Milton Friedman on Drugs and prohibition
You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now. Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up.
Context. From the opening exchange of a television interview about the war on drugs. Asked how he sees America changing for the better if drugs were legalized, Friedman has described fewer prisons and homicides, and addicts no longer turned into criminals, able to get drugs whose quality they can be sure of.
Where this comes from
Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.
Cite this passage
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. 65. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/prohibition-alcohol-bootleg-poisoning-deaths-drug-overdose-adulterated-1991
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
So far as drugs itself is concerned, some years ago, Alaska legalized marijuana. Consumption of marijuana among high school students in Alaska went down. The Dutch, in Holland, do not prosecute soft drugs, like marijuana, and they would prefer not to prosecute hard drugs, but they feel impelled by the international obligations they’ve entered into, and consumption of marijuana by young people has gone down. And, equally more interesting, the average age of the users of hard drugs has gone up, which means they’re not getting any more new recruits.
Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. The interviewer has said that some argue alcohol consumption increased dramatically when Prohibition ended. Friedman has answered that it did not, and turns here to the evidence on drugs; he goes on to call that evidence “very mixed” and to grant that legalizing drugs might bring some additional addicts.
America’s Drug Forum interviewInterview, 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. 69Checked against the sourceFind the bookProhibition was repealed in 1933 when I was twenty-one years old, so I was a teenager during most of Prohibition. Alcohol was readily available. Bootlegging was common. Any idea that alcohol prohibition was keeping people from drinking was absurd. There were speakeasies all over the place. But more than that. We had this spectacle of Al Capone, of the hijackings, of the gang wars.
Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. Asked what early on shaped his belief that the drug laws may not be working, Friedman has said he does not recall ever favouring the prohibition of either alcohol or drugs.
America’s Drug Forum interviewInterview, 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. 68Checked against the sourceFind the bookWell, maybe. Nobody can say with certainty what will happen along those lines. But I think it’s very dubious, because all of the experience with legal drugs is that there’s a tendency for people to go from the stronger to the weaker and not the other way around, just as you go from regular beer to light beer. That’s the tendency that there is: from cigarettes without filters to low-tar, filtered cigarettes, and so on. But I can’t rule out that what you’re saying might happen, but, and this is a very important but, the harm that would result from that would be much less than it is now, for several reasons.
Context. From a television interview about the war on drugs. The interviewer has asked whether, if drugs were legalized and crack cocaine were available at a low cost, it could be devastating, since it is said to be so pleasurable that more people could get it and stay on it for longer.
America’s Drug Forum interviewInterview, 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. 67Checked against the sourceFind the book
Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context? Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.