Had drugs been decriminalized, crack would never have been invented and there would today be fewer addicts... The ghettos would not be drug-and-crime-infested no-man's lands... Colombia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror, and we would not be distorting our foreign policy because of it.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the decriminalization of drugs could have prevented the rise of crack cocaine and its associated societal issues.
Milton Friedman argues that the decriminalization of drugs could have significantly altered social and economic conditions related to drug use and trafficking. He believes that removing legal penalties for drug use would not only have prevented the creation of crack cocaine but also alleviated the devastation it brought to communities, reduced crime rates, and altered the dynamics of international relations, particularly with drug-producing countries. The quote highlights the unintended consequences of drug criminalization and advocates for reconsideration of existing drug policies.
In practice
During a panel discussion on drug policy reform, this quote could be used to illustrate the potential benefits of decriminalization.
The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.
Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
There is no place for government to prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to harm themselves.
There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
The great danger to the consumer is the monopoly -whether private or governmental. His most effective protection is free competition at home and free trade throughout the world. The consumer is protected from being exploited by one seller by the existence of another seller from whom he can buy and who is eager to sell to him. Alternative sources of supply protect the consumer far more effectively than all the Ralph Naders of the world.
The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
Forget startup companies. The next frontier is startup countries.
It was sad music. But it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive.
Futurists don't consider overpopulation one of the issues of the future. They consider it the issue of the future.
I had a friend who was a heavy drinker. If somebody asked him if he'd been drunk the night before, he would always answer offhandedly, 'Oh, I imagine.' I've always liked that answer. It acknowledges life as a dream.
The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found, at last, to be of our own producing.
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