FRIEDMAN WANTED MARKET FOR POT Tributes flowed last week after the death of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman in San Francisco. The accolades lauded the "grand-master" of free-market economic theory as one of the 20th-century leading scholars of economic conservatism. But did you know that Friedman's passing was also lamented by the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project? "Dr. Friedman was a lifetime dues-paying member of MPP and a strong advocate for ending marijuana prohibition," the organization's executive director, Rob Kampia, said in a news release. Friedman was one of 500 economists to endorse an MPP-commissioned Harvard report that estimated ending marijuana prohibition would save taxpayers $7.7 billion a year while generating $6.2 billion in tax revenue with a system to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol, according to MPP. You can see the study and Friedman's letter at www.prohibitioncosts.org. "It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot," Friedman is quoted by MPP as saying. "More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes." __________________________

Pubdate: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 Source: Contra Costa Times (CA) Column: The Eye on the East Bay Copyright: 2006 Knight Ridder Contact: letters@cctimes.com Website: http://www.contracostatimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96 Note: Denis Cuff, Andrew McGall and Eric Louie contributed to this column. Note: Relivant lead section of a longer column. Cited: Marijuana Policy Project http://www.mpp.org Cited: The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition http://www.prohibitioncosts.org Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Milton+Friedman (Milton Friedman) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana) Bookmark: Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal) ________________________________________________ Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake