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.
Shipping a load? - We may have a man thats been hoisting a lot.
Looks like we picked the wrong week to quit drinking.
Wal-Mart has $7.6 billion in annual operating profits.
Everything and anything that can be bought at Wal-Mart is undercutting the American made producer (and many companies have gone out of business as a result). A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand." But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial statement. As Vlasic discovered, they're not subject to pressure that the biggest retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of bringing us "every day low prices."
Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. And in its own category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals.
On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas. Even if manufacturing plants for U.S. goods continue to operate, those plants' vendors are going out of business, because they can't compete with foreign manufactures of the components used in their assembly. I seen on TV one of the last U.S. made television companies is Philips. The U.S. company that supplied them with their picture tubes went out of business because Chinese picture tubes were cheaper, and Wal-Mart demanded too low of a price for Philips to buy U.S. made picture tubes.
Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States. Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.
"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs." Take the case of the Vlassic gallon-jar of pickles.
Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles went into every Wal-Mart, some 3,000 stores, at $2.97, a price so low that Vlasic and Wal-Mart were making only a penny or two on a jar, if that. It was showcased on big pallets near the front of stores. "It was selling 80 jars a week, on average, in every store," says Steve Young. a .former vice president of grocery marketing for pickles at Vlasic, who has since left the company. Doesn't sound like much, until you do the math: That's 240,000 gallons of pickles, just in gallon jars, just at Wal-Mart, every week. Whole fields of cucumbers were heading out the door. For Vlasic, the gallon jar of pickles became what might be called a devastating success. "Quickly, it started cannibalizing our non-Wal-Mart business," says Young. "We saw consumers who used to buy the spears and the chips in supermarkets buying the Wal-Mart gallons. They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough." The gallon jar reshaped Vlasic's pickle business: It chewed up the profit margin of the business with Wal-Mart, and of pickles generally. Procurement had to scramble to find enough pickles to fill the gallons, but the volume gave Vlasic strong sales numbers, strong growth numbers, and a powerful place in the world of pickles at Wal-Mart. Which accounted for 30% of Vlasic's business. But the company's profits from pickles had shriveled 25% or more, Young says--millions of dollars. The gallon was hoisting Vlasic and hurting it at the same time.
Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' " says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"--even $3.49 would have helped tremendously--"and they said, 'If you do that, all the other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.
Finally, Wal-Mart let Vlasic up for air. "The Wal-Mart guy's response was classic," Young recalls. "He said, 'Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it. We can back off.' " Vlasic got to take it down to just over half a gallon of pickles, for $2.79. Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy--although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.
Pat Hunn, late 1990's head of Vlasic's Wal-Mart sales team (based in Dallas), recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.
It also is not unheard of for Wal-Mart to demand to examine the private financial records of a supplier, and to insist that its margins are too high and must be cut. And the smaller the supplier, one academic study shows, the greater the likelihood that it will be forced into damaging concessions. For many suppliers, though, the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart. Last year, 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States (other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its business with Wal-Mart. If Dial lost that one account, it would have to double its sales to its next nine customers just to stay even.
John Mariotti spent nine years as president of Huffy Bicycle Co., a division of Huffy Corp. throughout the 1980's describes one episode from Huffy's relationship with Wal-Mart. "They demand you do what you say you are going to do." This is because nobody wants to end up in what is known among Wal-Mart vendors as the "penalty box"--punished, or even excluded from the store shelves. The penalty box is normally reserved for vendors who don't meet performance benchmarks, but is also a punishment meted out to those who talk negatively about Wal-Mart to the press. In any case, Huffy sold a range of bikes to Wal-Mart, 20 or so models, in a spread of prices and profitability. It was a leading manufacturer of bikes in the United States, in places like Ponca City, Oklahoma; Celina, Ohio; and Farmington, Missouri.
