Skip to content
MiltonFriedman.org

Milton Friedman on Drugs and prohibition

The harm to us from the addiction of others arises primarily from the fact that drugs are illegal. It has been estimated that from one third to one half of all violent and property crime in the United States is committed either by drug addicts engaged in crime to finance their habit, or by conflicts among competing groups of drug pushers, or in the course of the importation and distribution of illegal drugs. Legalize drugs, and street crime would drop dramatically and immediately.

Context. From Tyranny of the Status Quo (1984), written with Rose D. Friedman, in the chapter on crime, after arguing that government may stop drug users from harming third parties but that prohibiting adults’ own drug use does more harm than good, and that addicts themselves would be better off if drugs were legal. Here they turn to the harm that others’ addiction does to non-users.

Tyranny of the Status Quo
Book, 1984, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 7 “Crime”, p. 139 (with Rose D. Friedman)
Checked against the sourceFind the book

Where this comes from

Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.

Cite this passage

Milton Friedman, “Tyranny of the Status Quo” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), Ch. 7 “Crime”, p. 139 (with Rose D. Friedman). https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/harm-from-addiction-arises-drugs-illegal-legalize-street-crime-1984

Quoted for commentary and research. Rights in the underlying work remain with its rights holder, so cite the work itself, not only this page.

Topics

He also said

  1. We have as many criminals as we have because we have as many laws to break as we have. You take the situation in the United States. We have two million people in prison, four million people who are under parole or under supervision. Why? Because of our mistaken attempt to control what people put in their bodies. Prohibition of so-called drugs, of illegal drugs, is a major reason for all of those prisons. And those are victimless crimes, which should not be crimes.

    Context. In a PBS interview for the series Commanding Heights, on the Internet making it easier for criminals to conduct their affairs, where he said one has to distinguish between criminals and criminals.

    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “Where We Stand Today,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript
  2. 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.

    Context. From his Newsweek column of May 1, 1972, on President Nixon’s “war on drugs.” He quoted this passage himself in 1998, saying he had criticized that policy “on both moral and expediential grounds.”

    Prohibition and Drugs
    Column, 1972, Newsweek, May 1, 1972; quoted by Friedman himself in “It’s Time to End the War on Drugs,” Hoover Digest, 1998, no. 2 (first published in The New York Times, January 11, 1998).
    Checked against the sourceRead the source
  3. 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

Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context? Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.