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Milton Friedman on Drugs and prohibition

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
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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. 66. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/drug-traffic-entrepreneurs-dilute-cocaine-five-ten-dollar-doses-1991

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He also said

  1. There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. … Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.

    Context. From David Asman’s May 15, 2004 interview with him, published by Fox News. Earlier in the conversation he had argued that education and medicine share one problem, third-party payment: someone gets a service from someone else who is paid by a third party; he then blamed that for medicine’s complications.

    Interview with David Asman
    Interview, 2004, Fox News, May 15, 2004; transcript published by Fox News as “‘Your World’ Interview With Economist Milton Friedman”
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  2. 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
    Checked against the sourceFind the book
  3. It does harm a great many other people, but primarily because it’s prohibited. There are an enormous number of innocent victims now. You’ve got the people whose purses are stolen, who are bashed over the head by people trying to get enough money for their next fix. You’ve got the people killed in the random drug wars. You’ve got the corruption of the legal establishment. You’ve got the innocent victims who are taxpayers who have to pay for more and more prisons, and more and more prisoners, and more and more police. You’ve got the rest of us who don’t get decent law enforcement because all the law enforcement officials are busy trying to do the impossible.

    Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. The interviewer has just suggested that critics such as the former drug czar William Bennett would say the sale and distribution of illegal drugs harms other people, so government has to step in; “it” is that trade. He goes on to name the people of Colombia and Peru, killed because the United States cannot enforce its own drug laws.

    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. 70
    Checked against the sourceFind the book

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