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.
Talk about an easy take.
Besides, anything involving less than $100,000 is probably not of any interest at all to Department of Justice.
Over-the-counter medications are badder than bat-$hi_. That's why they are over-the-counter. They are already "banned".
You poor, poor druggies ~ so dependent on Justice Thomas now. I'd feel sorry for you if you weren't otherwise so prone to fall into Liberal and Libertarian error when it comes to Justice Thomas.
Learning to spell is a good thing, eh!
I bet that post would have been aimed at me if the aimer could have aimed it at all.
BTW, the question concerned the rate of addiction in China, not the rate in the United States, and your question concerned any society/country that'd ever reduced its addiction rate with a WOD.
China fills the bill. They reduced the level of addiction substantially.
The Chinese did not pretend to have discovered any sort of "treatment program".
So, what were you saying about our not really being able to put a stop to this stuff?
If I'm the only guy that does it I'm going to bring Native American Religion and their parent, the Apostolic Charismatic Church of the First Born into the Twenty-First Century.
I would suggest you stay out of my way.
No one has a fundamental right to slaughter their children.
Indeed. And you have a republic to overthrow and a new Constitution to write.
I don't. And you'd best not start.
I don't. And you'd best not start.
Yep, it's all a big popularity contest. You and Hil should get to together on that getting rid of the Electoral College thing.
I think it's absolutely hilarious that the druggies who otherwise suck mightily on the orifices and appendages of the Liberals and Libertarians in high places are stuck with a dissenting opinion by Justice Thomas, Chief Justice Rhenquist and Justice O'Connor.
I am sure you share with me the sense of irony this brings.
Probably as much as you share the irony of seeing self-described "conservatives" hail the New Deal, and seeing the most conservative justices on the Court aligned against the arguments of George Bush's Justice Department. Even Scalia had to throw out their arguments and come up with some of his own in order to justify a vote with the liberal majority.
What happened to the revolution and our new improved Constitution?
Nothing you've brought to this debate has had ANYTHING to do with marijuana law reform. I implore you to give up and move on to another topic, something lite... i'm thinking knitting.
As for your relatives, sucks to be them, doesn't it? Though you've managed to yet again bring up an entirely new class of substance into this debate. Hurrah!
Look, MJ reform is fine ~ in Arabia for example. The current laws in the USA are working fine, and we know they are because you are complaining about them.
Fortunately that hasn't happened yet.
Better check your dose levels.
The current laws we have here are dubious in constitutionality, that's first and foremost. Secondly, the impact of legalizing cannabis is more than just on 'druggies.' The fiscal gains by legalizing and regulating it of the government would be huge (billions). Farmers who barely make end's meet would be able to grow hemp for industrial purposes and make money instead of living off of farm subsidies (which also cost the gov't, aka you and me).
It's legality does not affect me in any way, and it'll stay that way because I don't grow it, I don't sell it, and I never have any amount that would be counted as felony possession. So why do I want it legalized? Because it'll help our country much more than prohibiting it.
Did you know that there is no lethal dose of THC? Did you know that it doesn't cause addiction (chemically, and there's been no proof only anecdotal suggestion that it does so psychologically)? Did you know that more crimes are committed by people who are drunk than high on cannabis? Did you know that more than half of all the cannabis in the country is domestically grown, and not by foriegn drug cartels? Did you know that the average pot-smoker is in his thirties, has a wife, kids, and makes over 50k a year?
No, you didn't, because you're a blind idealogue with nothing to offer to the debate other than your bad attitude and snappy remarks. The drug war is a lost war, it has been since it's inception. Nixon was a moron for allowing the DEA to be established, and no president has had the balls to put a stop to this constitutional rape.
You seem to be the one who's under the impression that it's going to fall, and you seem to have some pretty good ideas about what's going to happen afterward.
When the government's gone and civilization has fallen, and the people are thrown back on their own devices, a new, but more rigorous constitution will be adopted out of necessity, and the dopers will be the first to be eliminated, not the last.
344 posted on 06/05/2005 10:53:02 AM PDT by muawiyah (q)
Sounds like you've got it all mapped out.
2) Why do you feel an overriding urge to control people through force?
Why do you ask?
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