Conservatives for Legalization of Marijuana

[Dr Ron]

From Light Up The Darkness

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=997

Here's another issue where the economic conservatives and the religious right will not agree--legalization of marijuana. From Forbes:

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.

Later in the article:

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."

[dave502d]

1. Now that would free up the courts.n/t

[tyedyeto]

2. I know several elderly folks who.....

smoke pot for medicinal purposes. Glaucoma, chemo treatments and others who partake because of illness. Why should they be forgiven and not the recreational smoker?

[firefox]

3. True conservates oppose the war on drugs

The National Review is the flagship of all conservative publications. In this 1996 opposition to the war on drugs William Buckley and other conservatives present their opposition to the war on drugs- http://www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

Even the owner of Free Republic opposes the drug war. Nobody challenges the fact that the Cato Institute is a conservative think tank. One of the most important statements regarding the war on drugs of recent years came with their recommendations to the 108th Congress - http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-17.pdf Those recommendations are listed first in that nine-page pdf file.

Congress should

● repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970,

● repeal the federal mandatory minimum sentences and mandatory
sentencing guidelines,

● direct the administration not to interfere with the implementation
of state initiatives that allow for the medical use marijuana,

and
● shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration.

AlterNet addressed this report and it is presented at CannabisNews here- http://tinyurl.com/aldyb The Boston Phoenix also has an article on this report at CannabisNews.com here- http://tinyurl.com/d9ume