STANFORD UNIVERSITY: CARDINAL CHRONICLE WEEKLY CAMPUS COLUMN

Milton Friedman and George Shultz told law enforcement officers last week
that narcotics should be legalized because the "war on drugs" has failed.
"As long as we have an approach that creates a highly criminalized
industry, we're going to have difficulty doing anything important about
it," said Shultz, a former secretary of state. Nobel laureate Friedman said
what is special about drug enforcement is that it is trying to stop a
victimless crime. "When a willing buyer has a willing seller, there is no
one to report it," he said.

Two attendees at the Hoover-sponsored conference on "Ethical Issues in Drug
Enforcement" disagreed.

"To suggest that there are no victims is totally incorrect," said RICHARD
CAMPBELL, police chief of Rosewell, N.M. "There is fallout. I get a lot of
calls from neighbors because of the flow of drug activity" in their
neighborhoods.

ROGER PAYNE, deputy chief of the New Mexico state police, added, "We've
become apathetic in the war on drugs." He called for more education and
enforcement. Shultz agreed with the education part. "We don't want the
message to be, 'We don't care,'" he said. "But a situation where everyone
who touches [illegal drugs] is criminalized is wrong. It's always
interesting how much resistance there seems to be to something that makes
sense."