NEWS: Economists Unite For Weed

CULTURE: Economists Unite For Weed

Milton Friedman, the famous Nobel Laureate in Economics, is the keynote signatory on a petition attached to an open letter from economists advocating legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana.

The impetus for the petition is a report by Jeffrey Miron, entitled "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition". As the title suggests, Miron's emphasis is on the very pragmatic issue of what a legal marijuana market could mean for government finances.

The full list of signatories (all professional economists, only some of whom are likely to be stoners too) is available here.

If they legalised it, what would happen if everyone just grew it instead of buying it from the government?

That would never happen. People can brew their own beer right now, and yet only a small fraction of beer drinkers do so. A friend of mine was even going to grow his own tobacco (I'm not sure why he decided against it). For most people, the assurance of a certain level of quality and convenience in buying will far outweigh the benefits of producing it themselves.

But to produce the amount of beer needed to support a fairly standard habit would be unfeasible at home due to space and cost restraints (it's also likely to be piss poor.)

Not so for plants that you can harvest every couple of months which you can grow in fairly limited space and produce enough to support a habit until the next crop.

Surely?

Potheads are lazy.

Yet inventive and industrious when the need arises. Therein lies the paradox.

Milton's Fried, Man.


He's so high right now.

as long as the government is getting more money and support from the corporations who own pharmaceuticals, pot will be illegal...

No matter how hard I try, I can not grow a darn thing. And I'm sure a lot of other people have the same problem. So I would still be buying it.

as long as the moral majority and christian right groups hold power in this country, it will never happen...... you know, zealous religiousity is a sure sign of psychosis - they should all smoke out and calm down a bit.

[Edited on Jun 10, 2005 10:27AM]

I think the fraction growing it out of the larger market wouldn't really make up a huge percentage; certainly not enough to offset the economic gain of open sale.

I mean - spend a few weeks growing it, or go buy it at some ridiculously low price at walmart?

At this point, Jesus Christ himself could endorse legalization, and our politicians would still find a way to block the measure from ballots or somehow obstruct the legislation needed to end prohibition.

amen

cannabis farms use quite a lot of energy, and because you have crooks growing cannabis at the moment they're happy to steal the electricity sometimes.