SHHH! WE DON'T DISCUSS THE DRUG BIZ HERE

Criminologist John Hagedorn of the University of Illinois at Chicago
fully expected his new study on the inner-city drug trade would
provoke debate. The main contention, based on extensive research in
two poor Milwaukee neighborhoods, is that dealers should be regarded
as "innovative" and "entrepreneurial" and that their "work" is driven
by economics, not immorality. But Milwaukee mayor John Norquist has
essentially put the kibosh on any substantive discussion of the
professor's controversial ideas among city officials and policymakers
by calling the report "twisted" and the product of "drug-addled
minds." Though Hagedorn figured critics would try to label him as soft
on crime, he was initially shocked by the ferocity of Norquist's attack.

He explained to TIME that his intention was to show that "we can't
solve the drug problem without recognizing its economic dimensions."
Indeed, it is difficult to dismiss the report as simply the work of an
ivory-tower leftist apologist.

Its publisher?

The conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski