Prohibition Fighter
As a Harvard grad, former Princeton professor, and the son of a respected rabbi, Ethan Nadelmann might seem like an unlikely advocate for legalizing marijuana. But when you meet him, it all makes a lot of sense.
David Lyons, Newsweek, 15 October 2009
The idea is not that drugs are good but that prohibition is bad. Nadelmann argues that marijuana prohibition is as counterproductive as alcohol prohibition was in the 1920s, and that we'd all be better off if the government would just regulate and tax it. Ironically, this would give the government more control over the drug, not less.
Phi Beta Iota: We all now know that the prohibition on marijuana that Ronald Reagan did so much for as an actor is based on outright lies, bad science, and well-intentioned but idiotic politicized policy. No surprises there. What is happening is cultural, economic, intellectual and ultimately political: We the People in the aggregate are vastly more competent at managing our affairs, and in the next decade, self-governance and real-time public policy by the public, using public intelligence in the public interest, is going to become pervasive.
