PROHIBITION IS IMMORAL

It is one thing for The Wall Street Journal editorial page to support
the mislabeled "war on drugs" ("500 Drug Geniuses," Review & Outlook,
June 10); it is quite another for you to misrepresent the views of
those of us who believe that the "war on drugs is now causing more
harm than drug abuse itself." I am, in your words, a "libertarian
economist." Yet I do not "believe in backward [i.e., positively]
sloping demand curves." I challenge you to name one libertarian
economist who does.

You suggest that "these people" state "publicly whether they
themselves use any of these drugs recreationally." As for myself, I
have not done so during the past 85-plus years. But I make no
guarantees for the future.

More seriously, do you really believe that no one should publicly
support a policy change from which he or she would benefit? Or at
least without stating explicitly that he or she would? On the stricter
standard, I doubt that the Journal could easily fill its editorial
page. And it certainly has not adhered to an explicit statement of
interest. Sauce for the goose but not the gander?

Finally, I have long believed that prohibition, whether of liquor,
cigarettes or drugs, is an immoral policy. Immoral premises produce
the immoral results that you list: "political corruption, economic
distortion, crime, AIDS and other social ills." If it is morally
acceptable for the government to tell me what I may ingest, surely it
is also morally acceptable for the government to tell the Journal what
it may print.

I am dismayed that my favorite editorial page should be so internally
inconsistent.

Milton Friedman

Stanford, Calif.