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on the free market? Prison conditions may be miserable, but they are granted to the drug addicts automatically, as a taxpayer-funded gift for having broken a silly law. Why should drug addicts deserve even poor-quality food and shelter for ruining their lives?

The War on Drugs harms innocent schoolchildren, who are at risk of being suspended or expelled by draconian public school administrators for bringing in sugar, salt, aspirin, or other "drug look-alikes."

In the inner cities, the War on Drugs harms anyone who does not engage in drug consumption; it subjects them to the tyranny of black-market drug gangs, which have by now usurped control of certain ghettoes. The government prohibits peaceful, overt trade in drugs, but it cannot legislate away demand for them. The demand persists, and some suppliers are still willing to satisfy it. With supply artificially reduced by the government, potential profits are higher for those who manage to enter the black market for drugs, if they avoid government detection and arrest. The armed thug will be far more effective at dodging the law than the otherwise legitimate businessman, since the armed thug is unscrupulous about using any means necessary to achieve his aim. The thug's competitors and associates in the illegal drug trade will have no legal recourse if he wrongs them; they must either submit to his brute force or arm themselves in response.

Thus is created the environment of competing heavily armed drug gangs, willing to murder to gain black market share. Such drug gangs are far more effective at seizing power than ordinary citizens; it should come as no surprise that the gangs should eventually begin to terrorize and extort even those not directly connected to the drug trade. What opportunities would a poor but respectable resident of the inner city have to rise economically in such a climate? If he seeks employment, the armed thugs have driven out all legitimate businesses. He might be able to create a business of his own, if he pays the drug lords an occasional cut of his profits, which is likely to be more substantial than any government-imposed tax. Furthermore, while government bureaucracy may be frustrating, a bureaucrat will not shoot a citizen who displeases him on the spot. One's economic future in drug-gang-controlled areas is far more volatile than even under heavily interventionist and capricious but non-thuggish bureaucracies.

Most likely, the inner-city resident will not bother with the dangers of

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