Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge- Professor Milton Friedman: 'The High & The Mighty'

Source:Uncommon Knowledge- Professor Milton Friedman, talking to Perter Robison about the War On Drugs.

Source:The New Democrat

"This interview was filmed on December 21, 2000. America has spent three decades and hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a national war on drugs. Has the war on drugs been an effective way of dealing with America's drug problem or does it cause more harm than good? How should we weigh the moral and utilitarian arguments for and against the war on drugs; in other words, do we need to intensify the war on drugs or is it time to declare a cease fire?"

From Uncommon Knowledge

I’ve made this point more times than I can count now and generally I’m pretty good with numbers, but when you try to prevent someone from doing something dangerous, or try to prevent someone from doing anything and say, “don’t do this, or else” and the, or else is something awful like jail, that person, especially if they think they can get away with it, or are addicted and don’t care and think the risk is worth it, is going to do what they want with themselves anyway. You don’t correct improper behavior, or dangerous behavior when just one person is involved, by saying don’t do this, or we’ll make things even worst for you then what you’re doing now and send you to jail.

Jail and prison, is worst for people than illegal narcotics. Because of the stress, the risks to people’s personal safety and even their lives. The slop that they have to eat, that is supposed to be food. All the down time and solitary that leads to human waste. I mean, I rather be a cocaine addict and be far gone from reality, then experience jail, or prison completely sober. What you want to do instead, is instead of making people’s lives even worst than they currently are, you encourage people to improve their behavior. Show them why they shouldn’t be taking any cocaine, meth, or heroin. Don’t criminalize things that have the same, or similar side-effects as alcohol. Which means legalizing marijuana.

One of the tragedies of the so-called War on Drugs, which again isn’t a real war, but its made criminals of people, who are only guilty for what they’ve done to themselves. We spend billions of dollars every year as taxpayers punishing people for what they’ve done to themselves. When what we could’ve been doing is actually helping people get off of those drugs and build their life into something that is positive and productive. Where they don’t want anything to do with cocaine, heroin, or meth. Imagine if we were doing this 45 years ago, instead of locking people up, because they like cocaine. So we can say we’re “tough on crime”, whatever the hell that means. How many lives would we of saved from the War on Drugs as a result?