Daily Archives: October 21, 2015

Culture, Ethics, Laws

a wiser course

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The following is the outline for the report generated by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York in a publication called The Record in June 1994. Read the full article HERE.

This outline which is also the table of contents in the printed report with 83 pages and 203 footnotes of sources and authorities.

A Wiser Course: Ending Drug Prohibition

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. THE COSTS OF PROHIBITION
    1. DISTORTION OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
      1. New York State
      2. Other States
      3. Federal Courts
      4. The Judiciary is Impatient with the Present System
      5. Efforts to Handle Court Congestion
    2. THE PRISON STATE
    3. EROSION OF THE RULE OF LAW AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
      1. Perception of Ineffectiveness
      2. Perception of a Self-Perpetuating System
      3. Police Corruption
      4. Poor Children are Victims of the “War on Drugs”
      5. Selective Prosecution
      6. Erosion of Constitutional Rights
      7. Forfeiture’s Heavy Hand
      8. Erosion of Privacy Rights
    4. PROHIBITION-INDUCED VIOLENCE
    5. PROHIBITION’S FAILURE TO LIMIT DRUG USE
    6. PROHIBITION THREATENS PUBLIC HEALTH
      1. Spread of Disease
        1. Sharing Needles
        2. Trading Sex for Drugs
        3. Neglect of Health
        4. Avoidance of the Health-Care System
      2. Lack of Information and Quality Control
        1. Adulterated Drugs, Designer Drugs, and Drugs of Unknown Potency
        2. Lack of Knowledge About Safer Use
        3. Using Alcohol and Tobacco Instead of “Soft Drugs”
      3. Injuries Due to Violence
      4. Diversion of Resources from Treatment and Prevention
      5. The Sense of Treating Drugs as a Public Health Problem
        1. Treatment Works
        2. Self-Help Groups
        3. Therapeutic Communities
        4. Other Inpatient Drug-Free Treatment Programs
        5. Outpatient Methadone Maintenance Programs
        6. Outpatient Drug-Free Therapy
      6. Empirical Research on Effective Drug Treatment
        1. Studies Examining the Effects of Treatment on Substance Abuse
        2. Studies Examining the Effects of Drug Treatment on the Consequences of Drug Abuse
      7. Education Works
        1. Life Skills Training Program
        2. Students Taught Awareness and Resistance
        3. Project Healthy Choices
        4. Student Assistance Program
        5. Smart Moves
        6. Seattle Social Development Project
        7. Programs for Children of Addicts
  3. TOWARD A NEW DRUG POLICY
  4. CONCLUSION

In addition, there were some dissenting voices. Read their comments here:

Whatever

intellectuals support legalization 4

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This interview with Milton Friedman is found at the Shaffer Drug Library

Interview with Milton Friedman on the Drug War 

The following is an excerpt from “Friedman & Szasz On Liberty and Drugs.” It is from a 1991 interview on “America’s Drug Forum,” a national public affairs talk show that appears on public television stations. Randy Paige is an Emmy Award-winning drug reporter from Baltimore, Maryland; Professor Milton Friedman has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford since 1977, and is considered the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics. Professor Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1976, and is also the recipient of the National Medal of Science and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the U.S. government in 1988.

Paige: Let us deal first with the issue of legalization of drugs. How do you see America changing for the better under that system?

Friedman: I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there’s a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they’re sure of the quality. 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.

Paige: How would legalization adversely affect America, in your view?

Friedman: The one adverse effect that legalization might have is that there very likely would be more people taking drugs. That’s not by any means clear. But, if you legalized, you destroy the black market, the price of drugs would go down drastically. And as an economist, lower prices tend to generate more demand. However, there are some very strong qualifications to be made to that.

The effect of criminalization, of making drugs criminal, is to drive people from mild drugs to strong drugs.

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