What legalization looks like.

• Author: Krayewski, Ed
• Position: Follow-Up - Recreational marijuana

On January 1, government-licensed shops in the state of Colorado started selling marijuana for recreational use, ushering in an era that promises to see more and more jurisdictions decriminalize, and eventually legalize, marijuana. A similar initiative in Washington State also legalized marijuana for recreational use.

reason's October 1988 cover story, "if Drugs Were Legal," asked "notable opponents of drug prohibition to speculate on what the world would look like if drugs were legal." Among the contributors were Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and David Boaz of the Cato Institute.

"Legalize all drugs," Friedman declared. "There should be no FDA or other controls on the drugs," he added, reminding readers of his support for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. The economist admitted he would "shudder at the thought of a TV ad with a pretty young woman saying, 'My brand will give you a high such as you've never experienced,'" but he supported advertisers' right to run such commercials on free speech grounds--even while noting legalization would likely only be palatable to Americans with restrictions on how it was advertised.

Friedman also predicted legalization would "drastically reduce the market price" of drugs. In Colorado, however, a tax regime far more draconian than the one associated with alcohol means that...