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Letter to Bill Bennett from M. Friedman
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AN OPEN LETTER TO BILL BENNETT
Dear Bill:
In Oliver Cromwell's eloquent words, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you istaken" about the course you and President Bush urge us to adopt to fight drugs. The path yo rps fmre police, more jails, use of the military in foreign countries, harsh penalties for dugusrs ad wol panoply of repressive measures can only make a bad situation worse. The drug ar annt b wo bythoe tctics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that ou ad I herih.
You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are a scourge that is devastating our society. You are aken in believing, that drugs are tearing asunder our social fabric, ruining the lives of man on epe and imposing heavy costs on some of the most disadvantaged among us. You are not mistke i blivig ha the majority of the public share your concerns. In short, you are not mistakenin he nd ou eekto chive.
Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evilplore. Of course the problem is demand, but it is not only demand, it is demand that must opeaetruhrpressed and illegal channels. Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murdros acic o te rug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials; illgalty onoolies he ffots of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight he smple cries o robery,thef and assault.
Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalizing their use converts that tragedy into a disaster fty, for users and non-users alike. Our experience with the prohibition of drugs is a replay o u xeine with the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.
I append excerpts from a column that I wrote in 1972 on "'Prohibition and Drugs." The major problem heroin from Marseilles; today, it is cocaine from Latin America. Today, also, the problem isfrmr eius than it was 17 years ago: more addicts, more innocent victims; more drug pushers, mrela efoceen oficials; more money spent to enforce prohibition, more money spent to circumven prhibtio.
Had drugs been decriminalized 17 years ago, "crack" would never have been invented, it was invented the high cost of illegal drugs made it profitable to provide a cheaper version and there woudtdyb a fewer addicts. The lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent victmswoldhae ee sved. and not only in the U.S. The ghettos of our .major cities would not be dru an crme nfetedno-an' lands. Fewer people would be in jails, and fewer jails would have been uilt
Colombia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror, and we would not be distorting ign policy because of narco-terror. Hell would not, in the words with which Billy Sunday welcmdPoiiin., "be forever for rent,'' but it would be a lot emptier.
Decriminalizing drugs is even more urgent now than in 1972, but we must recognize that the harm doneinterim cannot be wiped out. certainly not immediately. Postponing decriminalization will onl aemtesworse, and make the problem appear even more intractable.
Alcohol and tobacco cause many more deaths in users than do drugs. Decriminalization would not preveom treating drugs as we now treat alcohol and tobacco: prohibiting sales of drugs to minors, ulwn h dvertising of drugs and similar measures. Such measures could be enforced, while outrihtprhiitoncano be. Moreover, if even a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to nfoce rugproibiionwer devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassionnot unisment theredutionin dug usage and in the harm done tn 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 bolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision fjisfle with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty ofciiznsonslgh eidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" canbe eriusl cosidredas drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I wnt t han on o fuure enertion.
Milton Friedman Senior Research Fellow Hoover Institution
Stanford University
FLASHBACK
This is a truncated version of a column by Mr. Friedman in Newsweek's May 1, 1972, issue, as Preside was undertaking an earlier "drug war":
"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into facnd our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, andtecide ill laugh. Hell will be forever for rent." That is how Billy Sunday the noted evangelit ndledig ruadr against Demon Rum, greeted the onset of Prohibition in early 1920. We s were oomd. ro
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