Pubdate: Sat, 14 Oct 2006
Source: Post-Star, The (NY)
Copyright: 2006 Glens Falls Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.poststar.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1068
Author: Adam Scavone

THINK OF MONEY LOST BY CURRENT DRUG POLICY

Editor:

Don Lehman reports that the Capital Region Drug Task Force got a half 
pound of marijuana off the streets after their headline-making raid 
last week.  More than a century of experience and the laws of 
economics have taught us that local dealers will be happy, since 
reduced supply without diminished demand will surely yield higher 
prices for their marijuana.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are getting soaked.  Millenia of experience show 
that marijuana is a safer drug than alcohol, and spending money to 
lock people up for smoking, growing or selling marijuana hardly makes 
sense.  Foregoing sales tax revenue on marijuana compounds this bad 
public policy.  New York stands to earn millions, as Nobel 
Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and Harvard University 
economist Jeffrey Miron recently pointed out on www.forbes.com. 
According to Miron's research, which was endorsed by Friedman, the 
country as a whole passes up about $6.2 billion in revenues each year 
from marijuana sales that could be taxed.  A quick calculation ($6.2 
billion divided by fifty states) shows $124 million in lost revnues 
for New York, every single year (and millions more if savings from 
enforcement are included).

Adam Scavone

Saratoga Springs
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MAP posted-by: Elaine