Pubdate: Sat, 11 Jun 2005
Source: Macon Telegraph (GA)
Copyright: 2005 The Macon Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.macontelegraph.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/667
Author: Bruce Mirken
Note: Bruce Mirken is director of communications for the Marijuana Policy 
Project in Washington, D.C., www.mpp.org
Cited: The Report www.prohibitioncosts.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Milton+Friedman

THE HIGH COST OF MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IN U.S.

This week, over 500 leading economists, led by conservative icon Dr.
Milton Friedman, called for a national debate about whether
prohibition of marijuana is worth the cost. The occasion was a new
report by Harvard University economist Dr. Jeffrey Miron estimating -
probably conservatively - that replacing prohibition with a system of
common-sense regulation could mean $10 billion to $14 billion per year
in reduced government spending and new revenues.

"We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is
legal but taxed and regulated like other goods," Friedman and
colleagues wrote. "At a minimum, this debate will force advocates of
current policy to show that prohibition has benefits sufficient to
justify the cost to taxpayers, foregone tax revenues, and numerous
ancillary consequences that result from marijuana prohibition."

Miron's full report and the open letter are available at
www.prohibitioncosts.org .

A good case can be made that prohibition costs too much - in money,
but also in ruined lives and harm done to society. But first, let's
talk about dollars:

* Using figures from a variety of federal and state government
sources, Miron estimates that replacing prohibition with regulation
would save $7.7 billion annually in government spending on
enforcement.

* Taxes on regulated marijuana sales could generate $2.4 billion if
marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods. If - as seems more
likely - marijuana were taxed like alcohol and tobacco, tax receipts
would be about $6.2 billion, and conceivably more, depending on the
tax rate.

Such estimates, of course, aren't perfect. Available data is
incomplete, so economists must make assumptions that could turn out to
be either too high or too low.

Miron's numbers may be conservative: He didn't attempt to quantify
every possible saving, and in one major expense category - the number
of inmates locked in state prisons on marijuana charges - the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy just released an estimate
60 percent higher than the one Miron used.

These are not trivial sums. In the words of the late Sen. Everett
Dirksen, "A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, and soon
you're talking about real money" - money that could be used to fix our
schools, strengthen Social Security, or protect America against terrorism.

For example, the $30 billion cost of securing thousands of Soviet-era
"loose nukes" - unsecured nuclear weapons that security experts fear
might fall into terrorist hands - could be paid for in less than three
years with the savings and revenues generated by marijuana regulation.

One year's savings alone would cover the full cost of port security
measures required by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002,
estimated by the Coast Guard at $7.3 billion to secure 3,150 port
facilities and 9,200 vessels.

What are we getting for the billions spent on marijuana prohibition?
We certainly haven't gotten marijuana off the streets. Last year, 85.8
percent of high school seniors told government survey-takers that
marijuana was "easy to get" - a figure that has remained virtually
unchanged for three decades. While marijuana arrests nearly tripled
form 1991to 2003 (the latest figures available), the number of teens
trying marijuana for the first time went up by over 50 percent.

According to the federal government, nearly 15 million Americans use
marijuana at least once a month. That's equal to every man, woman and
child in the states of Oregon, Nebraska, Indiana and Oklahoma
combined. It's nearly as many Americans as will buy a new car or truck
this year. It's a huge market.

Prohibition cannot and will not make that market go away. It has
simply given criminals and violent gangs an exclusive franchise, and
society pays the price every day: In unregulated drug dealers with no
incentive not to sell to kids, in clandestine grows hidden in national
parks and surrounded by booby traps, in the bloodshed that inevitably
comes with prohibition - just as it did during America's ill-fated
experiment with alcohol prohibition during the 1920s.

These 500 economists are right: There might be a better way, and it's
time to start talking about it.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake