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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: X Y Zebra who wrote (7144)	6/8/2000 1:00:00 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

Interview with Milton Friedman About the Drug War May 1991 home.earthlink.net The following is an excerpt from his book "Friedman & Szasz On Liberty and Drugs." It's a 1991 TV interview on PBS TV's "America's Forum." Randy Paige is an Emmy Award winning reporter from Baltimore, Maryland. Excerpts: "Paige: I just mean the violence surrounding the drug trade, just the... Friedman: The violence is due to prohibition and nothing else. How much violence is there surrounding the alcohol trade. There's some, only because we prohibit the sale of alcohol to children, which we should do, and there's some because we impose very high taxes on alcohol and, as a result, there's some incentive for bootlegging. But there's no other violence around it. <snip> Paige: What scares you the most about the notion of drugs being legal? Friedman: Nothing scares me about the notion of drugs being legal. Paige: Nothing. Friedman: What scares me is the notion of continuing on the path we're on now, which will destroy our free society, making it an uncivilized place. There's only one way you can really enforce the drug laws currently. The only way to do that is to adopt the policies of Saudi Arabia, Singapore, which some other countries adopt, in which a drug addict is subject to capital punishment or, at the very least, having his hand chopped off. If we were willing to have penalties like that--but would that be a society you'd want to live in? Paige: Do these notions seem obvious to you? Friedman: Yes. I have thought about them for a long time. I have observed behavior in this country and in other countries for a long time. And I find it almost incredible how people can support the present system of drug prohibition. It does so much more harm than good. Paige: If it is obvious, why is it that you're in such a minority, particularly among...? Friedman: Of course. Very good question. And the answer is because there are so many vested interests that have been built up behind the present drug war. Who are the people who are listened to about drugs? The people who have the obligation to enforce drug laws. They think they're doing the right thing. They're good human beings. Everybody thinks what he's doing is worth doing. Nobody is doing it for evil motives. But it's the same thing all over the government. Paige: Wouldn't you agree that fear is one of the strongest supports for the existing drug laws? Fear that, without them, the bottom would fall out. Friedman: Yes, but it's a fake fear and it's a fear that is promoted. Listen to what the former drug czar, Mr. Bennet, said. First of all, he stated that consumption of alcohol after Prohibition has gone up three or fourfold or something. He was wrong, just factually wrong. He's made all sorts of scare talk about how many new addicts there would be. He's never provided a single bit of evidence, never provided any examples of any other place or anything. But why? Because he's got a job to do. Paige: Vested interests, you're saying. Friedman: Vested interests, self-interest, the same self-interest that people object to in the market. But in the market, if you start a project and it goes wrong, you have to finance it out of your own pocket.