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."