Posted on 05/10/2006 7:31:03 AM PDT by cryptical
America's war on drugs is actually a Raid on Taxpayers. The war costs an estimated $70 billion a year to prosecute, and the drugs keep pouring in. But while the War on Drugs may have failed its official mission, it is a great success as a job-creation program. Thousands of drug agents, police, detectives, prosecutors, judges, anti-drug activists, prison guards and their support staffs can thank the program for their daily bread and health benefits.
The American people are clearly not ready to decriminalize cocaine, heroine or other hard drugs, but they're well on their way to easing up on marijuana. A Zogby poll found that nearly half of Americans now want pot legal and regulated, like alcohol. Few buy into the "demon drug" propaganda anymore, and for a simple reason: Several countries have decriminalized marijuana with little effect on public health.
Americans could save a ton of money doing the same. The taxpayers spend almost $8 billion a year enforcing the ban on marijuana, according to a report by visiting Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron. State and local governments consume about $5 billion of the total.
The war on pot fills our jails. America arrests 755,000 people every year for marijuana infractions -- the vast majority for possession, not dealing. An estimated 80,000 people now sit behind bars on marijuana offenses.
The Bush administration stoutly supports the campaign against marijuana, which others think is crazy. Compare the Canadian and American approach to medical marijuana: The Canadian Postal Service delivers it right into the mailboxes of Canadian cancer patients. The U.S. Justice Department invades the patients' backyards and rips out cannabis plants, even those grown with a state's blessing.
The Bush administration isn't going to last forever, nor is the patience of Americans paying for and suffering under the ludicrous war on marijuana. Surely letting sick people smoke marijuana to ease their discomfort -- 11 states have approved such, including Rhode Island -- would be a good start for a more enlightened drug policy.
For the drug warriors, however, this toe in the water seems a foot in the door for eventual decriminalization of pot. That's understandable. Relaxing the rules on marijuana would greatly reduce the need for their services.
Remember the Supreme Court case two years ago, when Justice Stephen Breyer innocently suggested that the federal Food and Drug Administration be asked to rule on whether marijuana had an accepted medical use? Well, the FDA has just ruled. In a total lie, the FDA said that no scientific studies back the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Actually, the prestigious Institute of Medicine issued its findings in 1999 that marijuana helped patients for pain and for the relief of nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy.
The federal government "loves to ignore our report," John Benson, a professor of medicine at the University of Nebraska and co-chairman of the committee that wrote the Institute of Medicine" study, said after the FDA issued its "advisory."
The Drug Enforcement Administration, which feeds off the drug war, plays a big part in stopping this and all future efforts to reach educated opinions on marijuana. Lyle Craker, a University of Massachusetts authority on medicinal plants, wanted to grow marijuana for the purpose of evaluating its possible medical uses. The DEA said no, insisting that he use marijuana from a University of Mississippi lab. The DEA knows full well that the UMiss pot is low-quality and therefore useless for study.
The drug warriors' incentive to keep the game going is pretty obvious. But what's in it for taxpayers?
Miron's Harvard study looked beyond what the public pays to enforce the marijuana laws. It also investigated how much money would roll in if marijuana were legal and taxed like alcohol. The answer was over $6 billion in annual tax revenues. Do the math: If government stopped outlawing marijuana and started taxing it, its coffers would be $14 billion richer every year.
We could use that money. For example, $14 billion could pay for all the anti-terrorism port-security measures required in the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002.
More than 500 economists of every political stripe have endorsed the Miron study. Growing numbers of Americans are beginning to agree with them: The war against marijuana is an expensive failure -- and pointless, too.
Froma Harrop is a Journal editorial writer and syndicated columnist. She may be reached by e-mail at: fharrop@projo.com.
If you think that, then you did not understand what I wrote. The price of alcohol under Prohibition at least tripled compared to what consumers paid for alcohol prior to it.
If you put prohibitive taxes on a product, the criminals step in. If mj were reasonably regulated and taxed, like alcohol, there would be only a small fraction of the profits that currently exist for terrorists and organized crime. Do you disagree?
OR
You could just not understand the document.
You miss the point, again. I have stated all along that "regulate like alcohol" means reasonable taxes and regulation. There is nothing I said to suggest that it had anything to do with equivalent weight or volume. I believe you are deliberately misstating my argument.
b. You are not being a literalist, but you are so trusting of corporations and government at all levels as to believe that they would never price or tax your drug of choice at an "unfair" rate vis a vis alcohol.
No that is not my position. The stated premise was "regulate like alcohol". What you described is not "regulating like alcohol".
