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Milton Friedman on Drugs and prohibition

Now suppose you legalized. Under current circumstances, a mother who is a crack addict and is carrying a baby is afraid to go get prenatal treatment because she turned herself into a criminal, she’s subject to being thrown into jail. Under legalized drugs, that inhibition would be off. And, you know, even crack addicts, mothers, have a feeling of responsibility to their children. And I have no doubt that under those circumstances, it would be possible to have a much more effective system of prenatal care, a much more effective system of trying to persuade people who are on drugs not to have children or to go off drugs while they have children.

Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. Friedman has just said that what bothers him most about crack is the “crack babies”, innocent victims who tend to be born underweight or mentally impaired, adding that alcohol harms more babies this way.

America’s Drug Forum interview
Interview, 1991, With Randy Paige, taped at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, November 1991; reprinted as Ch. 8 “On Liberty and Drugs” in Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, ed. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese (Drug Policy Foundation Press, 1992), p. 67
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Milton Friedman, “America’s Drug Forum interview” (1991), With Randy Paige, taped at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, November 1991; reprinted as Ch. 8 “On Liberty and Drugs” in Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, ed. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese (Drug Policy Foundation Press, 1992), p. 67. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/crack-addict-mother-afraid-prenatal-treatment-legalized-1991

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He also said

  1. I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there’s a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they’re sure of the quality.

    Context. The opening exchange of a television interview about the war on drugs. The interviewer has asked how Friedman sees America changing for the better if drugs were legalized.

    America’s Drug Forum interview
    Interview, 1991, With Randy Paige, taped at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, November 1991; reprinted as Ch. 8 “On Liberty and Drugs” in Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, ed. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese (Drug Policy Foundation Press, 1992), p. 65
    Checked against the sourceFind the book
  2. It’s a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don’t approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else. Most of the arrests for drugs are for possession by casual users. Now here’s somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he’s caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That’s the issue to me.

    Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. Just before, Friedman says that it is also a moral problem that the government’s drug war is causing thousands of additional killings each year. Just after, he says the money spent on the drug war is the trivial part of the problem.

    America’s Drug Forum interview
    Interview, 1991, With Randy Paige, taped at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, November 1991; reprinted as Ch. 8 “On Liberty and Drugs” in Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, ed. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese (Drug Policy Foundation Press, 1992), p. 71
    Checked against the sourceFind the book
  3. Of course, they’re entrepreneurs. The people who are running the drug traffic are no different from the rest of us, except that they have more entrepreneurial ability and less concern about not hurting other people. They’re more irresponsible in that way. But they’re in a business and they’re trying to make as much as they can. And they discovered a good way to make money was to dilute this crack with baking soda or whatever else—I mean, cocaine, whatever else they do—I don’t know the procedure—so that they could bring it out in five dollar and ten dollar doses.

    Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. Friedman has said that crack would never have existed without drug prohibition: snorting cocaine became very expensive, and they were desperate to find a way of packaging it. The interviewer has put in, “The entrepreneurs.”

    America’s Drug Forum interview
    Interview, 1991, With Randy Paige, taped at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform, Washington, November 1991; reprinted as Ch. 8 “On Liberty and Drugs” in Friedman & Szasz on Liberty and Drugs, ed. Arnold S. Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese (Drug Policy Foundation Press, 1992), p. 66
    Checked against the sourceFind the book

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