Cannabis makes economic sense

[Torsten]

also check out the links on this page:

http://www.forbes.com/2005/06/02/cz_qh_060...2pot_print.html

if Forbes is taking up the cause then it won't be long now

======================================

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.

[Hagakure]

awesome awesome stuff

oh the times they are a changing

[Thelema]

 

quote:

---

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."

---

yeah, what about the statistics for people that use marijuana that are NOT in prison? It could be that people that use marijuana regularly are LESS likely to be imprisoned. Geez I hate these blaze stats that are meant to convince the ignorant masses!

Like 60% of people in prison were breast-fed. That doesn't mean that breast-fed people have a higher coincidence of being in prison!

[simon_marklar]

The WTO is on the band wagon too!

now, arent they ment to be evil?!

from http://www.thehempire.com/pm/more/A3407_0_1_0_M/

The WTO: the stoner's new best friend

Tim Wu, Slate Magazine - 18 Mar, 05

In the United States, possession and distribution of marijuana is nominally illegal. But you don't have to be Tommy Chong to know that pot's legal status is cloudy and confused. Growing and using "medical" marijuana is legal in 11 states, and in cities like San Francisco it's easy enough to find locally grown product. In addition to being inconsistent, as critics have long pointed out, the federal ban is also irrational. It treats marijuana differently than similar products for no obvious reason. People use prescription drugs, pot, and alcohol for the same purposes: to get high, relax, and dull pain. The consequences of abuse are similar: crashed cars, disease, and lots of wasted time. So, what makes marijuana special?

The irrationality of U.S. marijuana policy is not news. Support of legalization has made bedfellows of people like Willie Nelson and William F. Buckley Jr., backed up by Richard Posner and Dr. Dre. And a Supreme Court decision on whether the federal laws can trump state statutes in this area is expected any day. But the strange status of marijuana may also bring down the scrutiny of a different entity altogether: the World Trade Organization and its powerful condemnation of inconsistent national laws. The American ban on marijuana is what the WTO calls "a barrier to trade," raising the question: Can U.S. marijuana policy survive the tough scrutiny of world trade law?

WTO scrutiny of American drug laws may sound far-fetched, but then until recently so did WTO scrutiny of U.S. gambling or tax laws. U.S. gambling laws, like drug laws, are erratic: Online casinos are strictly prosecuted, but state lotteries and Las Vegas are tolerated. Citing such inconsistency, last November the WTO declared American gambling enforcement an "illegal barrier to trade in services." The fate of these gambling laws may be a guide to the future of American marijuana laws.

Do such WTO decisions have any teeth? Yes, because unlike other international bodies the WTO understands punishment. In his tenure as U.S. president, George W. Bush has obeyed exactly one international court decision: a WTO ruling that shot down his protections for American steel. The reason even Bush listens to the WTO is that the organization knows the one thing politicians fear: angry industries, especially farmers. The WTO has the power to authorize punitive economic sanctions, and those inevitably target politically sensitive exporters—like Florida orange growers or Midwestern wheat. And to such threats even the United States responds. Just as the mob gets what it wants by threatening your family, the WTO targets farmers, and for politicians that's even scarier.

Two WTO principles spell trouble for U.S. drug laws. The WTO demands that countries treat foreign products the same as domestic ones (the "National Treatment" principle); and it demands that when chemicals or drugs are banned, those bans be based on good science (the "Beef Hormone" principle). Both these requirements may present a problem for the United States in the pot wars, because neither science nor logic has ever played much of a role in American crackdowns on "reefer madness."

Consider "national treatment." The basic idea is that the United States cannot tax Canadian rye whisky at $10 a bottle without doing the same to Kentucky bourbon. Under WTO law, taxing one but not the other is illegal discrimination. The analogy to marijuana is clear: Local marijuana-growing enjoys quasi-legal status in the United States, but the import of foreign marijuana is strictly banned. In trade terms, that's called illegal discrimination in favor of local producers. Does it matter that the medical-marijuana laws are the rogue efforts of a handful of states like California and Montana? No, said the WTO in its online casino case—while state laws may give rise to this inconsistency, federal systems are fully accountable for state action.

U.S. states, moreover, are protecting a valuable industry. Estimates are unreliable, but the organization NORML in 1998 estimated the domestic weed industry at $15 billion, making it the nation's fourth largest: larger than the tobacco and cotton, but smaller than soybeans and corn. When local laws happen to protect a valuable local industry against imports, the WTO becomes suspicious.

"Beware the Killer Drug 'Marihuana'—a powerful narcotic in which lurks: Murder! Insanity! Death!" This warning, from a 1930s U.S. government poster, raises a central U.S. defense to WTO charges: Doesn't the United States have the right to protect its citizens against harmful drugs? Yes, countries do have explicit permission to enact health-protecting trade-restrictive measures (in trade lingo, "sanitary and phytosanitary measures"). But import bans must also be supported by scientific risk analysis. And merely saying "Murder! Insanity! Death!" is usually insufficient.

That's what the Europeans found out when their ban on hormone-fed beef was struck down by the WTO in 1998. Europeans have long been suspicious of American cattle fed growth hormones, believing that eating hormone-laden beef leads to premature sexual development. But the WTO struck Europe's beef-hormone ban for want of good science. In WTO language, Europe failed to supply a "risk assessment that reasonably supports or warrants the import prohibition."

There's a difference: Unlike with hormone beef, no one denies that marijuana is harmful when abused. As with tobacco or alcohol, the United States clearly has the right to enact some controls. The problem may be justifying the distinct U.S. treatment of marijuana's health risks. The WTO rules can be read to demand that products of similar risks be treated similarly, and a cannabis pill may be a market substitute for prescription drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. All are harmful: Prozac makes people suicidal, alcohol destroys livers, and nicotine is cancerous and as addictive as crack. What, the WTO may ask, makes marijuana so different?

The issue is sharpened by the problem of the import of cannabis for medical purposes. The White House now denies that cannabis is a medicine, saying "even if smoking marijuana makes people 'feel better,' that is not enough to call it a medicine." But a 1999 medical study commissioned by the (Clinton) White House concluded otherwise, saying "the accumulated data suggest a variety of indications, particularly for pain relief, antiemesis, and appetite stimulation." Such findings cannot help the U.S. case.

The United States does have a fallback defense: Marijuana makes good people bad. The World Trade Organization allows countries to enact measures "necessary to protect public morals." Which raises this fundamental question: Is it wrong to be stoned? A 1924 Daily Mirror editorial said, "Marijuana inflames the erotic impulses and leads to revolting sex crimes." And today, according to the White House, "Marijuana users in their later teen years are more likely to have an increased risk of delinquency and more sexual partners." But just because smokers drop out and have more sex, is that sufficient to sustain a morality-based barrier on trade? No one knows, but it is the kind of question that makes trade law interesting.

In order for the WTO to consider the legality of U.S. drug laws, some country would have to bring a WTO complaint against the United States. Don't expect a case tomorrow, but it may just be a matter of time. An increasing number of countries—including Belgium, Holland, and Canada—have begun to allow licensed growing of marijuana, and today's growers will be tomorrow's exporters.

Canada is the natural WTO plaintiff. Just as with alcohol during prohibition, Canada makes lots of money selling contraband dope to its southern neighbor. According to the Canada's National Post, Canadian marijuana is a $7 billion industry, or larger than Canada's wheat and dairy industries, and its fisheries. And the laws up north are loose. The last two prime ministers have been legalization advocates. (Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien famously said, "The decriminalization of marijuana is making normal what is the practice. ... I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand.") And some Canadian courts have even struck down marijuana laws as violative of fundamental rights. Even Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong) is from Alberta—the Canadian complaint at the WTO could well begin, "Hey, man …"

The economic incentives to bring a WTO complaint are clear. For Canadian and other marijuana exporters, the American recreational and medical weed market is the big fatty. Americans smoked 1,047 metric tons of ganja in 2000—according to U.S. government estimates, worth $10.5 billion. (The White House estimates that the average smoker goes through 18.7 joints per month.) Every afternoon, at 4:20, millions of bowls light across the nation—and what country wouldn't want a piece of that?

For many, these points may lead to questions not about the drug laws but about the WTO. But none of this should be a surprise. The WTO's reasoning is economic, and economic logic taken seriously often has radical consequences. Many economists, including Nobel-laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, have long believed that American marijuana laws are irrational. And as William F. Buckley Jr. puts it, "marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."

The irony here is difficult to overstate. The same WTO that most stoners love to hate may someday be the organization that guarantees their supply. In the words of Willie Nelson, "Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. What gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?"

[spaced]

Looks like some huge scam to get younger people behind the WTO.

