people will always do them, at least some segment.
Then, what's the real cost of alcohol? While the focus is on smoking continually, it would not surprise me to see alcohol on equal par or worse. Make an interesting blog post but I think a key problem is denial that America loves it's vices, proved by prohibition and of course the U.S. has become much more "in love" with their vices since that time.
The drug story gets pretty long and complicated. If you want to focus on cash crops, meth probably gives most leverage in terms of manufacturing cost, also more destructive in terms of social cost. Thus its attraction to really antisocial elements, but it is highly seductive -- when "ice" first appeared (brought in by Asian gangs -- Filipino and Korean mainly, maybe a little over two decades ago) -- it first showed up in Hawaii and California, but was high quality product of industrial labs. Its attraction was performance enhancement and longer duration of action than coke, but then degredation of judgement and physical effects were pretty ugly. Then the cheaper crap that has been around longer (cat, meth, etc.) really wreaked enormous damage as it spread.
I'm with you on this, Bob, but I should warn that these gangs' motivations and firepower are probably more than lone angry citizens can handle.
Pot is getting to be a sideshow, and states have long experimented with policies to treat it as less serious, and I wonder about the effect of unemployment on the attraction of this exotic kind of farming -- but there are certain folks who do not tolerate competition, and they don't use lawyers or anti-trust complaints.
What would be the economic cost of legalizing pot? Of our legal drugs, tobacco is a case in point. I was at a meeting yesterday and the point was made that the medical cost of disease from each $4 pack of cigarettes averages at just over $10. The numbers are rough but credible. I don't have the source and someone may have better numbers, but I found it worth noting.
The economics of drugs are fascinating. For illegal drugs, the cost estimates get tangled up with what can be measured (some studies use mostly criminal justice costs, which might drop with less incarceration) and ignore what is not (violence, family disruption, lost productivity, untreated physical and mental illness). Over a decade ago, I saw a study that compared the cost of methadone treatment to the cost of days in prison, and methadone was the easy winner.
For legalizing pot, what is the cost-benefit? And how much of the cost can we know? I would appreciate seeing any reasoned arguments with numbers (and perhaps policy points).
Frank T.
Brandon, the Republicans fought a broad based infras-structure investment of stimulus funds because they knew it would put people to work and they wanted to make sure that anything Obama tried would fail in that regard. The Republicans have used every tactic available to them to keep unemployment high for strictly political reasons...REPUBLICANS RUN TO WIN, NOT GOVERN. WHEN THEY DO TRY TO GOVERN, THEY GOVERN ON BEHALF OF THOSE WHO DON'T NEED GOVERNMENT--THE OLIGARCHS, PLUTOCRATS AND CORPORATISTS--AT THE EXPENSE OF THOSE WHO NEED GOVERNMENT--THE TOO OLD, THE TOO YOUNG, THE TOO SICK, THE TOO POOR, THE WORKING POOR, THE MIDDLE CLASS, THE AIR, WATER, FLORA AND FAUNA. THAT IS THEIR HISTORY, THEIR PRESENT, THEIR FUTURE!
I've seen people addicted to/high on Meth. It's the ultimate Zombie land, they have no souls left. Every walk through 6th and Market or the lower Tenderloin, there literally was a sea of these walking dead and you can probably find such areas around. I'd like to see them take that drug supply plain out.
I'd like to get these murderous thugs with AK-47s out of the woods too. Literally you had better be damn careful these days even going hiking in US public lands.
You make another good point, by separating out marijuana to be bought and sold in stores and so on, less chance some one is going to be introduced with that "other hot commodity" meth. The stats and data are in on Heroin and cocaine but it would not surprise me to find out Meth is even worse than those two deadly beasts.
I guess Oxycontin (sp?) is mega addictive, very easy to O.D. on as well and this of course is the big pharma latest buzz profit.
People cannot function within society once in a cycle of addiction with those drugs or amphetamines, benzodiazepines et all. That same addiction capability simply does not exist with marijuana although I'm sure there are some reefer madness type studies paid for by the prison/police industrial complex which shows just how dangerous it is and helping to ensure their bloated budgets making America safe from stoners.
A slight miscalculation with heroin and you are dead while not the same thing its also possible for a first time user to suddenly die from cocaine use (Len Bias).
There is no really comparison between cocaine or heroin and
marijuana.
The reality is that creating a legal way to obtain
marijuana would eliminate many people from using those much harder lethal drugs because the 'dealer' who carries all of them is taken out of the loop thus less people will be introduced to them.
None of this is a recommendation for smoking marijuana but then again I do not recommend anyone gulp a fifth of gin before driving to work either. Personal responsibilities are still a big part of living in the US.