I never claimed that the government would regulate mj reasonably, like alcohol. They may or may not. I'm leaning away from thinking you are thick headed, to thinking you are not honest in your postings.
I want some.
--Just so no one misunderstands, I'm refering to profits from the mj market.
EXCUSE ME. It is common form on FR to ping someone when your talking about something they said.
Ah! I see why you do not. You have MISSTATED my words.
I said the country COULD go back to barter, not that it SHOULD!
You sir... are a sorry LIAR!
I notice that you don't deny your claim that paper money is unconstitutional. When I pointed out that a gold-based economy can only expand the money supply as gold is discovered, refined and minted, and that this has an inevitable deflationary result, you said that people used to use barter and we could go back to that. ("Barter was the most common method of exchange back then, and it easily could be again.") Is that a fair statement of your view on economics?
But, instead of coming back at me with the (marginally more logical) "well, what about growing for private consumption?" argument, the Heads all wanted to convince me (and themselves) that dope would be selling for $5.00 a pack, like beer and cigarettes.
I concur with you.
Yeah, the government is just going to let them have "their garden", free of charge.
Don't think so .. the seeds will cost 3 times what the finished product cost,
if they want to grow legally,
Illegal growing..., 3 x the current jail term, 10 x the current fine.
Don't mess with Gov revenues.
If you think that, then you did not understand what I wrote. The price of alcohol under Prohibition at least tripled compared to what consumers paid for alcohol prior to it.
I understood completely... but.. we don't live in the 20's 30's or 60's anymore.
Welcome to the new world.
The Anti smokers, and MADD, changed the rules.
Your's will be far worse.
Are you thick headed, or simply giving a dishonest argument?
I could say "gasoline was once 20 cents a gallon, until the Federal and State governments realized what a cash cow gas was", but instead of making sense I'll play your game: No, I'm not thick-headed or simply dishonest, but YOU ARE! I can't help it if you're too stoned to see the brilliance of my logic.
===
Hate to sound like broken record, but, once again
we concur.
The Anti smokers, and MADD, changed the rules.
Only if you let them. The didn't change the rules, FDR and the New Deal Court did that. The drug war relies on those same rules, and you can find the same people pushing the drug war, anti-smoking campaigns, MADD, nationalized health care, and gun control. It's a package deal, if you buy the premise you buy the bit.
If taxes and regulations become unreasonable, then the market simply goes underground. And terrorists and organized criminals will reap the profits, as they have been doing for years from this ill-conceived social experiment called the War on Drugs.
"I'm still looking for the "right to smoke dope" provision in the Constitution. "
Feel free to take his 'constitutional' position and refute #97.
According to the Wiki:
Federal law in the United States originates with the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to enact statutes for certain limited purposes, e.g., regulating commerce. Nearly all statutes have been codified in the United States Code. Many statutes give executive branch agencies the power to create regulations, which are published in the Code of Federal Regulations and also carry the force of law. Many lawsuits turn on the meaning of a federal statute or regulation, and judicial interpretations of such meaning carry legal force under the principle of stare decisis.
The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906 is a United States federal law that provided for federal inspection of meat products, and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transport of adulterated food products or poisonous patent medicines. The Act arose due to public education and propaganda from people such as authors Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, and President Theodore Roosevelt.
Though the Pure Food and Drug Act was initially concerned with making sure products were labeled correctly (habit forming cocaine-based drugs were not illegal so long as they were labeled correctly), the labeling requirement gave way to efforts to outlaw certain products that were not safe, followed by efforts to outlaw products which were safe but not efficacious.
The 1906 Act paved the way for the eventual creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States is the government agency responsible for regulating food (human and animal), dietary supplements, drugs (human and animal), cosmetics, medical devices (human and animal), biologics, and blood products in the United States. The FDA is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which itself is one of the 15 Cabinet-level Departments of the United States Government.
The over-arching mandate of the FDA is to regulate the multitude of medicinal products in a manner that ensures the safety of the American public and the effectiveness of marketed drugs. The FDA does not pre-approve dietary supplements on their safety and efficacy, unlike drugs. In contrast, the FDA can only go after dietary supplement manufacturers after they have put unsafe products on the market.
A medication is a licenced drug taken to cure or reduce symptoms of an illness or medical condition. Medication can be usually classified in various ways, e.g. by its chemical properties, mode of administration, or biological system affected. An elaborate and widely used classification system is the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a United States Department of Justice law enforcement agency tasked with enforcing the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Not only is the DEA the lead agency for domestic enforcement of Federal drug laws (sharing concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation), it also has sole responsibility for coordinating and pursuing U.S. drug investigations abroad.
