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.
Hey, there are fewer junkies there too.
And you may as well give neighborhood action agencies standing as well.
My bowels, for example, produce a quart a day if I eat an ordinary American diet.
The only reason you think the US has 25% of the prisoners is that the USA is the ONLY country that counts all its prisoners and publicizes the number.
So, you think for a few moments about what it means to live in a country that does not actually count its prisoners, and does not report how many there are.
Then go live there.
In fact, given the opportunity George Washington voted for a constitution that established that the control of standards of measurement was at the federal, not the state, level.
I've always thought that interesting.
Here's the deal in Nederland ~ you become a junkie, or a chronic pot user, and you're gonna' fall in a canal or sluice.
They don't pull you out. Darned things are greasy and full of muck ~ mess up your clothes, and you will never get your shoes cleaned.
They have one of the world's greater death by drowning rates.
My suspicion is that the "pragmatic" Dutch tradition of leaving you alone to your own devices actually provides a rough sort of death penalty justice for those who refuse to go along with the flow.
So is the worst alcoholic. You should see the tumors all over his body though from over pickling!
The WOD works here!~
You should have them move into your neighborhood. In fact, if you have enough money (to pay for the moves), your local police will tell you were they have a bunch of them.
Do you want to see that sort of thing have to happen here?
If you don't, give up dope today.
Ranked 49th in accidental drownings. From Nationmaster.com:
49. Netherlands 15.85 deaths per 1 million people
50. United States 15.85 deaths per 1 million people
In addition, the Netherlands has about one third the abortion rate of the US, and half the heroin addiction rate. Who'd a thunk it.
The Dutch don't report everything, and the overwhelming majority of canal and sluice deaths are reported as some other cause, e.g. heart attack, seizure, etc.
The Dutch ALSO don't count all abortions as abortions.
Look, you had your say. You've demonstrated nothing new about your position. I have no obligation to address any of your objections. Just keep your junkie frieds out of my neighborhood and we'll be OK, God and the Second Amendment willing!
Spains drug laws are as liberal as the Netherlands. Spain has the higest rate of robberies out of any country. It's about 8 times as high as the U.S..
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