A More Perfect Union

Megan Mcardle at The Atlantic

The problem with teacher's unions is inherent in the way that Democrats talk about unions: by banding together, they say, you create a powerful counterweight equal and opposite to the power of the companies in negotiations.

So the schools have a gigantic, powerful bargaining bloc. Who doesn't have a bargaining bloc? The kids.

Of course, the customers of corporations don't bargain with unions either--but they have the right of exit, which is what prevents the unions (or their corporate bosses) from turning them upside down and shaking them until the last nickel falls out of their pockets. Unsurprisingly, the schools in this country that function worst are the ones where the kids have no realistic ability to exit. So for whom are those schools run? The teacher's unions, the principal's unions, the janitor's unions, the friends and relations of people with seats on the school board. The children have the least powerful voice. Which is why, as far as I can tell, every single thing that is proposed by any of these groups "for the children" has the primary side effect of employing more teachers/janitors/principals, paying same more, or making their jobs more pleasant.

For progress to become a reality we need to break the teacher's unions. I like the way she explains how the market is different for teacher's unions compared to other unions where market forces can hold it in check. This is effect of the government monopoly. Sphere: Related Content

Libertarian Sarah Palin

I like her more than McCain, Obama and Biden put together. It is time to put a libertarian in the White House.

The libertarian VP candidate
by David Harsanyi on August 29, 2008

… or, rather, as libertarian as you can hope for on a major ticket.

For Republican nominee John McCain, there are a numerous potential political downsides and upsides to choosing a relative unknown for VP. But stepping outside the horserace aspects of 2008, Palin is the most libertarian Republican that’s been on a major ticket for a long time. This ideological storyline should appeal to many Western voters.

Yes, Palin is pro-life and yes, she’s made a huge mistake by supporting windfall taxes on oil companies. But she was a tireless reformer against government waste in a state that is famous for it. She, after all, shut down the Bridge to Nowhere.

Palin sued the Federal government over its outrageous listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. She is an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. Her views on the Drug War are more reasonable than most in Washington. Her framing of cultural issues is far less divisive and strident than some of what we hear coming from the hard social right.

Libertarians around the net:

Palin, an inspired choice.

Nice round up here:

Libertarian reactions to Sarah Palin pick

Even the guys at Lew Rockwell's LRC Blog seem to warm to her. Either hell has frozen over or she is one extraordinary individual.

The more I read the more I like her. It is about time. Sphere: Related Content

Cincinnati Public School Report Card - Disability Questions

From the Cincinnati Public School Report Card.

The percentage of “Students with Disabilities” is 20.3% for the district. That is more than one in every five kids.

Cincinnati is a market leader among Ohio cities...

District Disabled Students
Cleveland Metropolitan 10014 20.0%
Columbus City 8315 15.7%
Cincinnati City 6861 20.3%
Toledo City 5057 18.6%
Akron City 4379 17.5%
Dayton City 3038 20.2%


The state of Ohio defines disabilities as:

1) Autism
2) Cognitive Disability (mental retardation)
3) Deaf-blindness
4) Deafness
5) Emotional Disturbance
6) Hearing Impairment
7) Multiple Disabilities
8) Orthopedic Impairment
9) Other Heath Impairment (which includes various ailments including attention deficit disorder.)

A link to the pdf where the State of Ohio defines all of these is found here: Whose IDEA is this?



I view the fact that slightly over 1 in 5 kids in the school system are classified as disabled is alarming. What is worse is that in some schools over 1 in 4 students is disabled.

A history of disability statistics in Cincinnati Public Schools:

2008 20.30%
2007 20.50%
2006 19.70%
2005 18.50%
2004 17.00%
2003 16.90%
2002 16.20%
2001 14.40%
2000 12.30%

At the beginning of the decade only 12.3% of Cincinnati Public School Students were classified as disabled. That is about 1 in every 8 kids.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Ignorance is bliss of course, and I have no idea what types of disabilities are seeing spikes. I also don’t know if the state has changed the official working definition of disability over this time period. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of where the increases of disabled students are coming from.

