Cannabis Capitalism
by Jeffrey Miron on June 28th, 2010
1 Comment
David Segal has a great piece in today’s New York Times about the business side of medical marijuana (including a quote from yours truly). A few comments:
1. The attempts in Colorado, California and elsewhere to impose more regulation on dispensaries is nonsense; it’s just an attempt by the bigger players to limit competition.
2. The silliness of the medical marijuana approach is stunning. All it does it generate windfall profits for doctors who write presciptions willy-nilly. Even opponents of marijuana might agree that legalization is better than the hypocrisy of medicalization.
3. If Colorado’s experience so far is any indication, legalizing and taxing pot is not going to be the panacea for state budgets that some believe.
Categories: My Blog
Jesus von Mises
Honestly, medicalization is a Solomonic, “split the baby” approach.
The median voter thinks that very sick people ought to have recourse to cannabis but “mere” pleasure-seekers shouldn’t.
In truth, all this will do is delay the day when we decide whether cannabis should be legal or not.
In the meantime, there will be much diversion and grow-your-own.
This is the result of thoroughgoing consequentialism.
The budget benefits, such as they are, are not likely to come from increased tax revenue but (hopefully) from reduced enforcement costs.