Facts and Artifacts
9 June 2006
News Editor, WTOP Radio
To the Editor:
With her report billed by anchorman Frank Herzog as showing that "marijuana is more dangerous" than teens think, Kate Ryan recounts the recent deadly violence surrounding marijuana sales.
The risk of violence during drug deals is not a danger of drugs; it is a danger of drug prohibition. It makes no more sense to say that marijuana today is dangerous because of the violence that sometimes accompanies its exchange than it does to say that whiskey in the 1920s was dangerous because of the violence that sometimes accompanied its exchange.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
News Editor, WTOP Radio
To the Editor:
With her report billed by anchorman Frank Herzog as showing that "marijuana is more dangerous" than teens think, Kate Ryan recounts the recent deadly violence surrounding marijuana sales.
The risk of violence during drug deals is not a danger of drugs; it is a danger of drug prohibition. It makes no more sense to say that marijuana today is dangerous because of the violence that sometimes accompanies its exchange than it does to say that whiskey in the 1920s was dangerous because of the violence that sometimes accompanied its exchange.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Monday March 26, 2007 at 6:34am