HOW IS KEEPING POT ILLEGAL WORTH $14B?

This country has declared that nobody should be allowed to smoke
marijuana. So, how much should we be willing to pay to make sure
somebody doesn't smoke it illegally?

A hundred million dollars a year? Five hundred million? A billion? Even more?

So far, the debate on legalizing marijuana largely has been over such
issues as whether consuming marijuana is harmful to the user or
whether it leads to using other drugs.

But now, a Harvard University economist has quantified the cost of
this country's prohibition of marijuana, and the numbers are huge.

The professor, Jeffrey A. Miron, estimates ending the prohibition
would save the federal and state governments $7.7 billion a year,
while legalizing and then taxing marijuana could yield as much as
$6.2 billion a year.

Combine those two numbers, and it means the prohibition on marijuana
totals nearly $14 billion per year.

Miron's report, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana
Prohibition," serves to ask an important question: Is it worth $14
billion a year to keep people from lighting up? Miron also calculated
the cost to each state.

In Arizona, marijuana prohibition costs about $123 million a year,
his report says. Of that, $110 million is spent on law enforcement,
the judicial system and prisons.

Another $13 million is foregone in potential tax revenue. In both the
United States and Arizona, these are significant amounts of money.

Miron's report largely was financed by the Marijuana Policy Project,
a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that works to liberalize marijuana laws.

Miron's numbers are based on a series of assumptions that obviously
can be challenged. Even so, more than 500 economists, led by the
well-known conservative Milton Friedman, have endorsed Miron's study.

Friedman says Miron's work is some of the best yet done on the costs
of the war on marijuana, according to Forbes magazine.

In an open letter, the economists "urge the country to commence an
open and honest debate," which they believe "will favor a regime in
which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods."

Such a debate, they say, "will force advocates of current policy to
show that prohibition has benefits sufficient to justify the cost to
taxpayers, foregone tax revenues, and numerous ancillary consequences
that result from marijuana prohibition."

Unfortunately for the national debate, Miron's report came out just
four days before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal
government has the authority to prohibit the medicinal use of marijuana.

That ruling grabbed most of the headlines, and Miron's report was
noticed only spottily in the national media.

David Reiley, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, is
one of the economists who signed the open letter.

"As an economist, I think freedom of choice is really important,"
Reiley told me. "And when you're going to prohibit an activity, the
best argument for prohibiting it is that you think people will be
inadvertently hurting other people."

Reiley adds: "I can't imagine at this moment who are the other people
whose rights are being trampled on, who would be harmed, if another
individual consumes marijuana."

Nor can I.

Ultimately, in a rational world, Miron's report and the economists'
open letter would serve to shift the burden of proof in the marijuana debate.

Those who advocate keeping marijuana illegal now should have to prove
why it is worth $14 billion a year to do so.

I don't think they can prove that. But if we are going to have an
honest, open debate about marijuana in this country, then it is fair
to say that the ball now is in the prohibitionists' court.