Marijuana.com

newgrowerNY

Friedman wanted market for pot
11-19-06|Contra Costa Times

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 Costs of Marijuana Prohibition: Economic Analysis.

"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."