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Milton Friedman on Drugs and prohibition

Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement.
An Economist's Protest: Columns in Political Economy
Book, 1966, p. 161
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  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.
    Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interview
    Interview, 2000, PBS, “Where We Stand Today,” interview conducted October 1, 2000
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript
  2. You can rigidly enforce only those laws that most people believe to be good laws, that is, laws that proscribe actions that they would avoid even in the absence of laws. When laws render illegal actions that many or most people regard as moral and proper, they can be enforced only by brute force. Speed laws are an obvious example; alcohol prohibition, a more dramatic one.
    Why Government Is the Problem
    Journal article, 1993, Hoover Institution Press, Essays in Public Policy no. 39, p. 2
    Checked against the sourceRead the original
  3. The true minimum-wage rate is zero—the amount that an unemployed person receives from his nonexistent employer. This minimum-wage rate will not be affected by the new law. Rather, the law will increase the number of persons who receive a wage rate of zero.
    Legislating Unemployment
    Column, 1972, Newsweek (1972; the issue current on June 28, 1972); reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, June 28, 1972, p. 23100, Congressional Record, June 28, 1972, p. 23100
    Checked against the sourceRead the original

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