Nick Gillespie gives a balanced and well-reasoned analysis of Arizona's Drug Medicalization, Prevention, and Control Act of 1996 (Prop. 200) in "Prescription: Drugs" (February). The reaction of the feds since the initiative's passage has raised the potential significance of Prop. 200 to a higher level. By insisting on FDA approval for medical marijuana, for example, the feds remind citizens of how the FDA so often is in the way of getting helpful drugs to patients in dire need.
Readers of REASON are well aware of the FDA's responsibility for the avoidable deaths of millions of Americans. By attempting to nullify the change in treatment of nonviolent simple drug possessors (probation for the first two offenses) and the release from prison of simple drug possessors now serving time, both made possible by Prop. 200, the feds knew they would violate the 10th Amendment, recently rediscovered by the Supreme Court in the Lopez decision. So they switched tactics. They now threaten to pull doctors' narcotics licenses for handing a prescription (simply a written medical opinion) to a patient, which, pursuant to the law, would serve as a legal defense in the event that the patient is arrested for possessing marijuana.
In providing the patient with a prescription, a doctor is not giving or selling him marijuana, or even telling him where to get it. He is simply rendering a professional opinion regarding the drug's efficacy and applicability in that given clin-ical situation. This is an exercise of his right to free expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Thus, in order to avoid a 10th Amendment violation, the feds are now swerving into a First Amendment violation.
Prop. 200 is no longer just about drug policy reform. The federal response has raised questions about regulatory reform, states' rights, and the relationship between the people and the state. The behavior of the feds has provided Arizonans and all Americans with a concrete demonstration that the federal government is no longer the servant of the people, the protector of their liberty. Rather, it has become their master.
Jeffrey A. Singer, M.D.
Medical Spokesman
Arizonans for Drug Policy Reform
Phoenix, AZ
School Days
Regarding Rick Henderson's article on school choice, "Schools of Thought"(January): Libertarians who argue for vouchers because private schools cost less than public schools should know better. Of course private schools cost less now, but just wait until they've been funded with tax dollars for a while.
If vouchers prevail, private schools will suddenly have an interest in increased education spending. School administrators will hike tuitions, knowing that politicians will--"for the children"--increase the size of vouchers. Those who object will be political pariahs. We've been down this road before with Pell Grants and student loans, both of which contributed to massive tuition increases.
Should limited-government advocates really seek new constituencies for government spending?
It's also surprising that Henderson doesn't more fully explore church-state objections to vouchers. Parents with vouchers will decide which religious teachings other taxpayers must finance. (Parents aren't the only taxpayers.) Mormons will be forced to finance the teaching that Joseph Smith was not a prophet. Jews will be compelled to support schools associated with the Nation of Islam. Evangelicals will have to finance the teaching of papal authority. This may seem trivial to many, but some of us take religion seriously. If this is trivial, then so is the issue of workers being coerced by unions into supporting political speech.
Voucher proponents usually respond that government programs already support religious education (G.I. Bill, Pell Grants), or allow recipients to spend other people's money on religion (Social Security, welfare). But isn't it a little bizarre for libertarians to justify coercion by citing programs that they don't think should exist?
Timothy Lamer
Falls Church, VA
Rick Henderson claims that Milton Friedman invented the idea of education vouchers. Certainly it was he who introduced that expression as the label for a policy proposal which he has done so much to popularize. But the policy itself seems to have been advocated first by Tom Paine in his 1791 publication The Rights of Man.
Arguing that "a Nation under a well-regulated government should permit none to remain uninstructed,"Paine urged the payment "to every poor family ...of four pounds a year for every child under fourteen years; enjoining the parents of such children to send them to school, to learn reading, writing, and common arithmetic." Paine also straightaway provided an example to all subsequent proposers of costly reforms by proceeding to work out what taxes would be needed to finance this proposal and to indicate administrative means of insuring that his education allowances would in fact be spent, as intended, on elementary schooling.
Professor Antony Flew
Reading, England
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