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The greatest living American's thoughts on this issue. Interview with Milton Friedman on the Drug War -------------------------------------------------------------------- Paige: Let us deal first with the issue of legalization of drugs. How do you see America changing for the better under that system? Friedman: I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there's a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they're sure of the quality. You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now. Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up. Paige: Let us turn to the early genesis of your belief that the drug laws may not be working the way the nation would hope them to. Tell me about the elements that you saw early on that changed your mind or changed your way of thinking. Friedman: Well, I'm not saying "changed." I would rather say "formed" my way of thinking, because I do not recall at any time that I was ever in favor of prohibition of either alcohol or drugs. I grew up--I'm old enough to have lived through some part of the Prohibition era. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 when I was 21 years old, so was a teenager during most of Prohibition. Alcohol was readily available. Bootlegging was common. Any idea that alcohol prohibition was keeping people from drinking was absurd. There were speakeasies all over the place. But more than that. We had this spectacle of Al Capone, of the hijackings, of the gang wars... Anybody with two eyes could see that this was a bad deal, that you were doing more harm than good. In addition, I became an economist. And as an economist, I came to recognize the importance of markets and of free choice and of consumer sovereignty and came to discover the harm that was done when you interfered with them. The laws against drugs were passed in 1914, but there was no very great enforcement of it. Friedman: So far as drugs itself is concerned, some years ago, Alaska legalized marijuana. Consumption of marijuana among high school students in Alaska went DOWN. The Dutch, in Holland, do not prosecute soft drugs, like marijuana, and they would prefer not to prosecute hard drugs, but they feel impelled by the international obligations they've entered into, and consumption of marijuana by young people has gone down. And, equally more interesting, the average age of the users of hard drugs has gone up, which means they're not getting any more new recruits. The Child who's shot in a slum in a pass-by-shooting, in a random shooting, is an innocent victim in every respect of the term. The person who decides to take drugs for himself is not an innocent victim. He has chosen himself to be a victim. And I must say I have very much less sympathy for him. I do not think it is moral to impose such heavy costs on other people to protect people from their own choices. Friedman: The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill Said in the middle of the 19th century in "On Liberty." The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Govern- ment, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line? Friedman: It does harm a great many other people, but primarily because it's prohibited. There are an enormous number of innocent victims now. You've got the people whose purses are stolen, who are bashed over the head by people trying to get enough money for their next fix. You've got the people killed in the random drug wars. You've got the corruption of the legal establishment. You've got the innocent victims who are taxpayers who have to pay for more and more prisons, and more and more prisoners, and more and more police. You've got the rest of us who don't get decent law enforcement because all the law enforcement officials are busy trying to do the impossible. Friedman: And, last, but not least, you've got the people of Colombia and Peru and so on. What business do we have destroying and leading to the killing of thousands of people in Colombia because we cannot enforce our own laws? If we could enforce our laws against drugs, there would be no market for these drugs. You wouldn't have Colombia in the state it's in. Friedman: That's not a theory, and there's nobody who will deny it. Is there anybody who will deny that you can expect every person to pursue his own personal interests? Now those personal interests don't have to be narrow. Mother Theresa is pursuing her own personal interest just as much as Donald Trump is pursuing his. But they're both pursuing the personal interest. Paige: Some would say that that notion--that personal interest is what propels societies as well as people--is a heartless philosophy and that the underclass would not fare well under that kind of a notion. You've heard that before. Friedman: Yes, of course. But the evidence is so overwhelming. The only countries in the world in which low income people have managed to get a halfway decent level of living are those which rely on capitalist markets. Just compare the quality of life, the level of living of the ordinary people in Russia and ordinary people in, I won't say the U.S., but in France, in Italy, in Germany, in England, or in Hong Kong. Compare Hong Kong with mainland China. Every society is driven by personal interest. Mainland China is driven by personal interest. The question is: How is personal interest disciplined? If the only way you can satisfy your personal interest is by getting something that other people want to pay for. You've got to... And one of the reasons I object to so many of the things that government has gotten into is that it prevents government from performing its proper role. A basic role of government is to keep you from having our house burgled, to keep you from being hit over the head. And because the larger fraction of our law enforcement machinery is devoted to the war on drugs, you haven't got that kind of safety. Paige: But, of course, there is clearly the argument that if the police come and pick up a person who is addicted to a drug and does not have the money to buy those drugs, then they're also taking a potential burglar off the street who's going to come and get my house, right? Friedman: They are, but they'll be more of them coming on, as we know, and besides what are you going to do with them. Are you going to house them? A majority of those people who are arrested are simply arrested for possession, they're casual users. Paige: However, the sixty-five, seventy-five-year-old woman who looks out her window and sees drug dealers out in the street and she sees them carrying guns and selling drugs thirty feet from her front door has a right to call police and say, "I want these people off the street." Friedman: Absolutely. Paige: And police should take them off the street. Correct? Friedman: Absolutely. But it's a mistake to have a law which makes that the main function of the police. I don't blame the police. I don't blame that woman. I don't blame the drug dealers. Friedman: We put them in a position where that's the thing to do. When we say to a young man in the ghetto, "Look, you get a reasonable job at McDonald's or anyplace else, you'll make five, six, seven dollars an hour. But on the other hand, here's this opportunity to peddle drugs in the street." Why does the juvenile have the opportunity? Because the law is easier on juveniles than it is on adults. Friedman: I would legalize drugs by subjecting them to exactly the same rules that alcohol and cigarettes are subjected to now. Alcohol and cigar- ettes cause more deaths than drugs do, by far, from use, but many fewer innocent victims. And the major innocent victims, in that case, are the people who are killed by drunk drivers. And we ought to enforce the law against drunk driving, just as we ought to enforce the law against driving under the influence of marijuana, or cocaine, or anything else. But I would, as a first step at least, treat the drugs exactly the same way we now treat alcohol and tobacco, no different. Friedman: What scares me is the notion of continuing on the path we're on now, which will destroy our free society, making it an uncivilized place. There's only one way you can really enforce the drug laws currently. The only way to do that is to adopt the policies of Saudi Arabia, Singa- pore, which some other countries adopt, in which a drug addict is subject to capital punishment or, at the very least, having his hand chopped off. If we were willing to have penalties like that--but would that be a society you'd want to live in?

