Milton Friedman on why drugs should be legalized

[Xerxes]

 

[The True Adonis]

Drugs should be De-Criminalized completely but not legalized.  You DO NOT want the Government taking control of costs for drugs and putting whatever tax they feel like on them unless you want to pay an exorbitant amount for whatever drug you are seeking to use.

[Xerxes]

Drugs should be De-Criminalized completely but not legalized.  You DO NOT want the Government taking control of costs for drugs and putting whatever tax they feel like on them unless you want to pay an exorbitant amount for whatever drug you are seeking to use.

Wouldn't the market then still be controlled by the criminals? So if drugs are de-criminalized, does that mean you can not open a Netherlands-style coffeeshop for example but are free to buy cannabis on the street? I would like to hear your thoughts on why you think it would be better that way. Wouldn't legalization give greater quality control of the drugs you can buy?

[liberty]

Not legalizing them will result in more chainsaw vids period.

[Wiggs]

Another great Milton

[Xerxes]

Another great Milton

x2 

[deadz]

Another great Milton

That Milton has a job, loser!

[Wiggs]

That Milton has a job, loser!

lol...Your one liners are so pathetic..You literally make me laugh everytime you post.
Everytime you open your mouth, you sink deeper in the swamp of stupid.

[deadz]

lol...Your one liners are so pathetic..You literally make me laugh everytime you post.
Everytime you open your mouth, you sink deeper in the swamp of stupid.

Calling me stupid. That's hilarious considering your life, L O fucking L. You are sinking quicker than the Titanic. Soon you'll only be posting between the hours of 8-5, library hours, you suck, haha!!!!

[deadz]

By the way, tell Jay Cutler your bff hello from me, hahahahhahahahahahaha, pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wiggs]

Calling me stupid. That's hilarious considering your life, L O fucking L. You are sinking quicker than the Titanic. Soon you'll only be posting between the hours of 8-5, library hours, you suck, haha!!!!

lol
I can't wait for your day to come....cause I'm oh so going to enjoy it.....

Let me help you with your response... ""

[Xerxes]

Hey guys zip it, this is serious business here.

Adonis I am awaiting your answer.

[suckmymuscle]

 

  I am a libertarian, but the issue of drug liberalization presents a paradox for libertarianism. The paradox is this: some drugs are extremely addictive. Once you have become addicted to them, do you still have free will to choose? Libertarianism states that people should be free to do whatever they want with their lives as long as they don't infringe upon other people's rights. But if you try crack cocaine and become addicted to it, do you still have free will? A hardcore libertarian could argue that even the most addictive drugs should be legalized since you are aware that they are highly addictive, and you should have the right to choose whether to use them knowing that you could get hooked to them and lose your free will and ruin your life. More moderate libertarians believe that drugs like crack cocaine and heroin present a special case and should be outlawed, since their highly addictive nature removes from those who try them the right to choose whether they want to continue using them or not. Personally, I take the first view. I believe that, if you are a fully grown adult and you want to try crack cocaine knowing that there is a very good chance that you might get addicted to it and lose your free will, you should have the right to. You might no longer have free will after you become hooked, but you had the free will not to try them knowing what could happen. I say legalize all drugs, but make the minimum age 25 and have the person sign a paper saying that he is fully aware that he can become addicted, and that if he hurts or kills others after becoming addicted to acquire money to sustain the habit, he will pay big.

SUCKMYMUSCLE
 

[Xerxes]

 I am a libertarian, but the issue of drug liberalization presents a paradox for libertarianism. The paradox is this: some drugs are extremely addictive. Once you have become addicted to them, do you still have free will to choose? Libertarianism states that people should be free to do whatever they want with their lives as long as they don't infringe upon other people's rights. But if you try crack cocaine and become addicted to it, do you still have free will? A hardcore libertarian could argue that even the most addictive drugs should be legalized since you are aware that they are highly addictive, and you should have the right to choose whether to use them knowing that you could get hooked to them and lose your free will and ruin your life. More moderate libertarians believe that drugs like crack cocaine and heroin present a special case and should be outlawed, since their highly addictive nature removes from those who try them the right to choose whether they want to continue using them or not. Personally, I take the first view. I believe that, if you are a fully grown adult and you want to try crack cocaine knowing that there is a very good chance that you might get addicted to it and lose your free will, you should have the right to. You might no longer have free will after you become hooked, but you had the free will not to try them knowing what could happen. I say legalize all drugs, but make the minimum age 1825 and have the person sign a paper saying that he is fully aware that he can become addicted, and that if he hurts or kills others after becoming addicted to acquire money to sustain the habit, he will pay big.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

With that small adjustment, we would agree.

I don't believe that legalization will make regular folk suddenly go "holy shit it's legal, I'm gonna buy me some heroin/crack/meth!" and I will present one case for you, Portugal:

At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
(See the world's most influential people in the 2009 TIME 100.)
The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.


Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.

"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.

But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.
"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.
Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.
The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."

[deadz]

With that small adjustment, we would agree.

I don't believe that legalization will make regular folk suddenly go "holy shit it's legal, I'm gonna buy me some heroin/crack/meth!" and I will present one case for you, Portugal:

Just go and get high which I am sure you do every day. Nobody gives a fuck, go smoke yourself in oblivion.

[Xerxes]

Just go and get high which I am sure you do every day. Nobody gives a fuck, go smoke yourself in oblivion.

You didn't read the article or watch the video did you? Useless troll.

[The True Adonis]

Wouldn't the market then still be controlled by the criminals? So if drugs are de-criminalized, does that mean you can not open a Netherlands-style coffeeshop for example but are free to buy cannabis on the street? I would like to hear your thoughts on why you think it would be better that way. Wouldn't legalization give greater quality control of the drugs you can buy?

The Price of Cigarettes is outrageous due to the Government taxing and regulating them.  Even in NC, where all of them are produced its 40 bucks plus a carton.  Elsewhere its as high as 100 dollars plus.  I don`t smoke and never have, but jacking up the price like that is what you will get when the Government gets involved in the Drug Business.  They will set the price and you don`t want that.

Furthermore, if they get into the quality control business, you are assured a weaker product of whatever it is you are seeking out.  Weaker product for more money=more Government revenue.  They will claim health risks, (as if drugs are healthy in the first place  ) and regulate as much as they want setting all price controls.

Decriminalization, not legalization is the answer.  These legalization morons, don`t know what they are getting into when they start this nonsense.  Its just another way for Government to control, tax and shift the cost to the Consumer. 

Legalization will also open the door for RICO laws, tight regulations etc...  Just recently the Obama administration has cracked down on the Medical Marijuana industry that is supposed to be legal.  Many arrests, shutdowns etc...

The Pro-Legalizers are too stupid to realize all of this though.

[Xerxes]

The Price of Cigarettes is outrageous due to the Government taxing and regulating them.  Even in NC, where all of them are produced its 40 bucks plus a carton.  Elsewhere its as high as 100 dollars plus.  I don`t smoke and never have, but jacking up the price like that is what you will get when the Government gets involved in the Drug Business.  They will set the price and you don`t want that.

Furthermore, if they get into the quality control business, you are assured a weaker product of whatever it is you are seeking out.  Weaker product for more money=more Government revenue.  They will claim health risks, (as if drugs are healthy in the first place  ) and regulate as much as they want setting all price controls.

Decriminalization, not legalization is the answer.  These legalization morons, don`t know what they are getting into when they start this nonsense.  Its just another way for Government to control, tax and shift the cost to the Consumer. 

Legalization will also open the door for RICO laws, tight regulations etc...  Just recently the Obama administration has cracked down on the Medical Marijuana industry that is supposed to be legal.  Many arrests, shutdowns etc...

The Pro-Legalizers are too stupid to realize all of this though.

All good arguments, however say it is decriminalized then, would you be able to open a shop for it? Or do you have to sell it on the streets?

I think most people would agree that they rather buy from a store than on the street, if it is cannabis they are enjoying they would enjoy being able to sit down, have a laugh, some coffee and snacks and relax somewhere with it. If a business like that was started, why should their business owners be exempt from paying taxes on their products? Or are you saying that such a business would not be allowed to open in your ideal situation?

[The True Adonis]

All good arguments, however say it is decriminalized then, would you be able to open a shop for it? Or do you have to sell it on the streets?

I think most people would agree that they rather buy from a store than on the street, if it is cannabis they are enjoying they would enjoy being able to sit down, have a laugh, some coffee and snacks and relax somewhere with it. If a business like that was started, why should their business owners be exempt from paying taxes on their products? Or are you saying that such a business would not be allowed to open in your ideal situation?

Keep it in the black market, free from taxation and regulation.  No stores.

[Xerxes]

Keep it in the black market, free from taxation and regulation.  No stores.

I guess we disagree on that point. I would gladly pay 30% more for a couple grams of cannabis to sit down somewhere and chill out, like in Amsterdam. If I wanted a cheaper product to store at home I could buy a larger amount on the street by a dealer who I've been told has good products.

[The True Adonis]

I guess we disagree on that point. I would gladly pay 30% more for a couple grams of cannabis to sit down somewhere and chill out, like in Amsterdam. If I wanted a cheaper product to store at home I could buy a larger amount on the street by a dealer who I've been told has good products.

Buy it on the black market then go smoke it in a Smoking Club/Social Club or wherever smoking is permitted. 

[Xerxes]

Buy it on the black market then go smoke it in a Smoking Club/Social Club or wherever smoking is permitted. 

I would say that is a bit more inconvenient, in a store/coffeeshop you get a menu and can choose among a lot of different strains including the other perks I mentioned before. Legalizing a drug doesn't mean that the black market disappears, plenty of people would still sell weed without paying taxes, so you would still be able to do buy it cheap, and since it is legal then the government would only be going after dealers for tax evasion. At least that's the way I see it.

[Xerxes]

Adonis, I would like to add. You mention weaker product for more money. I would like to counter that by saying that the strains you can buy in coffeeshops and the medicinal marihuana shops in the US are known to be of the absolute finest quality. A black market dealer usually cannot compete with that.