New Report Projects $10-14 Billion Annual Savings and Revenues
SAVINGS/REVENUES PROJECTED IN NEW STUDY BY HARVARD ECONOMIST COULD
PAY FOR:
**Implementing Required Port Security Plans in Just One Year
**Securing Soviet-Era “Loose Nukes” in Under Three Years
Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation
and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce
combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion
per year, finds a June 2005 report by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor
of economics at Harvard University.
The report has been endorsed by more than 530 distinguished economists,
who have signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials
calling for “an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition,” adding, “We
believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal
but taxed and regulated like other goods.”
Chief among the endorsing economists are three Nobel Laureates in economics:
Dr. Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institute, Dr. George Akerlof of the
University of California at Berkeley, and Dr. Vernon Smith of George
Mason University.
Dr. Miron’s paper, “The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition,” concludes:
**Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would
save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition
enforcement — $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at
the state and local levels.
**Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion
per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2
billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.
Read more at . . . http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/