. What if you don't like them?

The world's smartest man's view on muslims at http://www.saywhatyouwant.net/postview_5887.asp

If ignorance kills you would be dead.

So, do you believe the air raids over Japan and Germany in WWII were wrong?

Funny pics, Thanks for the laughs.

He's a fuckin' commie...who cares?

That could be because the Isrealis do not use their civilians as human shields.

I think after 70 they should take a test every couple of years,

Should have given him a monkey and called it Adelweiss.

Did they talk to any rape room survivors?

Us Muslims sure be peaceful people. Why are they pointing there weapons this...ack,arche, ack, qack, pffft.--Anwar Sadat

Funny pics.

Actually, they are killing each other and bonbing each others mosques more than attacking coalition troops.

What a loon.

Not according to French intelligence. Of course, French intelligence is an oxymoron similar to Muslim decency.

It's only the female Muslims who are forced to marry to whoever comes up with the bride price...which is usually a camel and two sheep.

It's too bad any taxpayer has?

Gee whiz, wonder why this was not front page news?

I'm with neither. Hope they kill each other off. The only good Muslim is a dead one.

Yes, The South was ruled by the Democratic Party until LBJ's Great Society programs pushed economic conservatives into the Republican camp. The road to hell is paved with good intentions; welfare, and it's ilk, has broken up families and propagated poverty. Liberal economic programs have reaped it's greatest damage on black Americans. I don't think you wish to see the Sunni's of Iraq have the final solution imposed on them

Actually. every case I have seen concerning Catholic priests involved ephebophilia, not pedophilia. If you are 14 and you let someone screw you in the ass you are a moron or you like it.

Gee, I wonder why Arabs are discriminated against?

I think that Ramadan fasting cost the Houston Rockets a few games in the 80's and 90's.

I suggest you do not get married for any reason besides love. It's the people that get married for other reasons that give marriage a bad name.