Pubdate: Tue, 28 Nov 2006
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Froma Harrop, Syndicated Columnist
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

MILTON FRIEDMAN'S SENSIBLE APPROACH TO DRUG POLICY

This is about me, my mugger and Milton Friedman.

I was alone on a New York subway platform, when a man started toward 
me. His glassy eyes foretold what was to happen. He pointed at the 
flute case I was carrying and said, "Give it to me."

Pulling the case back, I said "no," at which point he snapped open a 
knife and pointed it at my ribs. I then held out the flute, 
squeaking, "Take it." He grabbed the instrument and ran off.

I didn't need Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate who died on Nov. 
16, to explain the economics involved. My mugger obviously had a drug 
habit made very expensive by the fact that his narcotic was illegal. 
Were his drug legal, he might have been able to buy it for the price 
of celery, in which case he wouldn't have needed me. He could have 
found the required change under seat cushions.

As a pure economic transaction, the mugging was most inefficient. The 
flute was a battered student model, so my assailant couldn't have 
gotten more than $40 for it. I called the police to report the crime, 
which cost the taxpayers money. The bored officer at the other end 
asked the "what, when and where," then said, "OK, your case number is 
5-0-3-7-7-3-1-4" and about five other digits. No one was hurt, and he 
still had to do the paperwork.

A free-market advocate, Friedman made respectable the idea that the 
drug trade is an unstoppable activity -- and that laws prohibiting 
drugs were wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and hurting millions 
of innocent bystanders. Friedman became a hero to many good citizens 
who did not care to stand between a drug addict and his fix. To 
Friedman, the war on drugs was not a moral crusade. It was just plain stupid.

In a famous 1989 open letter to Bill Bennett, drug czar under the 
first President Bush, Friedman wrote:

"Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you 
favor are a major source of the evils you deplore ... Illegality 
creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the 
drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law-enforcement 
officials; illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so 
that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of 
robbery, theft and assault."

America now sends an estimated $40 billion a year down the 
war-on-drugs rat hole. The innocents, meanwhile, keep piling up -- 
from burglarized homeowners to children caught in drug-turf 
crossfire. Every time law enforcement throws a drug seller in jail, 
it is making more business for the dealer's competitors.

Try this instead: Put the drug dealers and narco-terrorists out of 
business by providing free drugs to our addicted populations. That 
way, we know who the abusers are and can offer them treatment. And 
those who persist in their addictions wouldn't have to prey on the 
rest of us for their drug money.

Americans are unlikely to legalize drugs anytime soon, but they could 
decriminalize some of them. Marijuana is an excellent place to start. 
Pot appears to do little harm, and several states have tried to all 
but legalize it.

Friedman was a dues-paying member of the Marijuana Policy Project, 
which seeks to make marijuana a regulated legal product like 
cigarettes and alcohol.

One study suggests that ending the U.S. prohibition against marijuana 
could produce savings of nearly $8 billion a year and generate over 
$6 billion in tax revenues. Friedman and about 500 other leading 
economists endorsed the findings.

An enlightened drug policy is far off, but those who desire one 
should light a candle in memory of Milton Friedman.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman