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OfflineWronguy
Registered: 03/05/05
Posts: 4,450
Last seen: 12 years, 8 months
Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs
    #6321801 - 11/30/06 03:14 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4363169.html

Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs

This is about me, my mugger and Milton Friedman.

I was alone on a New York subway platform, when a man started toward me. His glassy eyes foretold what was to happen. He pointed at the flute case I was carrying and said, "Give it to me."

Pulling the case back, I said "no," at which point he snapped open a knife and pointed it at my ribs.

I then held out the flute, squeaking, "Take it." He grabbed the instrument and ran off.

I didn't need Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate who died on Nov. 16, to explain the economics involved. My mugger obviously had a drug habit made very expensive by the fact that his narcotic was illegal. Were his drug legal, he might have been able to buy it for the price of celery, in which case he wouldn't have needed me. He could have found the required change under seat cushions.

As a pure economic transaction, the mugging was most inefficient. The flute was a battered student model, so my assailant couldn't have gotten more than $40 for it. I called the police to report the crime, which cost the taxpayers money. The bored officer at the other end asked the "what, when and where," then said, "OK, your case number is 5-0-3-7-7-3-1-4" and about five other digits. No one was hurt, and he still had to do the paperwork.

A free-market advocate, Friedman made respectable the idea that the drug trade is an unstoppable activity — and that laws prohibiting drugs were wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and hurting millions of innocent bystanders. Friedman became a hero to many good citizens who did not care to stand between a drug addict and his fix. To Friedman, the war on drugs was not a moral crusade. It was just plain stupid.

In a famous 1989 open letter to Bill Bennett, drug czar under the first President Bush, Friedman wrote: "Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore. ... Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials; illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault."

America now sends an estimated $40 billion a year down the war-on-drugs rat hole. The innocents, meanwhile, keep piling up — from burglarized homeowners to children caught in drug-turf crossfire. Every time law enforcement throws a drug seller in jail, it is making more business for the dealer's competitors.

Try this instead: Put the drug dealers and narcoterrorists out of business by providing free drugs to our addicted populations. That way, we know who the abusers are and can offer them treatment. And those who persist in their addictions wouldn't have to prey on the rest of us for their drug money.

Americans are unlikely to legalize drugs anytime soon, but they could decriminalize some of them. Marijuana is an excellent place to start. Pot appears to do little harm, and several states have tried to all but legalize it.

Friedman was a dues-paying member of the Marijuana Policy Project, which seeks to make marijuana a regulated legal product like cigarettes and alcohol. One study suggests that ending the U.S. prohibition against marijuana could produce savings of nearly $8 billion a year and generate over $6 billion in tax revenues. Friedman and about 500 other leading economists endorsed the findings.

An enlightened drug policy is far off, but those who desire one should light a candle in memory of Milton Friedman.

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InvisibleDihnekis
Stranger
Male
Registered: 07/11/06
Posts: 906
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Wronguy]
    #6321930 - 11/30/06 04:05 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

Brilliant man.

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OfflineJorsher
Psychonaut
Male

Registered: 08/28/06
Posts: 691
Loc: Earth
Last seen: 13 years, 3 months
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Dihnekis]
    #6322030 - 11/30/06 04:38 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

I have faith that we'll eventually have legal weed...please


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5 shroom me!

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OfflineCubeculture
Stranger
Male
Registered: 11/16/06
Posts: 47
Last seen: 17 years, 3 months
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Jorsher]
    #6322122 - 11/30/06 05:19 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

We'll either eventually see MJ legal, or alcohol and tobacco illegal, I'm confident.


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Knock the world right off its feet and straight onto its head.

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OfflineGrogan
Shroomieologist
 User Gallery

Registered: 05/20/03
Posts: 1,146
Last seen: 8 years, 10 months
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Cubeculture]
    #6322311 - 11/30/06 06:20 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

shit no they wont get illegal.. bacco and alco.. could you imagine all the hypocritical church going baptist rednecks that would fire bomb the white house?


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"Maybe a cow occasionally ate a shroom, but it certainly wouldn't be such a potent shroom that the cow would be trippin balls. " LOL

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OfflineDrewwyann
Slayer of ticks
Male User Gallery

Registered: 10/30/06
Posts: 4,077
Loc: Atlantis
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Grogan]
    #6322340 - 11/30/06 06:27 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

i agree. prohibition doesnt work, and the only way to really do anything smart about it is to legalize certain things one by one. Its not up the government to restrict us from things. Land of the free right?


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Anyone need a glass pipe? : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002435158931

Love powerfully :peace::heart::peace:

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OfflineDrewwyann
Slayer of ticks
Male User Gallery

Registered: 10/30/06
Posts: 4,077
Loc: Atlantis
Last seen: 10 years, 5 months
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Drewwyann]
    #6322350 - 11/30/06 06:31 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

its up to parents to let their kids know about these things, and people should be able to make their own decisions. instead of propaganda, they should have actually facts about drugs and stop demonizing them. If we really are free, we shouldnt be thrown in jail for putting things into our own bodies. we should be penalized for what we do to other people while under the influence, because thats part of self control. But it shouldnt be the the choice of white men in suits whether we are able to use drugs.


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Anyone need a glass pipe? : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002435158931

Love powerfully :peace::heart::peace:

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OfflineTahoe58
adapt.....orperish.....
Male User Gallery

Registered: 10/05/06
Posts: 510
Loc: Mongolia
Last seen: 14 years, 7 months
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Wronguy]
    #6324211 - 12/01/06 12:21 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

Friedman wrote: "Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore. ... Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials; illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault."

So true, and yet NOT so heard....and that was YEARS ago....what progress has been made....very little. And ALL that money spent so ineffectively.


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Its all about perspective.....spend more time "being, less time "doing"

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Invisibletakk
Stranger
Male
Registered: 02/22/06
Posts: 736
Re: Theft of her flute makes the case for legalizing drugs [Re: Tahoe58]
    #6325366 - 12/01/06 07:12 PM (17 years, 3 months ago)

great read, great news!  :thumbup:

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