I also wonder if money could possibly be an issue. Does the government pay more for schools to teach disabled kids? Do parents that want to collect SSI for their children have an incentive to pressure a school psychologist to label their kid disabled? Could any of these statistics be money driven? It is an honest question. I am a firm believer in the market. If you pay money for disabled kids the market will reward you will more disabled kids. That is how markets work. Sphere: Related Content

The Shot Heard Round the World!

Hyperbole is strength of mine. More appropriately this is the shot that is about to be heard around the world. Here is a clickable link to the article:

Dems Rally Against Unions!
OK, teachers' unions. Still ...
By Mickey Kaus

One panelist--I think it was Peter Groff, president of the Colorado State Senate, got the ball rolling by complaining that when the children's agenda meets the adult agenda, the "adult agenda wins too often." Then Cory Booker of Newark attacked teachers unions specifically--and there was applause. In a room of 500 people at the Democratic convention!

"The politics are so vicious," Booker complained, remembering how he'd been told his political career would be over if he kept pushing school choice, how early on he'd gotten help from Republicans rather than from Democrats. The party would "have to admit as Democrats we have been wrong on education." Loud applause!

Mayor Adrian Fenty of D.C. joined in, describing the AFT's attempt to block the proposed pathbreaking D.C. teacher contract. Booker denounced "insane work rules," and Groff talked about doing the bidding of "those folks who are giving money [for campaigns], and you know who I'm talking about." Yes, they did!

As Jon Alter, moderating the next panel, noted, it was hard to imagine this event happening at the previous Democratic conventions. (If it had there would have been maybe 15 people in the room, not 500.) Alter called it a "landmark" future historians should note. Maybe he was right.

Is this a "landmark" that future historians should note? Is this the shot heard round the world? Time will tell, but it gets me excited.

Cory Booker is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. By his own words he was told that if kept pushing school choice his political career would be over. I don't think for a minute that this happened in isolation. I think every black Democrat politician presiding over an urban school district in decay has been told that if they look to the market for options that they are F'in finished in this town.

And I think that is a main reason that he got resounding applause. He was exposing the man behind the curtain. "I am mad as hell, and I am not going to take it anymore!!!"

Cory Booker broke the veil. It will be interesting to see what follows. He has at least served notice that you can't continue to push around black urban democrats and threatening them without the possibility that teachers unions will be exposed for compromising the futures of young black children for political considerations.

And again, those other Democrats at the convention are applauding because they know it is true. They know the make or brake pressure that is applied to all candidates in which they have to decide either for their community's children or their own political future.

Democrats are moving in the direction of school choice. More evidence abounds...

With the Democrats in Denver

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, his Newark counterpart Cory Booker, the Rev. Al Sharpton, New York City superintendent Joel Klein and others gathered to push for merit pay for teachers and other accountability measures for urban schools. The biggest obstacle, they all agreed, is "special interests," by which for the most part they mean teachers unions -- whose members will make up about a tenth of convention delegates, according to National Education Association executive director John Wilson.

Sharpton described the terrible schools open to many poor black children as the biggest civil rights issue of the 21st century. "If our parents could stand up to biting dogs in Alabama, we can stand up to special interests in America's cities," he said.

Fenty said he supports Obama and his message of change -- "and change is most important in education." He offered ongoing teacher contract talks in the District as "a real life example." Chancellor Michelle Rhee's proposed contract includes merit pay for teachers who achieve results. But the American Federation of Teachers, "which I don't think does anything for the District of Columbia," is weighing in against the contract. Why? "The only thing I can figure out is, the people who are elected [as union officials] want to keep their jobs."

Could this be a start of an avalanche? There is a strong undercurrent in the Democratic party for choice and change. Here is the rebuttal in the article...

