US: THERE'S NO JUSTICE IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

Newshawk: Michael (Miguet@November.org)
Pubdate: Jan 11, 1998
Source: New York Times (NY)
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Milton Friedman

THERE'S NO JUSTICE IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

STANFORD -- Twenty-five years ago, President Richard M. Nixon announced a "War on Drugs." I criticized the action on both moral and expediential grounds in my Newsweek column of May 1, 1972, "Prohibition and Drugs":
"On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yes. But for responsible adults, I, for one, would answer no. Reason with the potential addict, yes. Tell him the consequences, yes. Pray for and with him, yes. But I believe that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs."

That basic ethical flaw has inevitably generated specific evils during the past quarter century, just as it did during our earlier attempt at alcohol prohibition.

1. The use of informers. Informers are not needed in crimes like robbery and murder because the victims of those crimes have a strong incentive to report the crime. In the drug trade, the crime consists of a transaction between a willing buyer and willing seller. Neither has any incentive to report a violation of law. On the contrary, it is in the self-interest of both that the crime not be reported. That is why informers are needed. The use of informers and the immense sums of money at stake inevitably generate corruption -- as they did during Prohibition. They also lead to violations of the civil rights of innocent people, to the shameful practices of forcible entry and forfeiture of property without due process.
As I wrote in 1972: ". . . addicts and pushers are not the only ones corrupted. Immense sums are at stake. It is inevitable that some relatively low-paid police and other government officials -- and some high-paid ones as well -- will succumb to the temptation to pick up easy money."
2. Filling the prisons. In 1970, 200,000 people were in prison. Today, 1.6 million people are. Eight times as many in absolute number, six times as many relative to the increased population. In addition, 2.3 million are on probation and parole. The attempt to prohibit drugs is by far the major source of the horrendous growth in the prison population.
There is no light at the end of that tunnel. How many of our citizens do we want to turn into criminals before we yell "enough"?
3. Disproportionate imprisonment of blacks. Sher Hosonko, at the time Connecticut's director of addiction services, stressed this effect of drug prohibition in a talk given in June 1995:
"Today in this country, we incarcerate 3,109 black men for every 100,000 of them in the population. Just to give you an idea of the drama in this number, our closest competitor for incarcerating black men is South Africa. South Africa -- and this is pre-Nelson Mandela and under an overt public policy of apartheid -- incarcerated 729 black men for every 100,000. Figure this out: In the land of the Bill of Rights, we jail over four times as many black men as the only country in the world that advertised a political policy of apartheid."
4. Destruction of inner cities. Drug prohibition is one of the most important factors that have combined to reduce our inner cities to their present state. The crowded inner cities have a comparative advantage for selling drugs. Though most customers do not live in the inner cities, most sellers do. Young boys and girls view the swaggering, affluent drug dealers as role models. Compared with the returns from a traditional career of study and hard work, returns from dealing drugs are tempting to young and old alike. And many, especially the young, are not dissuaded by the bullets that fly so freely in disputes between competing drug dealers -- bullets that fly only because dealing drugs is illegal. Al Capone epitomizes our earlier attempt at Prohibition; the Crips and Bloods epitomize this one.
5. Compounding the harm to users. Prohibition makes drugs exorbitantly expensive and highly uncertain in quality. A user must associate with criminals to get the drugs, and many are driven to become criminals themselves to finance the habit. Needles, which are hard to get, are often shared, with the predictable effect of spreading disease. Finally, an addict who seeks treatment must confess to being a criminal in order to qualify for a treatment program. Alternatively, professionals who treat addicts must become informers or criminals themselves.
6. Undertreatment of chronic pain. The Federal Department of Health and Human Services has issued reports showing that two-thirds of all terminal cancer patients do not receive adequate pain medication, and the numbers are surely higher in nonterminally ill patients. Such serious undertreatment of chronic pain is a direct result of the Drug Enforcement Agency's pressures on physicians who prescribe narcotics.
7. Harming foreign countries. Our drug policy has led to thousands of deaths and enormous loss of wealth in countries like Colombia, Peru and Mexico, and has undermined the stability of their governments. All because we cannot enforce our laws at home. If we did, there would be no market for imported drugs. There would be no Cali cartel. The foreign countries would not have to suffer the loss of sovereignty involved in letting our "advisers" and troops operate on their soil, search their vessels and encourage local militaries to shoot down their planes. They could run their own affairs, and we, in turn, could avoid the diversion of military forces from their proper function.

Can any policy, however high-minded, be moral if it leads to widespread corruption, imprisons so many, has so racist an effect, destroys our inner cities, wreaks havoc on misguided and vulnerable individuals and brings death and destruction to foreign countries?

Milton Friedman, the Nobelist in economics, is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company


US: Leading Question: Milton Friedman

Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family (mmfamily@ix.netcom.com)
Source: San Jose Mercury News ( CA)
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate: Sun, 17 May 1998

LEADING QUESTION ( A weekly feature by Bob Frost)

MILTON FRIEDMAN

Friedman, 85, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford campus. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976.

Q: You are an advocate for the legalization of drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana. You recommend treating all drugs exactly as alcohol is now treated. Isn't it likely that the number of addicts and users would rise if such a policy were put in place?

A: The evidence is mixed on that question; the number might go up, or might not. For example, on the one hand, leglization would make the price of drugs go down sharply, which would of course increase the number of users. On the other hand, there are a number of considerations that could offset the lower price, and lead to a reduction in the use of drugs -- for instance, legalization would remove the "forbidden fruit" aspect of drugs, which serves to make them attractive to young people. In Switzerland, experimental groups of addicts are able to legally buy drugs at low prices, and the result has been a sharp reduction in crime, a sharp increase in the number able to hold jobs and a reduction in addiction levels.

Whether the number of addicts and users goes up or goes down or stays the same, one thing is clear: The harm done to our society and the world by that use of drugs would be much less than the harm done under out present system. The world would be, overall, a better place with legalization.

The available evidence indicates that our attempt to deprive individuals of the freedom to use drugs such as heroin and cocaine has done far more harm than good. It has filled our jails, corrupted our police, deprived people of their civil liberties and imposed unbelievable horrors on other countries such as Mexico and Colombia. On just this last issue -- the effect of our drug policy on other countries -- I have never found anyone able to give me a plausible answer on what right the U.S. has to destroy a country like Colombia just because we can't enforce our own laws. If we could enforce our laws, there would be no drug cartel there, no black market, no endless string of drug killings and less instability in the government. Because we can't enforce our laws, the country is being destroyed.

Q: A strong majority of Americans, according to the polls, support a continued prohibition on drugs. What do you think the chances are that your views will become public policy?

A: I don't know, but I will say this: In 1930 it was widely believed to be impossible to get rid of the unworkable prohibition on alcohol. I believe that if the public were fully informed about the issue, there would be overwhelming support for legalization.

Q: Are you one of these guys who get high on reefer and listen on the headphones to "Dark Side of the Moon"?

A: No. ( Laughs.) I have never smoked a marijuana cigarette, nor have I used heroin or cocaine. I have no personal stake in this position.


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