Please continue to cover the unemployed Americans. There are going to be 100,00-300,000 Floridians that will no longer collect unemployment due to their tier 4 ending. Imagine being able to provide for your family for the past 14-18 months due to your unemployment claim. Now imagine that your unemployment benifit has ended because there is no tier 5 or a longer extension of your tier 4. How far would you go to provide for your family? Robbery, severe violence due to not being able to provide for your family. Or even worse child abuse or negelect due to the stressful inability to provide. Guess what eveyone it's going to happen and it already is. It will not be sudden as if 300,000 people took to the streets reaking havoc. The media outlets are going to be so busy covering all of the tragic stories. By the time it peaks in 2 years we will already be conditioned to it. Please understand that this will effect ever single American. Imagine 10MILLION
Americans without any unemployment assistance. If only 1% of these desperate Americans turn to criminal activity to care for their family, well you do the math. Not a good situation for any American. Please report the severe need for a Tier 5 or an ajustment to the Tier 4. I fear that within a few weeks my state of Florida is going to be a very violent place to be and I fear for my family too as my unemployment benifits Tier 4 will be exhausted by April 13. If we do not get the help of the major media networks we will get no results. As you know election time is comming soon. The networks will cover that, so let's start covering the unemployment or we will be living in a violent violent country.
Seems the Chinese President is coming to D.C., so the New York Times predicts the Treasury will not label China a currency manipulator.
Then they conjecture that China will "slowly" revalue their currency. This is the same crap we've been hearing for years. China is smart, they will re-evaluate their currency to give some token, but in reality, absolutely not enough to make any difference in terms of repressed wages, costs to to continue to give them an unfair advantage.
Recently they claimed intellectual property must be "domestically sourced" in order to be honored.
First I've heard of that. This would explain the sudden tough talk out of Congress. Their corporate puppet-masters are not happy about this development. It costs them money.
Ron Kirk is yet another free traitor, so this isn't a surprise.
One thing the report claims is China is the 3rd largest US export market. I have to pull up those numbers, because what the U.S. imports into China is a trickle in comparison to what China exports to the U.S. What is in those numbers? U.S. Treasuries?
The Obama administration put into place, so many who will simply do the same things the Bush administration did.
The real surprise is there is movement in Congress to declare by law China as a currency manipulator. So, any action on trade at all, and obviously getting Congress to do anything that isn't a lobbyist grade A stamp of approval is almost impossible, would be a miracle. I think a key reason we might get action is because China is busy screwing over U.S. multinationals operating in China, quite a bit. Recently they claimed intellectual property must be "domestically sourced" in order to be honored. That means (as if they haven't been doing this, including industrial espionage) it sounds like they are going to rip off some highly valuable patents and advanced technology and maybe, just maybe our MNCs will actually not take that one lying down.
It's not like we didn't expect our government to back down yet again.
Sure, there are reasons for China's surplus outside of just currency manipulation (like slave labor for export), but that doesn't mean we should overlook the manipulation.
Thanks for your comeback, but while I agree in principle with you, I would suggest that whatever markets once existed have long been destroyed by the absolute and complte rigging of everything.
The supposed debt-financed stimulus, and all those free monies handed out through the Fed's window, plus TARP funds, have been used by Goldman Sachs in their investment and deals benefitting China and their economy (and profiting GS as well, of course).
So too those funds received by Morgan Stanley have been funneled to India and its economy, where Morgan Stanley is the preferred investment house and run all their mutual funds, and a number of others, from that country.
And JP Morgan Chase, as I've read elsewhere recently, is simply the agent for the devil.
As your friendly neighborhood admin, I see the web stats and I'm seeing this piece being picked up on.
Very good call out, I sure didn't read this and over and over again we get these 2,000+ page bills precisely so they can bury stuff which if scrutinized will outrage people.
We almost need a gang of 1000, each taking a few pages of each bill and studying them and writing up what we find. I've done more than a few and just one bill is a huge 2 day job really (and I'm not an attorney, if we had some attorneys working on this it would go much faster).
Obviously making it illegal doesn't work and I said in comparison to alcohol, it's not as bad. My reasons are pretty much the same for ending prohibition on the 1930's on alcohol. I've seen plenty of drugs and yes I know all of the issues, but there is alcoholism, gambling addiction and those are both legal.
You won't see me say that on something like heroin or amphetamines, or meth etc.
But bottom line, now going on for 50 years and now also the ages brackets of smokers is now into the 70's....and clearly it's not going away or is making it illegal stopping anyone, all it is doing is making some criminals very powerful.
Advocating for the obvious isn't the same thing as claiming pot is great. I don't do any drugs or alcohol, so obviously I don't think any of this stuff is so great, just being a realist.
I put it on the site because this is the #1 cash crop and projections to solve state budgets are all in the black if it was legalized.
Bob,
I know the arguments, but I have some professional background on the subject. Yes, some enjoy pot, just as they enjoy booze, and I have been to places where it can be legally bought and used. Like most substances, illegal substances (and those limited by the controlled substances act but available by prescription) can have their short-term beneficial uses. I used to be able to go into a pharmacy and buy paregoric by signing the book. Medicinal use (e.g., overactive bowels) without the doctor's permission. In some cultures, old folks were traditionally able to smoke cannabis and even opium. It made old age more bearable. Amphetamines? They helped me get through graduate school's grind, and I felt more energetic too.
So why stop with grass?
If you want to see the risk unfettered availability of marijuana can pose, check out the clinical literature -- it does get to the kids when their brains are still developing, just as alcohol does now when they get it from parents' stash.
As for stoners being not impaired like drunks, I can't agree. Try thinking of stoned drivers or pilots. Judgement and perception are affected. I had a nephew who was a pilot, and went flying while stoned -- problem was he couldn't land the aircraft -- good thing he had no passengers, or they might have died with him. The problem with being stoned (like being drunk) is that you often don't know you are.
Sorry for the rant, but I have heard the "pot is okay" argument too many times. Yes, it can be and is very profitable, if you accept the consequences. Heroin? The Vancouver safe injection project has probably prevented some spread of blood-borne disease like HIV/AIDS, and a few overdose deaths, but smoking opium might be even safer. Why not license opium dens and have Coca-cola become "the real thing" once more by adding a little cocaine? Might generate more revenue, but it is not without social costs.
You might want to create an account and login. See the create an account on the right upper area column. You get all sorts of ability to track your discussions and don't have to enter in letters every time you want to say something.
people will always do them, at least some segment.
Then, what's the real cost of alcohol? While the focus is on smoking continually, it would not surprise me to see alcohol on equal par or worse. Make an interesting blog post but I think a key problem is denial that America loves it's vices, proved by prohibition and of course the U.S. has become much more "in love" with their vices since that time.
The drug story gets pretty long and complicated. If you want to focus on cash crops, meth probably gives most leverage in terms of manufacturing cost, also more destructive in terms of social cost. Thus its attraction to really antisocial elements, but it is highly seductive -- when "ice" first appeared (brought in by Asian gangs -- Filipino and Korean mainly, maybe a little over two decades ago) -- it first showed up in Hawaii and California, but was high quality product of industrial labs. Its attraction was performance enhancement and longer duration of action than coke, but then degredation of judgement and physical effects were pretty ugly. Then the cheaper crap that has been around longer (cat, meth, etc.) really wreaked enormous damage as it spread.
I'm with you on this, Bob, but I should warn that these gangs' motivations and firepower are probably more than lone angry citizens can handle.
Pot is getting to be a sideshow, and states have long experimented with policies to treat it as less serious, and I wonder about the effect of unemployment on the attraction of this exotic kind of farming -- but there are certain folks who do not tolerate competition, and they don't use lawyers or anti-trust complaints.
What would be the economic cost of legalizing pot? Of our legal drugs, tobacco is a case in point. I was at a meeting yesterday and the point was made that the medical cost of disease from each $4 pack of cigarettes averages at just over $10. The numbers are rough but credible. I don't have the source and someone may have better numbers, but I found it worth noting.
The economics of drugs are fascinating. For illegal drugs, the cost estimates get tangled up with what can be measured (some studies use mostly criminal justice costs, which might drop with less incarceration) and ignore what is not (violence, family disruption, lost productivity, untreated physical and mental illness). Over a decade ago, I saw a study that compared the cost of methadone treatment to the cost of days in prison, and methadone was the easy winner.
For legalizing pot, what is the cost-benefit? And how much of the cost can we know? I would appreciate seeing any reasoned arguments with numbers (and perhaps policy points).
Frank T.
Brandon, the Republicans fought a broad based infras-structure investment of stimulus funds because they knew it would put people to work and they wanted to make sure that anything Obama tried would fail in that regard. The Republicans have used every tactic available to them to keep unemployment high for strictly political reasons...REPUBLICANS RUN TO WIN, NOT GOVERN. WHEN THEY DO TRY TO GOVERN, THEY GOVERN ON BEHALF OF THOSE WHO DON'T NEED GOVERNMENT--THE OLIGARCHS, PLUTOCRATS AND CORPORATISTS--AT THE EXPENSE OF THOSE WHO NEED GOVERNMENT--THE TOO OLD, THE TOO YOUNG, THE TOO SICK, THE TOO POOR, THE WORKING POOR, THE MIDDLE CLASS, THE AIR, WATER, FLORA AND FAUNA. THAT IS THEIR HISTORY, THEIR PRESENT, THEIR FUTURE!
