Milton
Friedman On Liberty And Drugs
By Kevin Zeese
21 November, 2006
Countercurrents.org
“Political freedom
means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men”
Since the death last week of
Milton Friedman I’ve been thinking about the times that my life
crossed paths with his. I’ve got a photograph on my bookshelf
of me with him at the conference of the Drug Policy Foundation in 1991.
In that year we gave him our most prestigious award, a lifetime achievement
award named in honor of noted philanthropist and Chicago commodities
trader, Richard Dennis.
When we gave Dr. Friedman
the award it was controversial. Many in the reform movement are liberal
Democrats who are offended by Friedman’s view that “the
government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”
But, no doubt all in the drug policy reform movement would agree with
that statement when it is applied to the government’s never-ending
war on drugs. As Friedman correctly said: “Most of the harm that
comes from drugs is because they are illegal.”
Indeed, Friedman came to
the conclusion about the futility of drug prohibition early. When President
Nixon started the modern war on drugs he wrote a column in Newsweek
criticizing the policy. He warned that it would not reduce addiction
but instead would promote crime and corruption repeating the mistake
of alcohol prohibition. He concluded: “So long as large sums of
money are involved-and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal-it
is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce
seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example
are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others
in our image.” See “Prohibition and Drugs,” at
http://www.druglibrary.org/special/
friedman/prohibition_and_drugs.htm.
In 1989 when drug czar Bill
Bennet was escalating the drug war on behalf of President George H.W.
Bush, Friedman wrote an open letter in the Wall Street Journal reminding
him that the problems he was trying to combat were the made worse by
prohibition. He warned that crack was a product of prohibition correctly
pointing out “it was invented because the high cost of illegal
drugs made it profitable to provide a cheaper version.” He concluded
the letter:
“Moreover, if even
a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug
prohibition were devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere
of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the
harm done to the users could be dramatic.
“This plea comes from
the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are
one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United
States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual
drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty
of citizens on slight evidence.”
See “An Open Letter
to Bill Bennett, April 1990 at
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0490e.asp.
Friedman’s view of
the harms from drugs was not only the wasted money – now about
$1 billion per week – but more so the destruction of inner cities,
racially unfair incarceration, corruption of the police, wars in Colombia,
Mexico and other countries that cost thousands of lives and the corruption
of foreign economies as well as our own. The drug war has spurred the
largest prison system in history with more than 2 million behind bars
– one in four of the world’s prisoners residing in the land
of the free. As Friedman pointed out: “Had drugs been decriminalized,
crack would never have been invented and there would today be fewer
addicts... The ghettos would not be drug-and-crime-infested no-man's
lands... Colombia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror,
and we would not be distorting our foreign policy because of it.”
When Friedman gave his key
note address at the Drug Policy Foundation conference in 1991 he did
not limit his talk to drug policy. He put forward a wider ranging analysis
that covered a host of issues – schools, housing, medical care
and the post office. Of course, this just added to the controversy around
his nomination. But it was an opportunity to hear a perspective that
no doubt held important truths on the limits and fallibility of government
– truths that could lead to more sensible approaches whether you
completely agreed with Friedman or not. (You can read a transcript of
his speech and the questions and answers at http://www.druglibrary.org/
special/friedman/socialist.htm.)
Friedman also appeared on
a television show we produced, America’s Drug Forum, and I crossed
paths with him at two conferences at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University, and with Arnold Trebach edited a book on the writings of
him and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. He always put forward a clear vision
and persistent attitude. Indeed, his persistence is something all advocates
can learn from – he went from being ignored and shunned to winning
the nobel prize for economics and being an adviser to presidents. His
life should give all of us hope that change is possible, indeed it is
inevitable, and if we persist change will move in our direction.
Kevin Zeese
is president of Common Sense for Drug Policy.
For more on Milton Friedman
you can purchase “On Liberty and Drugs” edited by Arnold
Trebach and Kevin Zeese at
http://www.amazon.com/Friedman-Szasz-
Liberty-Drugs-Prohibition/dp/1879189054.
Many of his writings are
included in The Schaeffer Library of Drug Policy at
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Misc/friedm1.htm.
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