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Saturday, July 30, 2005
Milton Friedman on Drugs
Back in my undergrad days I had the opportunity to have a chat with Milton Friedman. What he has to say about drugs is interesting and important, given the (Marc Emery) circumstances. (I also thought it a good idea to post this given some of the comments for my previous post).
Here is an excerpt of the interview ("Friedman and Freedom") published in The Queen's University Journal:
The War on Drugs
Peter Jaworski: In a 1972 Newsweek article, I'm shifting topics here, you compared alcohol
prohibition to the current prohibition of drugs. Now you wrote then that the War on
Drugs has caused more problems than it's solved, and that drugs should be legal. Do you
still feel this way?
Milton Friedman: Absolutely!
PJ: Even hard drugs—cocaine, heroin?
MF: Absolutely.
PJ: Would you restrict the use of drugs in some circumstances?
MF: I would say that people should be responsible for their behaviour when they
use drugs. Just as drunk drivers should be arrested for drunk driving. Not for being drunk,
but for driving while drunk and endangering other people. And I should say that if a drug
addict, while on drugs, engages in activities that harm other people he should be punished
as well. The question is whether the government should have the right to say what you
may put in your mouth any more than it has the right to say what you may put in your
mind.
PJ: But couldn't we say that certain drugs, perhaps, just as ideas, once inside
might lead to certain consequences and wouldn't we be...
MF: Of course they might! And I think that information should be generally
available. And people, knowing that, will behave accordingly. But that's a different
question. It's clear, if you go back to that article, that the prohibition of drugs has had the
exact effect that I'd described. It has produced a great deal of corruption. It has involved
the violation of civil rights—personal and individual freedom—and it hasn't
stopped people from taking drugs. There would be much less damage from drugs if it
were perfectly legal and open than there is now.
PJ: Now you also said in that same article that this was an ethical issue as
well.
MF: Absolutely—I've just said it—what right does the government
have to tell me what I may put in my mouth? If the government has the right to tell me
what I may put in my mouth, why doesn't it have the right to tell me what I may put in
my mind? There is, in my opinion, no government policy that is as immoral as drug
prohibition. Tell me, how can you justify killing thousands of people in Colombia
because we can't enforce our own laws?
If we could enforce our laws, there would be no demand for drugs because it is illegal for people to consume drugs. But we can't enforce our laws. And the result of that is to create an illegal industry that leads to the kinds ofdevelopments you have in Colombia where thousands of people have been killed.
(You can read all of it here).
jaworski.blogspot.com
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on July 30, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
Friedman is right, again.
Posted by: Michael Dabioch | 2005-07-30 11:37:26 PM
Prohibition is about drugs as much as rape is about sex. It's about power, working an aggressors will over individuals, raw fascism.
Big brother knows best. Nothing has corrupted democracy more than prohibition.
Prohibition can be anything that the fascist wants.
One day it's 'hate speach', the next it's third party advertising above $3000/riding during an election.
Posted by: Speller | 2005-07-31 12:35:21 AM
It's clear why Friedman is a Nobel Laureate.
Posted by: Michael Cust | 2005-07-31 1:26:10 AM
That is probably the best Subject line ever.
Posted by: dr_dog | 2005-07-31 1:40:00 AM
What do you say about it dr-dog?
Posted by: Speller | 2005-07-31 1:50:32 AM
But if drugs were legal, the do-gooders in Weirdcouver would have to close their government supported shooting gallery.
Posted by: rebarbarian | 2005-07-31 7:00:46 AM
That's funny, rebarbarian.
Posted by: Charlotte | 2005-07-31 9:08:25 AM
We have identified here the difference between libertarianism and conservatism. Libertarians like Friedman (who I greatly admire and have read extensively) believe that, if we just eliminated all the rules (save for a few key areas), everyone would govern themselves better than they do now, because laws generally pervert normal human incentives. Libertarians believe people will generally behave well if left to their own devices.
This is why libertarianism never gains more than a marginal following. Most of us understand that many people do NOT behave well left to their own devices, and that bad behaviour by one individual can have vast negative effects on countless other lives. The concept of evil is a real one, and it must be kept in check.
