Five years ago last month, Milton Friedman died at age 94. To the very end, the Nobel Prize–winning economist was astute, tireless, and wonderfully avuncular. Thanks to the Internet, his commentaries on subjects ranging from greed, to slavery, to the Great Depression myth, and many other topics, can be enjoyed forever.
Great thinkers have been recording their thoughts in books for millennia, of course. And Friedman was no exception. But there’s no denying the immediacy and intimacy of video. Wouldn’t we have loved to click on Edmund Burke or Alexander Hamilton or Cicero and watch them talk about their ideas? If you do dip into the Friedman oeuvre, start with his exchange with Phil Donahue.
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Nothing would be easier than to invoke the great Friedman as the sage of limited government. He was certainly that. And if he were commenting on America’s current predicament he would doubtless prescribe a radically smaller public sector.
But Friedman poses challenges to conservatives as well as liberals. He opposed, for example, the war on drugs. That’s right. Friedman was for legalization of all drugs, not just marijuana.
It’s a position embraced by only one candidate for president, Ron Paul. Congressman Paul holds some ludicrous views. He seems to believe, for example, that if we were just nicer to the Iranians, we wouldn’t need to fret about their acquisition of nuclear weapons. Still, Paul deserves full credit for endorsing drug legalization. Friedman would approve.
Governments in the United States, federal and state, spend an estimated $41.3 billion annually to prevent people from ingesting substances we deem harmful (though many harmful ingestibles — you know the list — remain legal). Half of all federal prisoners are serving sentences for drug offenses, along with 20 percent of state prisoners. In 2009, there were 1.7 million drug arrests in the U.S.; half of those were for marijuana. As David Boaz and Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute noted, “Addicts commit crimes to pay for a habit that would be easily affordable if it were legal. Police sources have estimated that as much as half the property crime in some major cities is committed by drug users.”
Drug money (like booze money during Prohibition) has corrupted countless policemen, DEA agents, border-patrol agents, prosecutors, and judges. Drug crime has blighted many neighborhoods. And America’s appetite for drugs has encouraged lawlessness and violence in many neighboring countries, most recently in Mexico, whose drug violence is spilling north.
Because illegal drugs are unregulated, their purity is unknowable — accounting for thousands of overdose deaths and injuries. Since we maintain drug prohibition to protect people from their own foolish decisions, those overdose deaths must weigh in the balance too.
Drug prohibition, Milton Friedman pointed out, keeps the price of drugs artificially inflated and amounts to a favor by the government to the drug lords. “The role of the government is to protect the drug cartels,” as he provocatively phrased it. Due to our interdiction efforts, Friedman explained, it’s enormously costly for a small competitor to attempt to import drugs. This ensures that only the big operators with large fleets of planes, heavy weapons, etc., can compete.
Prohibition makes it unnecessarily cumbersome for cancer patients and others to receive pain killers and other drugs. A misplaced fear of addiction sometimes leads doctors and other health-care providers to underprescribe pain medicine. Meanwhile, any high schooler can score whatever drugs he wants on the way to gym class.
Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron estimates that if drugs were legal and taxed, the U.S. and state treasuries would receive $46.7 billion in added revenue, while saving $41.3 billion in expenditures.
What is the downside to legalization? Friedman acknowledged the possibility that legalization might result in some increase in drug addiction. There was, after all, an uptick in alcoholism after Prohibition was repealed. But not all victims are created equal. The child, Friedman notes, who is killed in a drive-by shoot-out between drug gangs is a total victim. The adult who decides to take drugs is not.
Let’s stipulate that some unknown number of Americans will become addicts after legalization who otherwise would not have. We must ask whether the terrible price we are now paying — in police costs, international drug-control efforts, border security, forgone tax revenue, overdose deaths, corruption, and violence — is worth it.
...but that won't stop NRO (No Ron Online) from all but endorsing Newt Gingrich who wants to execute drug dealers, or Mitt Romney who wants to imprison cancer-stricken medical marijuana users...all while U.S. troops are guarding opium poppy fields in Afghanistan.
Wanting to end the drug war is only okay when Christ Christie finally agrees with it I guess.
"He seems to believe, for example, that if we were just nicer to the Iranians, we wouldn’t need to fret about their acquisition of nuclear weapons."
Really? "Seems to believe." Oh, wait. I see. You are substituting the word "seems" for doing the simple act of fact checking what Ron Paul really says - you know, his own words.
Well, you must be too busy to do that really hard google thing, so let me help you:
"BOB SCHIEFFER: Am I correct that your idea of how to discourage Iran from building nuclear weapons is to be nicer to Iran's leaders? Is that correct?
RON PAUL: Well, no. I think we have 12,000 diplomats, I'm suggesting that maybe we ought to use some of them. Just think of how we prevented a nuclear war with the Soviets when the Soviet missiles were put in Cuba. We didn't say, "We're going to attack you." Kennedy and Khrushchev talked and they made a deal. You take your weapons out of Cuba, we'll take 'em out of Turkey. That's the kind of talk that I want. I think the greatest danger now is for us to overreact and this is what I'm fearful of. Iran doesn't have a bomb, there's no proof, there's no new information regardless of this recent report. And for us to overreact and talk about bombing Iran, that's much more dangerous. We got the Libyans to get rid of their nuclear power and their nuclear weapons, and look at what happened to them, we've got to understand that--
BOB SCHIEFFER: Mr. Paul, may I interrupt for just a second? No one has suggested in the U.S. government that we're going to bomb Iran. What they have said is that we're going to impose very tough sanctions. You are against sanctions on Iran, is that correct?
