RS 7 An Economist Gets Stoned

This blog post is my take on the podcast “An Economist Gets Stoned” by Planet Money. This podcast was released January 27, 2010.

After hearing this podcast it even changed my view on drugs and their effect on the economy. Obviously being a teenager you hear a lot of “stoners” and drug abusers that have their own take on drugs and feel the need to share it wherever they go. As the article points out, many people create fallacies as to why they think marijuana and other drugs should be legalized; because it will help the economy. Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard Economist writes and publishes a genius article looking at if we legalize drugs, the price of those drugs will not be as cheap as many people say, nor will it help the economy as much as they say.

Right now many drugs are expensive because of the risk people who make these drugs must take. Clever means of transportation and finding the right people to trust and make these drugs are just some of the factors. It is true that if drugs were legalized the price would go down, but not as much as people say. This is because many of the drug dealers now, do not have to complywith any of the legal restrictions such as child labor and taxes; whereas if it were legal, they would have to, so the price won’t be as low as people say. These drugs now are only two to 3 times more expensive now than if they were legal because of these laws you have to comply with.

Also this Economist states that it will not help the economy if we legalize drugs, and compares this to the prohibition back to the 1930’s. People stated that during prohibition, alcohol should be legal because it will guarantee prosperity and the extra taxing will help the economy. This was led to be proved false because it did not help the economy because when alcohol was legal people showing up to work drunk slowed production and accidents were worse.

This relates to today with the marijuana issue today. If the drug was legal, Miron points out that it would bring in $75 billion. Now $75 billion is not to be taken granted for, but compared to the economies deficit, it really is not worth all the negatives it would bring by legalizing drugs.

This article points out that there is much more that goes into a product and must be taken into consideration before people that don’t have an economic background to make incorrect fallacies. I personally think that drugs should not be legal and that is why when people use the argument, “our economy will be fixed,” it is pure stupidity because the price of the drugs would not be as low as people say it would be and would not help the economy as much as many people claim looking at all the negative side effects such as more open use of these drugs.