To say "alcohol is legal, and it is just as bad as or worse than pot," or "caffeine is a drug, too" is to take us for fools. First of all, there are serious prohibitions on alcohol already: quality standards, licensing standards, age restrictions, laws about where you can consume, laws about what you can't do when you have consumed...it goes on and on. I don't see any libertarians arguing to remove, for example, the age restriction on drinking. Secondly, pot clearly has more far-reaching negative consequences on mind and body than alcohol or caffeine. Booze is a mild depressant; caffeine is a mild stimulant; THC, especially in today's pot potency, is a strong phsychotropic. Third, by legalizing drugs like pot or cocaine, you are sending a message to children: grow up and take drugs. There's no benefit to society in that message.
Speaking of "grow up": that is what I would say to libertarians who think society would be better off with legalized drugs. The Netherlands is already pulling back on its permissive drug laws after seeing the consequences of a generation of legalization. I think Libertarians need to give a little credit to those fighting against drugs: by dismissing the negatives of consumpion (and exaggerating the negatives of enforcement), you paint a disingenous picture.
Posted by: NCF TO | 2005-07-31 9:46:41 AM
Well done, Peter.
“The war on drugs is a failure because it is a socialist enterprise.” - Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2005-07-31 11:16:13 AM
“To say "alcohol is legal, and it is just as bad as or worse than pot," or "caffeine is a drug, too" is to take us for fools. First of all, there are serious prohibitions on alcohol already: quality standards, licensing standards, age restrictions, laws about where you can consume, laws about what you can't do when you have consumed...it goes on and on.”
Except for the “take us for fools” comment NCF TO provide some of the best arguments FOR legalizing drugs. BECAUSE legal products can be and are regulated for quality and age restricted is a strong argument in favour of legalization. Another powerful argument is that the availability of a legal product will, aside from earning revenue for both private enterprise and the state, put criminal traffickers out of business and, not inconsequentially, avoid much of the high cost of anti-drug law enforcement.
While no one is foolish enough to believe that there will be no problems associated with legalization, Friedman is right. High expectations of the citizenry will in the long run be rewarded with more responsible behaviour (tobacco and booze use are two good examples). Who we need protection from most are the socialist control freaks with low expectations - the control freaks who want the nanny state imposing laws restricting adult freedoms in everything including the use of car seat belts and bicycle helmets, food, healthcare and recreational drugs.
Posted by: JR | 2005-07-31 11:29:43 AM
Roger Q. Mills wrote, in 1887, "Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil -- only evil -- and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs."
Posted by: Tony | 2005-07-31 12:35:39 PM
The only weakness in the libertarian call for drug legalization is the isolation of the subject. Legalizing dope in an otherwise out-of-control-welfare state may not be the most strategic of priorities.
While Canadian society is quickly approaching the Indian Reserve level of utter dependency on the state, its hard to expect the kind of widespread self discipline and responsibility required to handle legal drugs in isolation of preferably more important "freed-up" aspects of human existence such as education, healthcare, marriage, speech, property rights, trade, commerce etc. In other words, we need to be in a situation where one can say, you, as an adult are free to use drugs but are responsible for all the consequences.
Drug legalization may be a good start but perhaps it would be better as part of a total package or a finishing touch of a free society.
Posted by: John Chittick | 2005-07-31 1:04:44 PM
It does seem clear to me that at this point the decriminalization of possession, growing, and licensed trading of marijuana would be an appropriate pragmatic change in our prohibition regime. The Ledain Commission report was, what, 1972 after all. The Canadian Chiefs of Police collective has recently agreed, as has the Senate of Canada.
And it would appear that the majority of the electorate in Canada and the United States of America agree. (Note that this would not be tyranny of the majority, because the decision wouldn't be forcing anyone to do anything.)
I could make an argument to the effect that we should just legalize everything and let evolution take care of it. But I won't because (1) I have a heart, and (2) I'm a pragmatic minarchist, not an ideological anarchist. I remain to be convinced that PCP or crytsal methamphetamine should be legal, I don't see the margin there.
So, I think John has a point, open-ended drug legalization might not be the wisest policy to pursue right now. I do think that decriminalization of marijuana is the correct thing to try next in this public policy domain.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-07-31 1:57:46 PM
NCF TO said:
"Booze is a mild depressant; caffeine is a mild stimulant; THC, especially in today's pot potency, is a strong phsychotropic."
NCF TO, this is false. Alcohol is in the upper tier of the most physiologically damaging psychotropic substances known to man. It kills brain cells (long-term heavy use causes severe brain damage), ravages the liver, and causes death in high doses. Alcohol poisoning kills many young people every year. Alcohol's effects are similar in damage to heroin. That is, heroin junkies and alcoholics have equally poor health.