[occidentalis]

It worked for me .

Although the beef/hormone thing was pretty concerning. Haven't they ever heard of the precautionary principle?

[gomaos]

It's goddamn time for mj to be legalised.

And I'd like to see all politicians, police, judges and others who enforced the marihuana prohibition over the last 50-75 years, prosecuted, for torturing and terrorizing innocent people..

Like they prosecuted German Nazis after the war!

[nabraxas]

so, Gomaos, if MJ were legal how do you think the govt. would handle it?

my guess is you'd only be able to buy 'tailor made' joints (allegedly Philip Morris have registered the trademark "Marley's") in packs ov 20 from bottle shops, probably for about $50 a packet.

as for the quality ov weed that tabacco companies would use in their joints....well it's anyones guess, but i'd guess they'd want a product that was homogenous---ie: all the joints would taste, burn & hit you the same.

they'd prolly go for some weaker strain as well, so you have to smoke/buy more.

of course the drug tests for drivers would have to be as widespread as the booze tests, as the idea ov "stoned drivers" scares many who would otherwise be in favour ov legalisation

i'm not sure legalisation is such a good thing.

[gomaos]

there'd be no need to buy pre-made crap:

Everyone could grow enough for themselves!

Nobody would need to buy anything, except those who don't care about growing or for some reason can't grow their own. They'd have to buy commercial crap then, that's how our capitalist society works.

But they could also buy , legally, good stuff from organic growers...

hydro is shit anyway, it gives me angina (bush doesn't)

[incognito]

i hear u gomaos,,hydro gives me freakin bad headaches in the morning after,,organic 4 me only,,

i think there are some lazy hydro growers out here who refuse to flush their plants with clean water before harvesting and rush it onto the market,,u end up smoking a bag of fertiliser most of the time it seems, a dude i knew who used to grow used to flush his with clean water for 4 weeks before harvesting,u could certainly notice the difference.

[nabraxas]

gomaos---so you don't think the govt. would make pot like tobacco?

you don't think they'd have a real big crackdown on all the dealers they've green lighted so far?

you don't think they'd start hasseling folks caught w/small amounts as to where it came from--if it wasn't govt.approved?

or put on-line the tech. they've got to monitor useage specifically to catch 1000watt & above power spikes?--ie--to catch big indoor growers?

-- in order to open the market up for the tabacco companies version ov "joints"?

[ 25. June 2005, 00:01: Message edited by: nabraxas ]

[gomaos]

gomaos---so you don't think the govt. would make pot like tobacco?

I think given a chance they probably would...

still, in my humble opinion it would still be better to be able to go to the bottle shop and buy a packet of joints as an alternative...

say some buddies are gfonna have a party and they load up on piss, beer, whiskey, wine whatever...

wouldn't it be great if one had the alternative to say: "You buy your liquid rubbish, I'll just get some joints..."

i think some hydro buds would still be healthier than booze...

you don't think they'd have a real big crackdown on all the dealers they've green lighted so far?

they have "greenlighted' dealers?

That needs some explanation...

other than that i don't really care too much about dope dealers, they might just have to find another job. So what? I've been forced many times to have another job and didn't like it...

you don't think they'd start hasseling folks caught w/small amounts as to where it came from--if it wasn't govt.approved?

If dope was legal, no, I wouldn't think they would hassle anyone whether they are growing it or not.

that would be stupid.

of course homegrowing would have to be legal!

or put on-line the tech. they've got to monitor useage specifically to catch 1000watt & above power spikes?--ie--to catch big indoor growers?

Well if they can do that why don't they doi t right now?

-- in order to open the market up for the tabacco companies version ov "joints"?

of course, if it was legal, you couldn't stop the big companies...

you can't ever stop them...

but all I'm saying: if I'm allowed to grow enough for myself I don't need to buy any...

that's all I want...

and should one run out, then you can still buy commercial crap...

what's so bad about all this?

Still better than having alcohol and nicotine as your only choice!?

or am I missing something?

As I said before, i don't care about dealers and their business...

if they lose, well ,bad luck...

for them only, good luck for the ppl who grow their own....

[Owtovit]

Well said Gom! :D

Now we just have to get the government to at least decriminalize it in QLD

[nabraxas]

i think you're being too optimistic.

there is no reason to believe that any government which decriminalised MJ would be so generous as to legalise homegrown, especially if they'd done so for economic reasons.

just as when they ended prohibition in america they didn't make home distillation legal.