The NEA's Wilson, in the audience, told me he found the references to special interests, and the exclusion of unions from the conference, "disrespectful to teachers, and naive . . . . You're not going to change the current system until you bring in teachers and their collective voice."

The NEA would like to have the teachers "represented", in fact he would like the teacher's unions to have run the forum. They could have proposed more spending. Who cares about results. Poverty pimps anyone? Meet the NEA.

Indeed, both big teachers unions insist they favor transformation and reform. But any time the talk goes to pay for performance or other ways to attract the best teachers to the worst schools, they change the subject to the problems with parents, or say the need for change is so big that we shouldn't get bogged down with little tactical things like the right to get rid of teachers who don't perform. There was a lot of hope expressed in the auditorium yesterday that Obama would stand up to the unions -- and for children who are being deprived a decent chance in life.

So far, Obama hasn't done much more than nibble at that one.

Like any issue, we have no idea what Obama will actually do. We can hope though...

We have been reforming our schools for as long as the NEA, the UFT and the Department of Education have been in existence. The only reform they don't want is market reform. It all boils down to this, the teacher's unions have a government monopoly, and they oppose people having the choice to avoid their monopoly.

Greg Forster of the Friedman Foundation posted on this here. That is what alerted me to this story.

The Friedman Foundation is a favorite of mine. They have a publication entitled "The School Choice Advocate" which I get in the mail. You can view the latest issue on PDF here.

I just go my last copy, and the cover story is about Democrats for School Choice. A timely cover is ever given what has happened at the Democratic Convention.

The article was written by a proud Democrat, Michael Tobman. Some quotes:

"Democrats are natural advocates for school choice principles and policies. That they haven't been is more about institutional ties that bind and outdated politics than it is about the actual substance of school choice"

Michelle Rhee (regarding school choice and teachers unions) at a press conference:

"We are finally going to put aside the rights and privileges and priorities of adults and return the focus to children"

Albert Sharpton (nobody calls him Albert but me!):

"Out children are drowning in the waters of indifference and old coalitions no longer work and no longer care"

Talk about politics making strange bedfellows. I am quoting Albert Sharpton. I still think he is a sleazebag though. I detest the man, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend in some cases, and thus I quote Reverend Al.

I think a gang rush to the door will be in effect at some point. I have always believed that School Choice is a Civil Rights issue and the next big Civil Rights issue in our country's future. At some point school choice will move from the controversial fringe to be an idea that is obvious and accepted by all. When will that happen? The date is coming close my friends.

And when it does, politicians will be exposed on being on the wrong side of history. They won't want that at all, for they are politicians. Once the shift is recognized as inevitable you will get a "gang rush to the door" That could be happening right now. The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'. Sphere: Related Content

Public Schools - Dumber Than Dirt

One man's peek into the future...

American kids, dumber than dirt
Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

No, my friend takes it all a full step — or rather, leap — further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that.

We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.

and this...

It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.

It is, in short, nothing less than a tidal wave of dumb, with once-passionate, increasingly exasperated teachers like my friend nearly powerless to stop it. The worst part: It's not the kids' fault. They're merely the victims of a horribly failed educational system.

The collapse is going to be spectacular. Sphere: Related Content

Income Inequality

Cafe Hayek has a constest going on, and the comments are outstanding...

Link Sphere: Related Content

Quick Hits on Global Cooling

Is Climate Change… Racist?
by La Shawn Barber

And we aren't just "deniers" anymore. Krugman wants us to be labeled evil and immoral.

Climate Debate Daily is a useful site. I should link to it.

For a laugh, Newsweek from 1975 "The Cooling World"

New poll shows CO2 hysteria fading in the U.S.

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling Sphere: Related Content

Obama Slams Clarence Thomas

For Clarence Thomas the lynching never ends. Obama didn't think that Thomas was a stong enough legal thinker. He then went on to praise Scalia for his "intellectual brilliance" and said that John Roberts was "clearly smart" & "thoughtful". I guess Thomas just doesn't measure up intellectually in Obama's eyes.

It is not the first time they have called him ignorant. Indeed, this appears to be straight out of the Democratic playbook...

While being interviewed on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on Dec. 5, Sen. Reid was asked about the possibility of Justice Thomas replacing current Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is currently being treated for thyroid cancer. Reid called Thomas "an embarrassment to the Supreme Court" and said his opinions "are poorly written."

In the same interview, Senator Reid praised Justice Antonin Scalia, calling him "one smart guy." Scalia and Thomas share many of the same views. Scalia, of course, is white.

Legal scholars are not as critical of Justice Thomas' legal prowess as are liberal politicians and activists. Commenting on liberal criticism of Thomas' jurisprudence, University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse wrote: "It is my observation that liberals tend to lapse into the lazy belief that those who don't agree with them must be stupid or evil, and to me Reid's remarks look a bit like that. ... I realize the senators can't get away with opposing a judicial nomination on the grounds that they simply disagree with their opinions ... but to attack Thomas' intelligence is shameless."

Man do they hate Clarence Thomas You could only imagine what the reaction would be if the situation was reversed and Republicans were smeering a liberal who happened to be black. Could you even imagine?

Hat tip to Riehl World View Sphere: Related Content

Cool in the Windy City

Decade has had fewest 90-degree days since 1930

Decade has had fewest 90-degree days since 1930
By Tom Skilling
August 13, 2008

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century's opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That's by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

This summer's highest reading to date has been just 91 degrees. That's unusual. Since 1928, only one year—2000—has failed to record a higher warm-season temperature by Aug. 13.

What an inconvenient truth. Somebody should clue them in to the program. Global warming is here and the debate is over. Sphere: Related Content

Bring Out Your Dead!

Michigan Central Station

Flight of the dead: Suburban families move loved ones from Detroit cemeteries

Detroit has lost half its population since its heyday of the 1950s, and every year the city hemorrhages an estimated 5,000 people more. First it was white flight to the suburbs; then with the city's continued spiral into poverty and violence, blacks began to flee to those same suburbs. And while census figures show that whites are returning to some of the nation's largest cities, Detroit is experiencing a flight of a different kind. As the Imbrunones' second funeral demonstrates, Detroit is experiencing the flight of the dead.

The movement of the dead from the nation's largest black city to its overwhelmingly white suburbs is a small, though socially symbolic phenomenon, revealing the grinding problems of race, crime and economics that plague both sides of Eight Mile.

From 2002 through 2007, the remains of about 1,000 people have been disinterred and moved out of the city, according to permits stored in metal filing cabinets in the city's department of health. Looked at in another way, for about every 30 living human beings who leave Detroit, one dead human being follows. Moreover, anecdotal evidence compiled by a Detroit professor suggests the figure may be twice as high, meaning city records may be incomplete and that thousands upon thousands of deceased people have been relocated from the city over the past 20 years.

According to Dr. Stephen Vogel, the official numbers are vastly under reported...

Dr. Stephen Vogel, dean of architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy, believes the out-migration of the dead from Detroit is undercounted.

He and his researchers conducted a study three years ago, interviewing the director of each of Detroit's 28 cemeteries. According to that study, about 400 to 500 disinterments occur each year.

When even the dead flee you know you have hit rock bottom.

Could people left on their own ever do this to themselves? You look at the pockets of poverty in Detroit and those exposed by Katrina and you see the hand of government all over them.

Related: House Sells For $1 in Detroit Sphere: Related Content

Let's Hear It For Government Health Care!

3 Southern California hospitals accused of using homeless for fraud

But as investigators began to unravel the incident, they say they found something far different: a massive scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars by recruiting homeless patients for unnecessary medical services.

The elaborate enterprise churned thousands of indigents through hospitals over the last four years and billed Medicare and Medi-Cal for costly and unjustified medical procedures, federal, state and local investigators said Wednesday.