I've seen people addicted to/high on Meth. It's the ultimate Zombie land, they have no souls left. Every walk through 6th and Market or the lower Tenderloin, there literally was a sea of these walking dead and you can probably find such areas around. I'd like to see them take that drug supply plain out.
I'd like to get these murderous thugs with AK-47s out of the woods too. Literally you had better be damn careful these days even going hiking in US public lands.
You make another good point, by separating out marijuana to be bought and sold in stores and so on, less chance some one is going to be introduced with that "other hot commodity" meth. The stats and data are in on Heroin and cocaine but it would not surprise me to find out Meth is even worse than those two deadly beasts.
I guess Oxycontin (sp?) is mega addictive, very easy to O.D. on as well and this of course is the big pharma latest buzz profit.
People cannot function within society once in a cycle of addiction with those drugs or amphetamines, benzodiazepines et all. That same addiction capability simply does not exist with marijuana although I'm sure there are some reefer madness type studies paid for by the prison/police industrial complex which shows just how dangerous it is and helping to ensure their bloated budgets making America safe from stoners.
A slight miscalculation with heroin and you are dead while not the same thing its also possible for a first time user to suddenly die from cocaine use (Len Bias).
There is no really comparison between cocaine or heroin and
marijuana.
The reality is that creating a legal way to obtain
marijuana would eliminate many people from using those much harder lethal drugs because the 'dealer' who carries all of them is taken out of the loop thus less people will be introduced to them.
None of this is a recommendation for smoking marijuana but then again I do not recommend anyone gulp a fifth of gin before driving to work either. Personal responsibilities are still a big part of living in the US.
Laptop power supplies are universal, they will work in any country, just need a plug adapter. Well, good luck!
A curious interview with Schaprio of SEC:
Nope, ex-pat here I come. (My last comment as the guy just arrived who is buying the PC.)
Please continue to cover the unemployed Americans. There are going to be 100,00-300,000 Floridians that will no longer collect unemployment due to their tier 4 ending. Imagine being able to provide for your family for the past 14-18 months due to your unemployment claim. Now imagine that your unemployment benifit has ended because there is no tier 5 or a longer extension of your tier 4. How far would you go to provide for your family? Robbery, severe violence due to not being able to provide for your family. Or even worse child abuse or negelect due to the stressful inability to provide. Guess what eveyone it's going to happen and it already is. It will not be sudden as if 300,000 people took to the streets reaking havoc. The media outlets are going to be so busy covering all of the tragic stories. By the time it peaks in 2 years we will already be conditioned to it. Please understand that this will effect ever single American. Imagine 10MILLION
Americans without any unemployment assistance. If only 1% of these desperate Americans turn to criminal activity to care for their family, well you do the math. Not a good situation for any American. Please report the severe need for a Tier 5 or an ajustment to the Tier 4. I fear that within a few weeks my state of Florida is going to be a very violent place to be and I fear for my family too as my unemployment benifits Tier 4 will be exhausted by April 13. If we do not get the help of the major media networks we will get no results. As you know election time is comming soon. The networks will cover that, so let's start covering the unemployment or we will be living in a violent violent country.
Thank You For Your Time,
Unemployed American
Seems the Chinese President is coming to D.C., so the New York Times predicts the Treasury will not label China a currency manipulator.
Then they conjecture that China will "slowly" revalue their currency. This is the same crap we've been hearing for years. China is smart, they will re-evaluate their currency to give some token, but in reality, absolutely not enough to make any difference in terms of repressed wages, costs to to continue to give them an unfair advantage.
You are becoming an ex-pat? What's all this about, what's going on? It's April 1st, so ....
Can't remember which one (sic ;))
China's "Indigenous" Intellectual Property Government Procurement Policy.
If one clicks on those meta tags (taxomony), all of the posts with that tag are shown, in order of publication date.
They aren't just search terms, those meta tags actually create links.
Here is the China meta tag.
First I've heard of that. This would explain the sudden tough talk out of Congress. Their corporate puppet-masters are not happy about this development. It costs them money.
Ron Kirk is yet another free traitor, so this isn't a surprise.
