Eliminando A "Guerra" As Drogas Economizaria 85U$ Bi Diz Economist Da Harvard

[Canadense]

PIEGEL: Mr. Miron, why should
heroin, cocaine and marijuana be legal?

Miron: The prohibition of drugs is the worst solution for
preventing abuse. Firstly, it brings about a black market that is
corrupt and costs human lives. Secondly, it constrains people who
wouldn't abuse drugs. Thirdly, prohibiting drugs is expensive.

SPIEGEL: How expensive?

Miron: If it legalized drugs, the United States could save $85
billion to $90 billion per year. Roughly half that is spent on the
current drugs policy and half that is lost in taxes that the state could
have levied on legal drugs.

SPIEGEL: On the other side of the equation, there are many people
who would become addicted to drugs.

Miron: Let us assume that the consumption of drugs would increase
as a result of legalization. Would that be a bad thing? If we apply the
standards of economics, that is (at least partially) a good thing. Any
policy that prevents me from doing what I'd like to do impairs my
happiness.

SPIEGEL: Drugs lead to addiction. They impair people's happiness.

Miron: Addiction isn't the problem. Many people are addicted to
caffeine and nobody worries about that. Many people are addicted to
sports, beer or food. That doesn't bother the state either.

SPIEGEL: Should the state treat sports and cocaine equally?

Miron: The effects of cocaine are described in a highly
exaggerated way. There are Wall Street bankers who snort coke; they have
high incomes, access to a good healthcare system, are married and have a
stable life situation. Many of them subsequently stop taking cocaine. I
get the impression that these people enjoy consuming it. Then there are
people who smoke crack cocaine and lead lives that are very different
from those of stockbrokers; they are people with low incomes, no jobs
and poor health. Many of these people come to a sorry end. But cocaine's
not to blame for that. Those people's lousy lives are to blame.

SPIEGEL: Are you trying to say that crack is harmless?

Miron: Can you consume crack for a long time and then give it up?
Absolutely, and that's supported by the data. The prohibition lobby
exaggerates substantially to help it achieve its goals. Drugs are far
less dangerous than people think. It's not clear that consuming
marijuana or cocaine has significant negative effects if the product is
affordable, if we don't have to risk our lives to get it, and if the
product hasn't been diluted secretly with rat poison.

SPIEGEL: Are you trying to say it's not dangerous to shoot
heroin?

Miron: Injecting it is so widespread because, under prohibition,
heroin is expensive and injecting makes users high for less money. If
drugs were much less expensive, most people would probably smoke heroin
rather than injecting it.

SPIEGEL: One more time: do you think it would be good if
legalization led to an increased consumption of drugs?

Miron: If you believe in anything that the Americans claim to
believe in -- freedom, individuality, personal responsibility -- you
have to legalize drugs. The maxim should be that you're allowed to do it
if you're not harming anyone else. There is an assumption that you're
harming someone when you take drugs, but the scientific data doesn't
support this hypothesis.

SPIEGEL: Cocaine makes people aggressive.

Miron: The scientific evidence for that is very thin. Most of the
evidence that points to a connection between violence and drugs relates
to alcohol. Does that mean that alcohol should be banned? In fact, the
legalization of all drugs would sharply reduce the amount of violence in
the US.

SPIEGEL: How?

Miron: Prohibition leads to violence. By making a black market
inevitable, you generate violence because the conflicts between the
parties involved in the drug trade can't be solved by legal means within
the judicial system. They are forced into a twilight world in which
they have to shoot each other instead of hiring lawyers and taking the
matter to court.

SPIEGEL: So the state should just let the cartels get on with it?

Miron: There are studies that show the level of violence is
reduced when the state leaves the drug trade alone, the reason being
that the drug dealers have fewer disputes. The latest evidence from
Mexico confirms that. Of course there has been drug-related violence
there for a long time. But the violence didn't escalate and increase
sharply in scale until the president, Felipe Calderón, declared the big
war on drugs in 2006. We have calculated that the murder rate in the US
could fall by around 25 percent if drugs were legal.

SPIEGEL: How would drug prices change as a result of
legalization?

Miron: Marijuana prices would hardly change. If we compare the
black-market prices with prices in places where marijuana is virtually
legal today, for example the Netherlands, they are very similar. The
prices paid for cocaine could fall substantially.

