The United States persists in waging and endless war on drugs and faces ever increasing and problems with higher education. I will reconsider an immodest proposal I made years ago intended to address both problems.
In the case of higher education, one problem is that the cost of education exceeds the resources of many Americans. One reason is that America’s political and economic elites repeatedly blow up the economy and have been engaged in an unrelenting extermination of the middle class. Another reason is the view that higher education has been cast as a private (rather than public) good and is seen by the elites as just another area to exploit for profit. Because of this, funding to public schools has been reduced and funding has been diverted from public schools to costly and ineffective for-profit schools. Yet another reason is that public universities have an ever-expanding administrative burden. Even the darling of academics, STEM, has seen significant cuts in support and public funding.
Through their war on drugs, the rulers have imposed a massive cost on the United States. First, there is the cost of the resources devoted to policing citizens, trying them and incarcerating them for drug crimes. Second, there is the cost of the social and personal damage done to individuals and communities. From the perspective of most citizens, the war on drugs has been a losing fight—mainly because “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
Fortunately, I have a solution to both problems. Years ago, I spoke with an engineering student about Florida State’s various programs aimed at creating businesses and heard a piece on NPR about the financial woes of schools and how faculty and staff were being pushed to be fund-raisers for schools. Unsurprisingly, things are even worse now.
This got me thinking about how universities could generate funding and I remembered a running joke from long ago. Back when universities started to commit to “businessification, I joked with a running friend (hence a running joke) that we faculty members should become drug lords to fund our research and classes. While I do not think that I should become a drug lord, I would propose that public universities get into the drug business.
States should begin by legalizing marijuana and pass a general law allowing recreational drugs that can be shown to be as safe as tobacco and alcohol (that sets the bar very low). The main restriction will be that the drugs can only be produced and sold by public universities. All the profits will go directly to the universities, to be used as decided by boards composed of students and faculty. To be realistic, the ruling elites would need to get a cut of this, but I’ll leave the corruption aspects to others.
To implement this plan, faculty and students should be actively involved. Business faculty and students would develop the models, plans and proposals. Design and marketing students and faculty will handle those aspects. Faculty and students in chemistry, biology and medicine will develop the drugs and endeavor to make them safer. Faculty and students in agriculture will see to the growing of the crops, starting with marijuana. Engineering students and faculty will develop hydroponics and other technology.
Once the marijuana and other drugs are available, the universities will sell the products to the public with all profits being used to fund the educational and research aspects of the universities. Since the schools are public universities, the drugs will be tax-free—there is no sense in incurring the extra cost of collecting taxes when the money is going to the schools already. Since schools already have brand marketing, this can be easily tied in. For example, Florida State can sell Seminole Gold and Seminole Garnet marijuana, while my own Florida A&M University can have Rattler Green and Rattler Orange.
One practical objection is that the operation might not be profitable. While this is obviously a reasonable concern, the drug trade can be very profitable. Also, by making such drugs legal, the cost of the war on drugs would drop, thus potentially freeing up resources for education and reducing the harms done to individuals and the community. So, I am not too worried about this.
One reasonable objection is that drugs are unhealthy. The easy reply is that while this is true, we already tolerate unhealthy products such as tobacco, alcohol, cars and firearms. If these are tolerable, then the drugs sold by the schools (which must be at least as safe as tobacco and alcohol) would also be tolerable. The war on drugs is also very unhealthy—so scaling back the war would be good for public health.
One moral objection is that drugs are immoral. There are three easy replies. The first is that the drugs in question are no more immoral than alcohol and tobacco. If these can be morally tolerated, then so can the university drugs. Second, there is the consequentialist argument: if drugs are going to be used anyway by Americans, it is better that the money go to education rather than ending up in the coffers of criminals, gangs, terrorists and the prison-industrial complex. Third, there is also the consequentialist argument that university produced drugs will be safer and of higher quality than drugs produced by drug lords, gangs, terrorists and criminal dealers. Given the good consequences of legalizing university-manufactured drugs, this plan is clearly morally commendable.
Given the above arguments, having universities as legal drug sellers would clearly help solve two of America’s serious problems: the high cost of education and the higher cost of the ineffective and destructive war on drugs. As my contribution to the brand, I offer the slogan “get high for higher ed.” As you would suspect, I am not good at marketing.
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