St. Pete Times: All he was saying, give drugs a chance [View All]

[teach1st]

All he was saying, give drugs a chance
St. Petersburg Times, 11/26, by Robyn Blumner

In 1971, when Richard Nixon declared his "War on Drugs," calling for harsher penalties and stricter enforcement of drug laws, the renowned Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman had a John Lennon moment. He suggested we give peace a chance.

To Friedman, who died earlier this month at 94, drug prohibition was unsound public policy, economic insanity and inherently immoral. It wasn't the drug user who was immoral, as the political world asserted with so much vim and vinegar - the immorality stemmed from making users into criminals.

In a Newsweek article Friedman authored dated May 1, 1972, he took a step outside his realm of monetary policy and free marketeering and laid out in clear, unequivocal terms what kind of social disaster we were buying with Nixon's drug war. Thirty years later, we know he couldn't have been more right.

Friedman's views emanated from libertarianism. He resented the government's interference in an adult's free will. But the economist in him also recognized the inexorable market forces that drove the illicit drug trade. He understood that as long as there was demand there would be supply, and by making drugs illegal, those enriched by the drug trade would be a violent, corrupting element of society.

More