One year, Huffy had committed to supply Wal-Mart with an entry-level, thin-margin bike--as many as Wal-Mart needed. Sales of the low-end bike took off. "I woke up May 1"--the heart of the bike production cycle for the summer--"and I needed 900,000 bikes," he says. "My factories could only run 450,000." As it happened, that same year, Huffy's fancier, more-profitable bikes were doing well, too, at Wal-Mart and other places. Huffy found itself in a bind.
With other retailers, perhaps, Mariotti might have sat down, renegotiated, tried to talk his way out of the corner. Not with Wal-Mart. "I made the deal up front with them," he says. "I knew how high was up. I was duty-bound to supply my customer." So he did something extraordinary. To free up production in order to make Wal-Mart's cheap bikes, he gave the designs for four of his higher-end, higher-margin products to rival manufacturers. "I conceded business to my competitors, because I just ran out of capacity," he says. Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep Wal-Mart happy--it handed those profits to its competition. "Wal-Mart didn't tell me what to do," Mariotti says. "They didn't have to." The retailer, he adds, "is tough as nails. But they give you a chance to compete. If you can't compete, that's your problem.
"In the years since Mariotti left Huffy, the bike maker's relationship with Wal-Mart has been vital (though Huffy Corp. has lost money in three out of the last five years). It is the number-three seller of bikes in the United States. And Wal-Mart is the number-one retailer of bikes. But here's one last statistic about bicycles: Roughly 98% are now imported from places such as China, Mexico, and Taiwan. Huffy made its last bike in the United States in 1999.
Nevertheless, and that notwithstanding, "You won't hear anything negative from most people," says Paul Kelly, founder of Silvermine Consulting Group, a company that helps businesses work more effectively with retailers. "It would be committing suicide. If Wal-Mart takes something the wrong way, it's like Saddam Hussein. You just don't want to piss them off."
Not constitutionally, they weren't. You say "some". Can you give me one example where intrastate activity has a substantial effect on regulated interstate commerce and the USSC has ruled that this activity will be allowed?
You're preaching to the choir.
Pragmatism has nothing in common with the drug legalizers. They're hanging their hopes on an activist court overturning 100 years of established law.
To what end? The best they could hope for would be a court opinion turning over the intrastate drug regulation to the states. Of course, that was the exact scenario right before Prohibition, and Prohibition came about because that scenario wasn't working.
Would that work -- having each state make the drug legalization decision? No, unless, as with alcohol, every state legalized the exact same drugs. Even if every state legalized marijuana, there would still be the exact same problems we have today with every other drug.
The bottom line is that they're not solving anything. It's a waste of time. They know it and fall back on the argument that "it's unconstitutional" and their efforts are merely to correct that.
Uh-huh.
My God! Can Wal-Mart do that? Can they, as a buyer, demand that?
What the hell kind of country has this become, retailers strongarming their suppliers? It's over, I tell ya.
I concede nothing respecting the Constitutionality of what Congress did, nor do I condone a great deal of what has been legislated, but I do acquiesce based entirely on pragmatism.
Are you guys so obsessed with smoking dope that you can't see pragmatically [past] the end of your noses?
Paulson 'eggs on' confused thinking:
You're preaching to the choir. Pragmatism has nothing in common with the drug legalizers [constitutionalists]. They're hanging their hopes on an activist [rational] court overturning 100 years of established socialistic] law.
To what end? The best they could hope for would be a court opinion turning over the intrastate drug regulation to the states. Of course, that was the exact scenario right before Prohibition, and Prohibition came about because that scenario wasn't working.
Prohibition came about because the socialist's scenario [that the majority can 'morally' rule] was adopted. Pragmatically, it was repealed when the 'scenario' proved to be false.
Would that work -- having each state make the drug legalization decision? No, unless, as with alcohol, every state legalized the exact same drugs.
Specious argument, -- as prior to drug criminalization, no drugs were 'illegal'.
Even if every state legalized marijuana, there would still be the exact same problems we have today with every other drug.
Nonsense. Every state could reasonably regulate every type of drug, just as they now regulate every type of booze.