The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was enacted into law by the Congress of the United States as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 USC 13). The CSA is the legal basis by which the manufacture, importation, possession, and distribution of certain drugs are regulated by the federal government of the United States. The Act also served as the national implementing legislation for the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 is a United States federal law that, with subsequent modifications, requires the pharmaceutical industry to maintain physical security and strict record keeping for certain types of drugs. Controlled substances are divided into five schedules (or classes) on the basis of their potential for abuse, accepted medical use, and accepted safety under medical supervision. Substances in Schedule I have a high potential for abuse, no accredited medical use, and a lack of accepted safety. From Schedules II to V, substances decrease in potential for abuse. The schedule a substance is placed in determines how it must be controlled. Prescriptions for drugs in all schedules must bear the physician's federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) license number, but some drugs in Schedule V do not require a prescription. State schedules may vary from federal schedules.
The legislation created five Schedules (classifications), with varying qualifications for a drug to be included in each. Two federal departments, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the Food and Drug Administration) determine which drugs are added or removed from the various schedules; though the statute passed by Congress created the initial listing. Classification decisions are required to be made on the criteria of potential for abuse, accepted medical use in the United States, and potential for addiction.
Proceedings to add, delete, or change the schedule of a drug or other substance may be initiated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or by petition from any interested party, including the manufacturer of a drug, a medical society or association, a pharmacy association, a public interest group concerned with drug abuse, a state or local government agency, or an individual citizen. When a petition is received by the DEA, the agency begins its own investigation of the drug. The DEA also may begin an investigation of a drug at any time based upon information received from law enforcement laboratories, state and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies, or other sources of information.
the HHS solicits information from the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and evaluations and recommendations from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and on occasion, from the scientific and medical community at large. The Assistant Secretary, by authority of the Secretary, compiles the information and transmits back to the DEA a medical and scientific evaluation regarding the drug or other substance, a recommendation as to whether the drug should be controlled, and in what schedule it should be placed.
The bottom line is that the ultimate intent of the foregoing to provide and ensure a uniform and stable environment concerning safety of pharmaceuticals for the general public throughout the entire United States. If the foregoing is thrown out, we might as well go back to the days of The Jungle and snake-oil. The overarching consensus by the governing representative bodies at large is that addiction is conidered to be generally bad for society as a whole.
If but for the fact that any individuals addiction is not entirely a private matter, and that there is no harm (nor damage) caused either to society, or other otherwise innocent parties (such as children of the addicted, their spouses others in the immediate family, or even neighbors, employers, or co-workers), than any individual has as much a right to indulge in any intoxicating substance to their hearts content (despite the ramifications of whatever such self-destructive behaviours may entail). However, such is not the case, and to argue such idealistic pie-in-the-sky utopian idealism is not just whistling in the wind, but pissing into a gale-storm. Providing for the general safety of the public (through regulation of commerce of potentially societally harmful substances is entirely Constitutional).
However, such is not the case, and to argue such idealistic pie-in-the-sky utopian idealism is not just whistling in the wind, but pissing into a gale-storm. Providing for the general safety of the public (through regulation of commerce of potentially societally harmful substances is entirely Constitutional).
James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell
13 Feb. 1829
Letters 4:14--15
For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
Gee, who to believe?
No I don't.
------
Is that a fair statement of your view on economics?
No.
1) you are incorrect on your assumption of economics. The scarcity of specie is what makes it more valuable, not less.
and
2)the conversation was not about economics, but the Constitutionality of paper money.
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The difference between should and could is that one implies the forcing of will, while the other does not. Nor do I appreciate the bad form you exhibited.
And for future reference, this is my last post to you.
Please do not post to me again, as I do not consort with liars.
Welcome to the new world.
The Anti smokers, and MADD, changed the rules.
Only if you let them.
===
LET THEM.!
Robert Woods Johnson Foundation ( Johnson and Johnson) spends BILLIONS to stop smoking every year.. Not counting affilliate groups.
RWJF and affilliates hate tokers 3 x more.
3x more money will be invested to stick it up your rear.
Glad you can afford to fight them.
They have owned every level of government for the last 60 years.
Smokers have had to fight alone.
You will as well.
Not good.
Parents may not like the "smell" of tobacco, and may want smokers outside.
But, they really, really, really, don't want your aroma ,within 500 miles of their kids.
Legalization.?
I can only chuckle.
Cha ching!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gonna still be laughing when they get their gun control and national health care agendas passed?
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