There's No Justice In The War On Drugs Milton Friedman Summary

Milton Friedman was a man of many hats, and never really stuck to just being one of them: A professor by profession in Economics, Lead financial advisor for Richard M. Nixon (President at time), Nobel Prize winner for his studies in macroeconomist, and finally a writer in heated political debate. Friedman is a man of accomplishment, and in right he has his opinions on what the American government should be. In his article, “There’s No Justice in the War on Drugs,” Freidman has found the government’s ethics to come into question, and uses factual evidence on specific topics to defend his argument to make us understand that the war on drugs is unnecessary. His theory behind his essay comes down to the government’s actions has impacted American’s

rights and collapsed some economic stand points of those inland and abroad. Being an Economist he does know what he’s talking about, and has the credibility in doing so; being chose to aid the president is a big deal. Ending this by saying Friedman is someone of character and knows quite a bit more than the American people in the economic stand point.
The professor finds himself discussing and reiterating his opinion one the war on drugs by comparing it much to the former social crisis of prohibition. In his midlife he wrote for the Newsweek expressing his thoughts on the war on drugs. His stance in the sub article was that he did not want the American government to impede on the individual’s right to make choice directly or indirectly. He follows this with his thesis that it should now be considered unethical to fight this war by government power, much like the government did during prohibition. Even though it is stated in a question form it gets the point across that he does not agree with it.
Friedman has many claims and uses multipara graph form of writing to explain each “problem” with the war on drugs.

This is beneficial to his argument because it makes problems bolded out to his opinion which really makes his thesis hit home quicker. To begin his argument he creates the word informers and that the real world didn’t need them until the hidden network of drug trade was created. He uses gets the reader’s attention by calling the police and government just as corrupted a drug dealers and addicts due to the amount of money that is at stake. Next, arguing that the size of prisons are way too much to handle by attacking the empathy of the government. He explains this by saying, “There is no light at the end of that tunnel. How many of our citizens do we want to turn into criminals before we yell “enough”?” By doing this he draws at the logical appeal that not having these laws would create a lesser amount of population criminalized by illegal drugs. He also attacks the law making body for not doing its job in the area of people living in chronic pain and making people who use “illegal” drugs the criminals of America. The emotional attack hits home to most people in America because most people do know someone who lives in daily pain, and never seem to be able to find treatment. With this form of specialized points like stated above he has the power to tap into our personal emotions to get his point across that drug warfare in America isn’t necessarily what America

needs.
He uses the big comparison throughout the essay to prohibition and all of the wrong doings that came with it, most of which are common knowledge. For example he states, “That basic ethical flaw has inevitably generated specific evils during the past quarter century, just as it did during our earlier attempt at alcohol prohibition,” to begin his argument of government evils. It makes a person look into what the government is really doing because some people would state that history would repeat itself, and the analogy hits home because the fact it truly did happen to Americans. This being said the use of the analogy does draw the keen attention to those in woe.
His argument in general is strong. Using facts like, “we incarcerate 3,109 black men for every 100, 000,” makes it hard to argue the ethicality of the government. He doesn’t necessarily give the other side a chance to explain the reasoning behind this and doesn’t ever explain any of the benefits that homeland war on drugs is good. Meaning it is a very opinionative article toward the subjects so bias is inferred.
Friedman’s writing skill made this article’s audience broad for everyone in America until he got to the key points of his arguments where it only concerned with informing the uniformed.

He makes the general statement that the war on drugs is unethical by the government which should affect every American. Then he specializes his argument into seven key points which may only affect some people in America, but still informs those who didn’t know before. To do this he uses facts and statistics to sort of impress the people uneducated in the subject to grab their opinion in his favor. Saying this makes the audience more informed but impressionable. Concluding that his audience was the unaware Americans, and just Americans in

general.
In conclusion Milton Friedman the man of many hats, derived his argument from fact, and reoccurring theme in America (prohibition). By using ethos pathos and logos he touched the thought of some individuals who were not aware of the situation at hand. The professor’s intentions were good, and should be accredited that informing those unware is necessary, but could have found some common ground with the idea that drugs are a problem in the states. In all said Friedman does have an effective method to get people to understand his opinion.