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By Root 779 0

of the poor, who am I (or the government) to say that the poor should not be able to make a rational decision to part with an organ—and free themselves from poverty at the same time? That decision is entirely theirs. While outlawing payments to donors is technically a way to keep the system “fair” by giving the rich and the poor equal access, it is only “fair” insofar as both the rich and the poor have an equally rotten chance to receive a healthy kidney. It is simply unfair that people at all economic levels have to succumb to that sad destiny. Why is it that I can purchase poison with which to kill a rodent, but I cannot purchase a finger to replace the one I lost to my saw?

The fact that healthy (and redundant) kidneys are a scarcity makes a compelling case for their economization. We should be using our resources more carefully. If there are thirteen people dying every day because they need a kidney, surely we can incentivize free people in some way. Altruism, apparently, is not enough. The government’s plan is not working. We must leave this predicament, like any supply-and-demand scenario, to the markets. While other governments are actually searching for answers to the organ shortage problem, our government is unnecessarily policing—and failing in the process.

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And Lastly, the Drugs . . .

Drug prohibition is a failed public policy that must be abolished in the United States. Drugs continue to be available (whether you are looking for them or not) on street corners and in schools across America. Surveys taken of high school seniors, year after year, reveal that 85 percent say that marijuana is “easy to get.”36 You can smell pot at concert venues in San Francisco. You can witness cocaine residue in bathrooms in New York City restaurants. You can see the explosions of meth labs in small Nebraska towns. It is no secret. Drugs (and their dealers) flourish just fine under the “watchful” eye of the United States government.

No drug in this country was illegal prior to 1914. Hemp is the product from which marijuana is made. In fact, for much of our history, school textbooks were made from hemp! Even many of the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson and Washington, grew hemp. So why then did drugs go from being a major lawful industry to the scourge of society? Early in the twentieth century, a number of business tycoons saw the hemp industry as a major competitor, and thus a barrier to growth (hemp was an alternative to wood in paper production, for example). These tycoons included the DuPonts, Andrew Mellon, and William Randolph Hearst. They began by initiating a smear campaign against marijuana, portraying it as a great social evil, causing everything from insanity to violence (watch the vintage film Reefer Madness if you don’t believe me). The public bought this nonsense hook, line, and sinker. If this was not enough, congressional hearings on the matter contained deliberately falsified information, such as the following letter from an editor of a newspaper:

Two weeks ago a sex-mad degenerate, named Lee Fernandez, brutally attacked a young Alamosa girl. He was convicted of assault with intent to rape and sentenced to 10 to 14 years in the state penitentiary. Police officers here know definitely that Fernandez was under the influence of marijuana. But this case is one in hundreds of murders, rapes, petty crimes, insanity that has occurred in southern Colorado in recent years.37

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In reality, Fernandez was drunk, not high.38 Eventually, in 1937 the Marijuana Tax Law was passed, which made marijuana illegal. Thus, a mainstay of the American criminal law was based off of nothing more than a secretive attempt to destroy business competitors. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Since President Nixon’s declaration of the “War on Drugs” in 1970, the government has spent over one trillion dollars trying to combat them. Law enforcement agencies have locked up more than 2.3 million people, a higher incarceration rate than any other county.39 What’s more, 60 percent of these incarcerations are for non-violent crimes.