Milton Friedman on the War On Drugs

I recently read an article from the Chicago Tribune about the efforts to legalize marijuana in the state of Florida. The state has fallen into a large amount of debt that is expected to pile up to $2.4 billion dollars. So politicians are trying to figure out how to make up some of the debt before it gets too out of control. Legalizing marijuana and taxing it has been brought up as part of the solution to the debt. While conservatives are against the legalization of marijuana, the author of this article argues for legalizing it and points out that the war on drugs causes more problems than solutions. He argues that while there are people out there making enormous profits off the selling of drugs, the state is not collecting any taxes from these transactions and continue to fall deeper into debt.

From our class, Milton Friedman would argue for the legalization of marijuana. He believes that the government has no duty to interfere with matters that can be resolved by the market itself. He believes that economic freedom is part of the total freedom of individuals. The freedom to choose what to do with ones life and to choose what to spend ones earnings on, freedom from coercion. This article got me interested on Friedman's view on the legalization of drugs and so I found a video (located at the top of this post) about Friedman and what he thinks about the war on drugs. He agrees with the author of this article, the probation of drugs causes more harm than good. He says that people should be free the do whatever they want as long is they are not doing any harm to others, and they should be free from governmental coercion. He argues that the consequence of making drugs illegal is that it drives up the price. He even goes on to say that the government protects big drug cartels by making it almost impossible for a ordinary person to enter into the drug market. He explains that these drugs are available, legal or not, and that by making these drugs harder to get it increases the price of drugs. He also believes that drug-users are almost driven by the government to try more dangerous drugs. In this interview he argues that by making drugs like marijuana and cocaine more expensive, it drove to the creation of crack-cocaine and ultimately forces drug-users to use more dangerous drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin because they are cheaper.

However, Friedman believes in cooperation without coercion. This means that he would be against the taxation of drugs, which was suggested in the article I first mentioned. Friedman believes that any kind of taxation on the people or the market limits an individuals total freedom. Taxation limits a persons income, which restricts a person from freely doing what they want to do. In his eyes economics and politics should be kept separate and the government should be an instrument to the economy. Which means that the government has no duty to make certain products legal or illegal. The government is given the rules and its only duty is to enforce those rules, not to manipulate them. By choosing which consumer goods are legal and illegal is manipulating the economy and Friedman would be against this.