millions of people and that meant there were simply too many records to count the old way.
Machines were invented to help the census count the people.
http://www.census.gov/acsd/www/history.html should help give you some perspective on this.
Notice that Census Bureau admits to having made no mistakes. Still, professional genealogists know that the 1880 census is little more than a raw count and does not contain the value of the information acquired in earlier, or later, censuses.
Hollrieth invented the punchcard. That was, in turn, based on the pioneering work of the French mathematician Jacquard who developed control boards for powered textile weaving machines.
Let me reiterate. The article, which the USDOJ either authored or endorsed, was written to make a statistical case against legalization, and for prohibition.
They flat out missed the fact that the numbers they use do just the opposite.
Must have been a bunch of young whippersnappers who failed their Computer 101 courses did that.
They should have known better than to use any number based in 1880 data, which refuted the point they thought they were making.
Must have been a bunch of young whippersnappers who failed their Computer 101 courses did that.
Might be a good metaphor for the entire prohibition effort.
All that stuff will be good for in the future is as a nutritive additive to bread, and for making rope.
Your desires are doomed!
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