Those involved in the alleged conspiracy "ranged from street-level operatives to the chief executive of a hospital," U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien said.

Another abuse of government funding. Doesn't come as a surprise. This is what happens when you have government health care.

According to court filings, "runners" or "stringers" on skid row looked for homeless recruits. Prospects were offered small sums of money, typically $20 or $30, to be paid upon completion of a hospital stay of one to three days. The street recruiter typically received $40 for each homeless recruit with Medicare eligibility and $20 for each recruit with Medi-Cal benefits, according to the city attorney's lawsuit.

Some solicitations were direct, but others were coded, according to the city attorney's lawsuit. One alleged street pitch referred to the color scheme of the Medi-Cal eligibility card: "Red, white and blue, just make it do what it do, for me and you."

I have to hand it to them. It takes some moxy to have such an elaborate setup and to be selling government fraud on street corners...

From the New York Times:

Alleged Scheme Involved Homeless

LOS ANGELES — An investigation into what the authorities say was a scheme that used homeless people to bilk tens of millions of dollars from federal and state health insurance programs began four years ago with a tip from a rescue mission employee.

The employee, Scott Johnson, who works for the Union Rescue Mission in the heart of Skid Row, said he had noticed vans and cars loading up homeless people.

“Sometimes they were so full of people that they put people in the trunks of cars,” Mr. Johnson said Thursday as he passed out bottles of water to the homeless. “I wondered what was going on, so I called the state authorities.”

They certainly were not bashful about it. I guess you need a production line and a feeder if you want to generate millions of $ worth of claims.

And then their was this interesting quote from the times:

Although Medicare scams are relatively common, Mr. O’Brien said they usually implicated small clinics or doctors’ offices. The scale and duration of this enterprise is unusual, investigators said.

The fact that medicare scams are "relatively common" is just a thought in passing. The fact that this is the case doesn't merit much discussion. This case is just exceptional in scope. Perhaps they should look at numbers for health care expenditures on the homeless across the nation. They might even notice a patern.

Auditors of Medicare fraud should get down to busting businesses

Medicare bureaucrats promised to fix bogus billing six years ago, but the shenanigans continue. Our federal government gave $11 billion to crooked doctors and medical suppliers last year.

In South Florida, federal agents found that one out of three medical equipment businesses billing Medicare didn't exist. Unfortunately, they discovered that after the bogus "businesses" raked in $97 million in 2006.

Government Health Care is building on the great tradition of government housing and government schools. Let's hear it for Government Health Care! Sphere: Related Content

Jonah Goldberg on Capitalism

Link: The Spoiled Children of Capitalism by Jonah Goldberg

People ask, “Why is there poverty in the world?” It’s a silly question. Poverty is the default human condition. It is the factory preset of this mortal coil. As individuals and as a species, we are born naked and penniless, bereft of skills or possessions. Likewise, in his civilizational infancy man was poor, in every sense. He lived in ignorance, filth, hunger, and pain, and he died very young, either by violence or disease.

The interesting question isn’t “Why is there poverty?” It’s “Why is there wealth?” Or: “Why is there prosperity here but not there?”

At the end of the day, the first answer is capitalism, rightly understood. That is to say: free markets, private property, the spirit of entrepreneurialism and the conviction that the fruits of your labors are your own.

For generations, many thought prosperity was material stuff: factories and forests, gold mines and gross tons of concrete poured. But we now know that these things are merely the fringe benefits of wealth. Stalin built his factories, Mao paved over the peasants. But all that truly prospered was misery and alienation.

His approach should be applauded. Sometimes we don't find the correct answer because we aren't asking the right questions. I liked this one too:

[On Capitalism] Leaving religion out of it, no idea has given more to humanity. The average working-class person today is richer, in real terms, than the average prince or potentate of 300 years ago. His food is better, his life longer, his health better, his menu of entertainments vastly more diverse, his toilette infinitely more civilized. And yet we constantly hear how cruel capitalism is while this collectivism or that is more loving because, unlike capitalism, collectivism is about the group, not the individual.