As for pot, there is no credible evidence that it causes brain damage, only that it may impair cognitive functioning in long-term heavy users -- which researches say abates shortly after heavy use ends, even after many years of heavy use. *No one* has ever died from a marijuana overdose. There is not one single medically documented case of lung cancer, emphysema, or any other severe respiratory illness in marijuana exclusive smokers, even heavy long-term ones. (That said, heavy users are known to get mild bronchitis.)
Despite the fact that 80% of the world's research on drugs in funded by the U.S. government's research group NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Addiction, which most often only funds research that aims to prove that all illegal drugs are extremely dangerous, there is no widespread consensus among scientists that marijuana is seriously harmful -- in fact, most feel just the opposite. (NIDA uses U.S. taxpayer dollars to create ideologically-driven scientific research that defends the billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars being spent annually on the drug war. It's one propaganda wing of the great job creation program drug war.)
(Also, for the record, I don't use any psychoactive substances (including alcohol) -- we'll get that all too convenient conservative ad hominem attack out of the way right now.)
However, even if all your claims regarding alcohol's benign nature and marijuana's harmful nature were true, it wouldn't matter. What gives government the right to throw people in jail for marijuana or other drugs? Are they so physically and socially harmful that homes should be raided, people should jailed, and families should be torn apart? Morally speaking, do people own their own bodies?
Libertarians don't ignore a large batch of common sense surrounding drug use that conservatives hang on to. This is not the reason why libertarian want drugs to be legal and conservatives don't. Rather, conservatives ignore history and give in to fear. Libertarians don't.
When cocaine and opium were legal, people generally regulated their intake of those drugs. Cocaine was for sale in small doses in pop and gum -- note: this was *not* regulated by law. Opium was for sale in Chinese dens. There were addicts, but the problem was never as severe as now.
Drugs were made illegal because of racism. People feared the Chinese and the Blacks and thought opium and marijuana would be used by coloureds to conquer pure, white society -- I'm *not* kidding.
Emily Murphy, celebrated by feminists because she fought for the right of *only* white, British Canadian women to vote, lead a racist crusade against drugs which eventually made them illegal. (Murphy was also the founder of Alberta's eugenics program and sucessfully pushed B.C. to adopt a similar program.) In her widely popular classic the Black Clandle -- which was a collection of a series of Mclean's articles -- she told of how a white addict recounted that a Chinese operator of a Vancouver opium den laughed at him and told him that the yellow race would take over society by getting everyone addicted to opium. *Anecdotes* of questionable merit like this were the seeds by which prohibition was reaped.
Alcohol was unregulated -- at least in the U.S. and likely also Canada -- before prohibition. After Prohibition -- which was a period of total government control of alcohol -- and with the advent of the nanny state, government wanted to maintain large controls of over the alcohol trade. There were no government liquor stores -- that I know of -- until after prohibition.
As for Holland, they have a government right now that is friendly with the U.S. and closing down hash bars to appease America. Kind of like, oh, I don't know, Canada extraditing Marc Emery.
Holland's teen marijuana use rate has consistently been 1/3 that of America's. The DEA consistently *lies* about this number, but government statistics from both countries say otherwise.
Posted by: Michael Cust | 2005-07-31 3:51:50 PM
Not only that, State Canada has put the racist prohibitionist gang of five (sorry, The Valiant Five) on the back of our fifty dollar bill. Sad, really, isn't it?
There will always be people who live in fear that somewhere, someone, is having fun, even when they are being responsible about it.
Posted by: Tony | 2005-07-31 4:01:23 PM
"(Also, for the record, I don't use any psychoactive substances (including alcohol) -- we'll get that all too convenient conservative ad hominem attack out of the way right now.)"
Just for the record Michael Cust, it was the Democrats in the US and the Liberals in Canada who made marijuana a criminal offense in the first place.
You're bang on about the racist motives and eugenics. You left out the Mexicans though.
This is the History of Marijuana Prohibition Law in the US and it's motives:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm
This is a long but easy read. The Speech was given at a California Judges seminar in 1995.
The Professor giving the speech has a pleasing Virginian way of speaking.
Posted by: Speller | 2005-07-31 4:23:49 PM
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