L. Neil Smith Quotes

The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.

You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let's just get rid of all the drug laws.

When a company owns a drug, it has a responsibility to make sure that the drug is available to all who need it.

Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of that child.

Marijuana is rejected all over the world. Damned. In England heroin is alright for out-patents, but marijuana? They'll put your ass in jail. I wonder why that is? The only reason could be: To Serve the Devil - Pleasure! Pleasure, which is a dirty word in Christian culture.

Mafia is the best example of capitalism we have.

U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.

I don't think marijuana should be illegal.

I definitely believe in legalizing drugs. It does take the mystery away. It takes the money away, so suddenly there are no drug wars. If you're a junkie, you can get help easier.

We should decriminalize all drugs. The assumptions on which our drug policies are based are flawed.

The prohibition of drugs causes crime. You don't have to legalize, just decriminalize it.

Adam Smith's was a real universalism in intent. Laissez Faire was intended to establish a world community as well as a natural harmony of interests within each nation... But the "children of darkness" were able to make good use of his creed. A dogma which was intended to guarantee the economic freedom of the individual became the "ideology" of vast corporate structures of a later period of capitalism, used by them, and still used, to prevent a proper political control of their power.

The Americans take a product that literally grows on trees and turn it into a valuable commodity. Without them, cocaine and marijuana would be like oranges, and instead of making billions smuggling it, I’d be making pennies doing stoop labor in some California field, picking it.

I fear the future I wish for my children is at risk, so I'm taking action. Please join me.

When the day comes that it is time to adopt the alternative of lifting punishment for consumption of drugs, it would have to come all over the world. Humanity some day will see that it is best in that sense.

He that hath a wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.

Pot enables you to think clearly without any fear or any limits. It's a mind-expander, which is part of why it's illegal and why drugs like Vicodin are legal.

I think our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that's a principle that we've gotta hold to as well. But what I don't wanna do is get bottled up in a lot of ideology and is this conservative or liberal. My interest is finding something that works.

If the price of the drug people want to use is through the roof, well then they're going to have to commit crimes to get the money to get the drug. You don't see any crimes committed over a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of beer, do you?

The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.

I have read a great deal of economic theory for over 50 years now, but have found only one economic "law" to which I can find NO exceptions: Where the State prevents a free market, by banning any form of goods or services, consumer demand will create a black market for those goods or services, at vastly higher prices. Can YOU think of a single exception to this law?

There was no protection, no quota system when it came to luck. It was like that moment in math when a child learns that the odds of heads or tails is always one-in-two, no matter how many times one has flipped the coin and gotten heads. Every flip, the odds are the same. Every day, you could be unlucky all over again.

If you are determined not to risk pain, then you must do without many things: having children, getting married, the ecstasy of sex, the hope of ambition, friendship-all that makes life alive, meaningful and significant.

Other people's risks are statistical. When it's your risk, your own child, it isn't statistical anymore.