THINK OF MONEY LOST BY CURRENT DRUG POLICY

Editor:

Don Lehman reports that the Capital Region Drug Task Force got a half
pound of marijuana off the streets after their headline-making raid
last week. More than a century of experience and the laws of
economics have taught us that local dealers will be happy, since
reduced supply without diminished demand will surely yield higher
prices for their marijuana.

Meanwhile, taxpayers are getting soaked. Millenia of experience show
that marijuana is a safer drug than alcohol, and spending money to
lock people up for smoking, growing or selling marijuana hardly makes
sense. Foregoing sales tax revenue on marijuana compounds this bad
public policy. New York stands to earn millions, as Nobel
Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and Harvard University
economist Jeffrey Miron recently pointed out on www.forbes.com.
According to Miron's research, which was endorsed by Friedman, the
country as a whole passes up about $6.2 billion in revenues each year
from marijuana sales that could be taxed. A quick calculation ($6.2
billion divided by fifty states) shows $124 million in lost revnues
for New York, every single year (and millions more if savings from
enforcement are included).

Adam Scavone

Saratoga Springs