Defending the Truth

you hope that's how it would go. corporate america would just keep more profits and tack the tax on top of the street price now, you (potheads) will lose. you can't think it will be priced like cigarettes?!?!

If it is legalized then there would be a lot of competition driving prices WAY down from street prices. There is no doubt in my mind.

That money being wasted on street prices now would then enter back into the legal ecomonic market through increased spending (people would have more money left over).

Hahahahahaha - no, I've not paid street prices for illegal drugs. Does that make me naive, or does it mean I'm not stupid enough to be hooked on drugs.

But the idea that we can legalize illegal drugs - and as a result tax them, make the streets safer and increase funding for education is just plain stupid.

Why is it stupid? It works on tabacco and alcohol. We aren't paying $100 bucks for a liter for moonshine afterall.

Are you silly enough to think that there's no competition now?

Making drugs legal might make law enforcement easier (in that there would be less laws to enforce) but there would be no other benefits. Plus, the likely problems would almost certainly far outweigh any benefits.

There will NOT be increased revenue for "education". That's just silly.

Regardless of what people might think are the moral ramifications, it's a lose-lose situation.

No, it does NOT work on tobaccy & alcohol.

The government makes a FRACTION of the money tobacco companies make. And what the government makes, through taxation, doesn't even begin to put a dent in the increased cost of health-care as a result of smoking.

Legalizing drugs will NOT lower the price. It will NOT lower crime. It will NOT increase funding for things such as education.

WRONG! It would generate about 14 billion a year according to 500 top economists.

http://www.forbes.com/2005/06/02/cz_...pot_print.html

Legal
Milton Friedman: Legalize It!
Quentin Hardy, 06.02.05, 12:01 AM ET

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 (nyse: ADM - news - people ) and ConAgra Foods (nyse: CAG - news - people ) as potential growers or distributors and liquor businesses like Constellation Brands (nyse: STZ - news - people ) and Allied Domecq (nyse: AED - news - people ), which understand the distribution of intoxicants. Surprisingly, Home Depot (nyse: HD - news - people ) 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.

It's all speculation, and highly reeks of BS.

I'm not even saying we shouldn't legalize drugs - particularly pot.

But we're absolutely stupid, deluded, and kidding ourselves to think that we're going to generate large sums of money for education by taxing "now-illegal" drugs.

I believe that, within 10 years, most "now-illegal" drugs will be legalized - and America will be MUCH worse off as a result.

I just provided an article led by nobel prize winner and 500 economists who predict 7 billion. That would be a huge boost if appropriated for education.

The only BS is yet another weak reply from Jefferson.

Haven't seen a heated debate in quite some time...very interesting