SPIEGEL: Then the whole country would snort coke.

Miron: Consumption of the more harmless drugs would probably
increase. And there would be a larger number of people who occasionally
take a drug. But when single malt whiskey became legal again after the
prohibition of alcohol in the US ended, the whole country didn't become
addicted to single malt.

SPIEGEL: Don't we as a democracy have an obligation to protect
the people from themselves?

Miron: I think that people who harm themselves with drugs will do
it anyway, regardless of whether or not they're legal.

SPIEGEL: Don't we have a moral obligation?

Miron: If a friend of yours does something that's stupid, do you
think about whether it would make the situation better or worse if you
intervened? Maybe putting your friend in prison and forcing him to
undergo therapy isn't the best solution. Maybe it's better to talk to
your friend in a calm and collected way.

SPIEGEL: Is talking the solution to the drug problem?

Miron: Prohibition certainly isn't the solution.

SPIEGEL: Why are drugs prohibited at all?

Miron: Naive people believe that if something's illegal, people
won't do it any more. That clearly isn't true. Others think that if you
make it illegal, the price will rise and fewer people will take the
drug. But for some people the price isn't a factor.

SPIEGEL: What would a world in which drugs were legal be like?

Miron: Like Portugal. There, consumption has been legal for

several years and there has been hardly any change in the amount of drug
use. Legalization wouldn't greatly increase the rates of use. And if
people started to smoke more marijuana, that would be okay too. It's
their business.

SPIEGEL: Do you seriously want drugs to be sold in supermarkets?

Miron: Yes.

SPIEGEL: Would prescribing the drugs be a possibility?

Miron: A very lax prescription law like the one in California
doesn't do any harm, because everyone gets a prescription. But if that's
the case, what good does it do? If you have a very strict prescription
law, you'll have a black market again.

SPIEGEL: What would happen to the black market if drugs were
legalized?

Miron: You'd have the choice. You could buy your cocaine in a
supermarket or from a mysterious Mexican dealer at a street corner who
might shoot you. That would drain the black market.

SPIEGEL: What would happen to the drug cartels?

Miron: If drugs were legalized, many of the big cartels in Mexico
would try to use the benefits of their experience by setting up a legal
company right away. They'd want to be the first and they've got good
products and a good distribution network. It's still highly uncertain
whether the drug cartels want legalization. El Chapo Guzmán, the most
powerful cartel boss in the world, has a natural advantage because he's a
very skilled criminal -- that's why he's so rich. If there was no
longer a black market for drugs, Guzmán would lose his advantage.

SPIEGEL: Should drugs be taxed?

Miron: A substantial tax is a bad idea because it would increase
the incentive to set up a black market again.

SPIEGEL: Why isn't anyone putting your suggestions into practice?

Miron: Many thousands of people working in government posts would
lose their jobs as a result of legalization. The rehab centers would
lose a lot of customers because many of the people in rehab were forced
to go there by the judicial system. The people who build prisons also
have an interest in there being large numbers of inmates. In addition to
that, the church doesn't like drugs and the church is powerful in
America.

SPIEGEL: Do you take drugs yourself?

Miron: No. I smoked a bit of pot when I was a student, but that
was all. But if drugs were legal tomorrow, I'd go out and give them all a
try. I doubt I would use them more than once; but after all the
research I have done on this issue, I am curious!

Interview conducted by Takis Würger

[tyr]

Alguem por favor, fale com o Obama sobre isso, Os EUA tão querendo cortar gastos em função da recessão q tá rolando por lá.Vão cortar na defesa,aumentar impostos e por aí vai.Com a legalização ele iria deixar de gastar $ 90 blilhões e passar a arrecadar mais alguns bilhões com impostos.A maconha pode sim ajudar os EUA a sair da crise e da recessão

[matsegredo]

Ficaram 2 topicos iguais...

http://www.growroom.net/board/topic/49739-legalizar-as-drogas-atenderia-o-ideal-de-liberdade-americana-diz-economista-de-harvard/

So que esse ta traduzido

[rsfan]

Jeff Miron, esse cara é muito inteligente.

Várias de minhas posições políticas são pautadas nos estudos dele e ele sempre foi fiel a nossa causa.

Apareceu no The Union, quem já assistiu sabe como o cara fala coisas sensatas.