RON PAUL: Yes, because sanctions are an initial step to war. I was opposed to all the sanctions for 10 years and the bombings in Iraq because I said it would lead to war. But if you say no one is suggesting it, why don't you listen to the debates? Listen to some of the other candidates.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Mr. Paul, may I correct you? I am listening to the debates. I know there have been some candidates who have talked about that, including Mr. Romney. The United States government has not said we're going to bomb Iran. I mean, that's just a fact.
RON PAUL: No, obviously they haven't said that, but the implication is, "Nothing is off the table." You've heard those statements?
Mr. Paul, President Kennedy did not "just talk" with Kruschev and make a deal. He implemented a naval blockade, which he and everyone knew could lead to a war with the U.S.S.R., which he and everyone knew could very well end up with nuclear weapons being used. In other words: he used the threat of military power.
"Just talking" with Iran won't work as long as they are ruled by crazy fanatics.
Well, my daughter isn't a junkie.
That is because I took interest in all she does and raised her in a good Christian home.
One can only guess you might throw money at her and "Hope" she grows up OK.
I don't get your position. You DID (again, not yelling, just adapting to unavailability of italics) your job. Why not let others do their job? If I have a kid, I'm going to teach him about alcohol and the enjoyment it can bring when used in moderation. I'll probably teach him the same thing about marijuana, with the caveat that since it's illegal, he better think long and hard about risking its use.
So you seem to be saying that the best way to keep your kids off of drugs is to provide them a good Christian home and take interest in all they do? I largely agree with you, though it's not a perfect correlation (I've known parents do exactly that and fail, and some horrible parents whose kids turned out great.)
A logical extension of this, one that I agree with, is that if you have provide that, the war on drugs won't be what keeps your kids safe. And if you don't, as we see with so many sad cases, the war on drugs won't be enough.
Legalization implies regulation and, as with alcohol, restrictions on use. (No one wants to board a plane with a drunk pilot or sit in a dentist's chair with an impaired dentist.)
We enforce alcohol restrictions with relatively unobtrusive (though imperfect) breath tests.
I fear that evaluating and detecting impairment caused by other drugs might not be so easy and may require a level of intrusiveness the public would not accept, especially for nothing but the benefit of recreational or medicinal drug users.
Alcohol wins all the prizes for hazards on the road. All the illegal drugs combined don't even come close by comparison. You will note that we don't make alcohol illegal for everyone just to try to deal with the drinkers who are stupid enough to be a hazard on the road. We tried prohibiting alcohol to deal with those problems and it only made things much, much worse.
Besides, this idea never had anything to do with the drug laws, anyway. That was never a reason for the laws. Now, if you want to say that you are worried about all the people who will be turned into bats by marijuana then you have something that relates to the law.
Ask yourself, Mona, if a son or daughter of yours died of an overdose - would you feel that legal drug use is the answer?
The absurd thought that addicts will be able to "afford" legal drugs that they must steal for now is just plain wrong. The addict cannot and will not work for wages.
Or, who will hire them??
You apparently.
If a relative of yours was in chronic pain due to an accident and couldn't get the proper pain medication because their doctor is terrified of the DEA, or had glaucoma, was recovering from chemotherapy or had any other condition that can be improved immensely through medicinal marijuana, how would you feel?
Plenty of addicts do work for wages...just look at the cocaine use on Wall Street. As for the consequences of the drug use, that is the users personal responsibility, just like with my use of cigarettes.
In the presence of standardized substances, overdoses are rare. (Methadone is powerful; the metered dosages given at a clinic cause a very low rate of overdosing.) The percentage of alcohol users who overdose on their drug of choice is infinitesimally small, considering the number of alcohol users there are.
In no way am I recommending or condoning the use of drugs, but I believe the total cost to society of drug prohibition (in human and financial capital) is far greater than the admittedly substantial public health costs which legalization/decriminalization would be.
It seems that you embrace the idea that it is governments responsibility to raise your children?
You do realize the people die from overdoses today... even with prohibition?
Do you know the staggering number of people that die in the U.S. as a result of prescribed drugs? It's a far greater number than overdose deaths due to illegal drugs.
I held a job and drank very frequently; I'm currently in school and drinking regularly. I had a job while using one drug, and it never prevented me from performing required tasks to standard in the time allowed. I was able to perform adequately because I DIDN'T GO TO WORK HIGH (not shouting, but italics isn't enabled). Furthermore, one of my brothers had a very serious cocaine addiction; he got shot one night and was so high that he didn't realize it. I still support legalization. Freedom to choose is not without consequences; many of my fellows on the right seem to forget that. If my (hypothetical) child decides to become a junkie, I hope I have the strength to cut them off and let them suffer the consequences of their actions, as my father finally did with my brother. When I started drinking, my dad, a former drunk, told me that if I got into trouble with it I was on my own. He was clear and I made my choice knowing the consequences that I faced. And I would hire a marijuana user, provided he came to work sober. I'd hire a cocaine or LSD user provided the same.
Then explain why addicts stealing to support their habits was all but unknown prior to 1914.
Explain why the Swiss heroin clinics produced an 80 percent reduction in property crime and most of their patients became gainfully employed tax payers.
You can start your reading with Licit and Illicit Drugs at External Link
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