One thing the report claims is China is the 3rd largest US export market. I have to pull up those numbers, because what the U.S. imports into China is a trickle in comparison to what China exports to the U.S. What is in those numbers? U.S. Treasuries?
The Obama administration put into place, so many who will simply do the same things the Bush administration did.
The real surprise is there is movement in Congress to declare by law China as a currency manipulator. So, any action on trade at all, and obviously getting Congress to do anything that isn't a lobbyist grade A stamp of approval is almost impossible, would be a miracle. I think a key reason we might get action is because China is busy screwing over U.S. multinationals operating in China, quite a bit. Recently they claimed intellectual property must be "domestically sourced" in order to be honored. That means (as if they haven't been doing this, including industrial espionage) it sounds like they are going to rip off some highly valuable patents and advanced technology and maybe, just maybe our MNCs will actually not take that one lying down.
It's not like we didn't expect our government to back down yet again.
Sure, there are reasons for China's surplus outside of just currency manipulation (like slave labor for export), but that doesn't mean we should overlook the manipulation.
Thanks for your comeback, but while I agree in principle with you, I would suggest that whatever markets once existed have long been destroyed by the absolute and complte rigging of everything.
The supposed debt-financed stimulus, and all those free monies handed out through the Fed's window, plus TARP funds, have been used by Goldman Sachs in their investment and deals benefitting China and their economy (and profiting GS as well, of course).
So too those funds received by Morgan Stanley have been funneled to India and its economy, where Morgan Stanley is the preferred investment house and run all their mutual funds, and a number of others, from that country.
And JP Morgan Chase, as I've read elsewhere recently, is simply the agent for the devil.
Oh, yes, additionally, hats off to midtowng for an excellent historical survey.
As your friendly neighborhood admin, I see the web stats and I'm seeing this piece being picked up on.
Very good call out, I sure didn't read this and over and over again we get these 2,000+ page bills precisely so they can bury stuff which if scrutinized will outrage people.
We almost need a gang of 1000, each taking a few pages of each bill and studying them and writing up what we find. I've done more than a few and just one bill is a huge 2 day job really (and I'm not an attorney, if we had some attorneys working on this it would go much faster).
Obviously making it illegal doesn't work and I said in comparison to alcohol, it's not as bad. My reasons are pretty much the same for ending prohibition on the 1930's on alcohol. I've seen plenty of drugs and yes I know all of the issues, but there is alcoholism, gambling addiction and those are both legal.
You won't see me say that on something like heroin or amphetamines, or meth etc.
But bottom line, now going on for 50 years and now also the ages brackets of smokers is now into the 70's....and clearly it's not going away or is making it illegal stopping anyone, all it is doing is making some criminals very powerful.
Advocating for the obvious isn't the same thing as claiming pot is great. I don't do any drugs or alcohol, so obviously I don't think any of this stuff is so great, just being a realist.
I put it on the site because this is the #1 cash crop and projections to solve state budgets are all in the black if it was legalized.
Bob,
I know the arguments, but I have some professional background on the subject. Yes, some enjoy pot, just as they enjoy booze, and I have been to places where it can be legally bought and used. Like most substances, illegal substances (and those limited by the controlled substances act but available by prescription) can have their short-term beneficial uses. I used to be able to go into a pharmacy and buy paregoric by signing the book. Medicinal use (e.g., overactive bowels) without the doctor's permission. In some cultures, old folks were traditionally able to smoke cannabis and even opium. It made old age more bearable. Amphetamines? They helped me get through graduate school's grind, and I felt more energetic too.
So why stop with grass?
If you want to see the risk unfettered availability of marijuana can pose, check out the clinical literature -- it does get to the kids when their brains are still developing, just as alcohol does now when they get it from parents' stash.
As for stoners being not impaired like drunks, I can't agree. Try thinking of stoned drivers or pilots. Judgement and perception are affected. I had a nephew who was a pilot, and went flying while stoned -- problem was he couldn't land the aircraft -- good thing he had no passengers, or they might have died with him. The problem with being stoned (like being drunk) is that you often don't know you are.
Sorry for the rant, but I have heard the "pot is okay" argument too many times. Yes, it can be and is very profitable, if you accept the consequences. Heroin? The Vancouver safe injection project has probably prevented some spread of blood-borne disease like HIV/AIDS, and a few overdose deaths, but smoking opium might be even safer. Why not license opium dens and have Coca-cola become "the real thing" once more by adding a little cocaine? Might generate more revenue, but it is not without social costs.
Frank T.
You might want to create an account and login. See the create an account on the right upper area column. You get all sorts of ability to track your discussions and don't have to enter in letters every time you want to say something.
Pages