The bottom line is that they're not solving anything. It's a waste of time. They know it and fall back on the argument that "it's unconstitutional" and their efforts are merely to correct that. Uh-huh.
The real bottom line is that you drug warriors are not solving anything. The 'war' is not only a waste of time, it is destroying our rule of law.
Warriors know it and fall back on the argument that "majority rule is constitutional", while they ignore prohibitions affect on that document.
I'm guessing career federal bureaucrat.
Passing a constitutional amendment is a "socialist's scenario"? Wow. You sure do have a screwed-up view of the constitutional process.
I suppose you also think that a public referendum is "mob rule"?
"Nonsense. Every state could reasonably regulate every type of drug, just as they now regulate every type of booze."
Name one state that prohibits booze. They CAN prohibit booze, but they don't. They don't because they know it wouldn't work.
You're preaching to the choir. Pragmatism has nothing in common with the drug legalizers .
To what end? The best they could hope for would be a court opinion turning over the intrastate drug regulation to the states. Of course, that was the exact scenario right before Prohibition, and Prohibition came about because that scenario wasn't working.
Prohibition came about because the socialist's scenario [that the majority can 'morally' rule] was adopted. Pragmatically, it was repealed when the 'scenario' proved to be false.
Passing a constitutional amendment is a "socialist's scenario"? Wow. You sure do have a screwed-up view of the constitutional process. I suppose you also think that a public referendum is "mob rule"?
Both are attempts at mob rule if restrictions on life, liberty or property are the hoped for result. -- Majority rule is a form of socialism, cloaked as 'democracy'. - As if you didn't know.
Would that work -- having each state make the drug legalization decision? No, unless, as with alcohol, every state legalized the exact same drugs.
Specious argument, -- as prior to drug criminalization, no drugs were 'illegal'.
Even if every state legalized marijuana, there would still be the exact same problems we have today with every other drug.
Nonsense. Every state could reasonably regulate every type of drug, just as they now regulate every type of booze.
Name one state that prohibits booze. They CAN prohibit booze, but they don't.
Weird, - regulate equals prohibit in your brain. -- Guns, drugs, whatever, government CAN prohibit it.
They don't because they know it wouldn't work.
Neither do drug/gun prohibitions. - Not that you stop trying.
The bottom line is that they're not solving anything. It's a waste of time. They know it and fall back on the argument that "it's unconstitutional" and their efforts are merely to correct that. Uh-huh.
The real bottom line is that you drug warriors are not solving anything. The 'war' is not only a waste of time, it is destroying our rule of law.
Warriors know it and fall back on the argument that "majority rule is constitutional", while they ignore prohibitions affect on that document.
Ah, good old argument-by-authority. Me, I'll take Clarence Thomas any day.
there's much bigger fish to fry than the right to smoke dope.
From which I would think it must follow that there's much bigger fish to fry than opposing the right to smoke dope. And yet here you are with multiple screensful of text in each post.
Prior to the FDR court there was no "substantial effect" test.
Not what I asked. Give me a pre-FDR court opinion where an intrastate activity had a substantial effect on regulated interstate commerce and the court allowed it.
You claimed that the Founding Fathers denied Congress the authority to regulate intrastate activity, thereby making SOME interstate regulatory efforts less effective -- I'd like to see an example of SOME of those.
That is the underlying purpose of all such social wars - to destroy the rule of law and exalt the almighty state.
This exactly parallels the other arm of their strategy - the destruction of families by means of the War on Poverty in its various guises.
We shouldn't laugh - their plan appears to be working.
Not what I asked.
Given the fact I cited, your question has no relevance.
Give me a pre-FDR court opinion where an intrastate activity had a substantial effect on regulated interstate commerce
Since no pre-FDR Court ever asked whether there was a substantial effect, how would we know?
You claimed that the Founding Fathers denied Congress the authority to regulate intrastate activity,
It's right there in Article III, Section 8.
thereby making SOME interstate regulatory efforts less effective
That's YOUR claim (which I currently choose not to contest).
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