Above is the reason that when we debate poverty in America we are debating relative poverty vs absolute poverty. Absolute poverty can't be found in America, and our working poor have a relatively high standard of living compared to the rest of the world or when compared to generations past. So we concentrate between the differences between the rich and the poor and promote class warfare. For those who stand to benefit, it is a winning strategy. For society as a whole it has harmful implications for freedom and prosperity. Sphere: Related Content

Larry Elder take's on CNN's "Black In America"

Here is the article: A Black Conservative Lament by Larry Elder

In the article a friend of Larry's wrote him a letter describing how he was interviewed for hours and then they cut him down to sound bites. He was ticked to say the least. Here is a shot from him:

They spoke to a professor from Columbia, who was droning on about how the legacy of slavery is to account for blacks' out-of-wedlock birthrate. Slavery?! This nonsense was seconded by another panelist. When I corrected them and said that the out-of-wedlock rate was lower during Jim Crow … eyes began rolling

I am tired of the legacy of slavery being the account for all black ills. Thomas Sowell has provided facts and figures for quite some time. The black family started it's collapse in the 60's (the 1960's, not the 1860s). The problems of black literacy and education also started in the 1960's. If we want to affix blame, we need to look back at what happened in the 1960s.

The money shot of the article comes from Elder:

The problems of the "black community" have to do with the welfare-state-induced breakdown (or, more accurately, non-formation) of the family. This causes a disinterest in education and leads to poor values, reckless and irresponsible breeding, as well as a lack of the job skills necessary in an information-age society. We also have grievance groups – black "leaders"; the oh-so-sympathetic media; fear- and guilt-laden whites who refuse to say (as they do to their own children) work hard and play by the rules; and many reluctant blacks who refuse to preach the message of "no excuses, hard work" for fear of being labeled "Uncle Toms."

I told my sister-in-law that nearly half of Harvard's black freshman class consists of blacks from the Caribbean or Africa – areas less prosperous with far less opportunity. Care to explain that?

I agree with the 'Sage from South Central' whole heartedly on these matters.

I watched Black in America on CNN. I tried to watch as much as I could but I didn't view the whole thing. When they talked about education I didn't see them bring up the idea of school choice and vouchers. Blacks support school choice more than any other demographic. How can you cover what it is like to be Black in America and discuss the issue of urban education without even bringing that up? I was stunned. I shouldn't have been.

When they talked about poverty, they never questioned if government programs we part of the problem. I think they are a large part of the problem, as does Larry Elder. They don't even ask the question.

The whole series is biased because of excluded viewpoints. I wonder who makes the decision that vouchers would not be covered. It would be one thing if they loaded the deck against the voucher movement, it is quite another when it isn't even raised as an issue. Sphere: Related Content

U.S. Leads The World In Illegal Drug Use

The War On Drugs sees no end in sight...

U.S. Leads The World In Illegal Drug Use (CBS)
Survey Says People With Higher Incomes More Likely To Use Legal And Illegal Drugs, Marijuana Use Widely Reported In U.S.

Despite tough anti-drug laws, a new survey shows the U.S. has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world.

The World Health Organization's survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use.

For example, Americans were four times more likely to report using cocaine in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand (16% vs. 4%),

Marijuana use was more widely reported worldwide, and the U.S. also had the highest rate of use at 42.4% compared with 41.9% of New Zealanders.

In contrast, in the Netherlands, which has more liberal drug policies than the U.S., only 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported marijuana use.

US leads world in substance abuse, WHO finds (Reuters)

Survey Finds U.S. Leads World in Substance Abuse (Fox News)

The World Health Organization Report:

Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys

You can read Friedman below, and that was back in 72 when Nixon was coining the phrase "War on Drugs".

Stop the insanity. Sphere: Related Content