MJ & booze are good comparisons, if MJ was legal it would be treated like booze, ie--you can brew a beer---grow 1 plant outdoors, but it's illegal to run a still, like they'd probably still make indoor growing illegal.

the cops "green light" some dealers who promise to only deal grass. they know there's a need for it, & it's a waste ov their time going after grass---at least at the moment, but when grass is legal the cops will have more incentive to bust growers & dealers as the tobacco companies will be paying them bonuses for it.

similarly w/the elec. companies, there's no incentive for them to bust big electricity users(growers), until they are getting paid by the tobacco companies for the info.

my honest opinion is that supply, quality & price ov MJ is much better for it being illegal.

[Hagakure]

i think there would be real legislative problems with making mj legal but not allowing people to grow their own.

hey it might happen but it would be very very difficult to do.

[nabraxas]

i think there would be real legislative problems with making mj legal but not allowing people to grow their own.

---well there's no legaslative problem w/tobacco, which is also legal but illegal to grow your own.

granted there's no real policing ov urban tobacco growers(there is heavy policing ov suspected illegal tobacco growers in regional areas) but that maybe because the tobacco industry was there first, with the roles reversed--ie: a mariujana industry trying to break a home grown industry, i'd bet policing would be much heavier.

& anyway, i agree. they would have to allow some scope for home grown, just like they do with home brew beer.

if you look at the ACT where growing is legal & there is no competition from a tobacco industry, i believe you'll see the kind ov restrictions that maybe imposed w/full legalisation.

anyone from the ACT correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe the law totally bans hydroponics, allowing only outdoor grows limited to 2 plants.

also nutrients specifically designed to produce stronger MJ are banned, also-- & most worryingly anyone who supplies someone w/information on how to grow hydro dope is risking a 10 year jail term.

--AFAIK those are the laws for a state where growing is "legal" & there's no tobacco company pressure.

IF dope was legalised on economic grounds i think it would be a disaster.

The ACT's Government’s Criminal Code (Serious Drugs Offences) Amendment Bill 2004 although aimed at drug traffickers and serious drug offences, widens the net and imposes draconian penalties on young people experimenting in or addicted to drugs

Some examples of the harshness of the Bill

The sale of any amount of drugs is defined as “trafficking” and would include:

· someone who “for a favour”, sells some of his home grown cannabis to the friend of a friend. Penalty $30,000, 3 years or both.

· a teenager at a dance party who resells to a friend one of two ecstasy tablets that he has bought for a night out is a “serious drug offender”. Penalty $100,000, 10 years or both.

· users who, rather than ripping off family, prostitute themselves or steal, deal to finance their incessant but moderate addiction to heroin requiring the $100 a day for a couple of 200mg deals. Penalty $100,000, 10 years or both.

· a person who grows naturally more than two cannabis plants, some of which may be seedlings with no commercial value, can attract a penalty of $20,000 or 2 years jail or both.

· a person who grows artificially one or more cannabis plants can attract a penalty of $20,000 or 2 years jail or both.

The Bill transforms minor players in the drug trade and users into serious criminals.

· A couple of cannabis plants grown by a user would not normally amount to a serious drug offence but when harvested could well expose the user to such a charge. The report of the Model Criminal Code Officer Committee (MCCOC) which this Bill is implementing notes that “an average cannabis plant 1.6m tall with a 1m girth will yield an average of 250g of dry useable cannabis”. It adds that: “There is an obvious and clear discrepancy between the potential liability of the cultivator before and after harvesting. The small number of plants, once harvested, will almost always exceed the traffickable quantity and may exceed the commercial quantity of 2.5 kilograms.”

· Under clause 629 the prosecution can aggregate quantities of drugs sold over any length of time by an habitual user, the only limitation being that “each occasion was not longer than 7 days apart from another of the occasions”. The penalty is $250,000, 25 years in gaol or both. This possibility is presented as a virtue. It is included to cover “undercover police operations directed against dealers at the lower end of the illicit market. The report adds that: “The aggregation provision will allow police to target particular individuals for intensive buy and bust investigations. In plain language it leaves the door open for police to engage in entrapment of young people by provoking a long string of offences.

Author: Brian Marion McConnell

Date: 17/08/04

[ 28. June 2005, 01:11: Message edited by: nabraxas ]