Milton Friedman was a successful American economist. He was so successful that he received the Nobel prize for his research of consumption analysis, monetary history, and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. Something Friedman strongly believed was that the war on drugs was not being fought effectively and thought matters were only getting worse. In order to try and fix this situation, Friedman wrote a letter to Bill Bennett, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George H. W. Bush. He was a well educated man, yet he knew that in his letter urging Bennett to rethink the way in which he is trying to solve the drug crisis, his credentials would not be enough to convince him. Friedman decides to implement strategic rhetorical strategies in order to strengthen his argument.

Friedman uses a variety of strategies to convince Bennett why his points are valid. Some of the strategies he employs are ethos, pathos, logos, isocolons, repetition, and diction. Bennett uses ethos, rhetoric pertaining to credibility, when he mentions a column called, “Drugs and Prohibition” that he wrote in 1972. He uses his own credibility when he explains that back then the major drug was heroin from Marseilles and now, or when the time this letter was written, it is cocaine from Latin America and questions how effective our current laws are when there are many more users and victims today then in 1972. If the laws were doing their job at discouraging people from using drugs, we should be seeing a drop in drug use, not an increase. Friedman utilizes pathos, appeal to emotion, when he states if drugs had been decriminalized 17 years ago, “crack” would never have been created, and “the lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent victims would have been saved, not only in the U.S. The ghettos of our major cities would not be drug-and-crime infested no-man’s lands. Fewer people would be going to jail, fewer jails would be built.” Mentioning that not just the drug users, but the lives of innocent victims as well have been lost due to America’s drug problem was a strategic way to evoke emotion. People feel sympathy for those who lose their lives due to drugs, but when they hear about innocent people who get caught in the crossfire of drug related crimes, they tend to feel real empathy. Logos, appeal to logic, is used in this letter as well. He appeals to logic when he states the fact, “Alcohol and tobacco cause many more deaths in users than do drugs. Decriminalization would not prevent us from treating drugs as we now treat alcohol and tobacco: prohibiting the sales of drugs to minors, outlawing the advertisement of drugs, and similar measures.” Friedman specifically states that drugs cause fewer deaths than alcohol and tobacco yet those substances are not outlawed like drugs are. If drugs were to be legal, he believes the temptation to try them would be less significant, thus fewer users, and fewer issues related to them. Friedman uses isocolons as well to improve his rhetoric. isocolons are also known as parallel structure. One place he uses isocolons is with repetition, he says, “You are not mistaken in believing drugs are a scourge that is devastating our society. You are not mistaken in believing drugs are tearing asunder our social fabric…You are not mistaken when you believe the majority of the public share your concerns…Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore.” This is an extremely persuasive part of Friedman’s letter. He uses repetition by repeating the phrase “you are not mistaken” to make the statements he is saying more powerful. The isocolon shows up when he parallels “you are not mistaken” by “Your mistake is…” This strategy adds emphasis to the point he is making about what his mistake really is. Another strategy used to emphasize the ideas is diction, or word choice. The words Friedman chooses are chosen in order for him to come across as well-educated, powerful, and passionate about the war on drugs. He uses words like, “Scourge”, “Tragedy”, and “disaster” to describe drugs. This makes his letter much more persuasive than just stating that they are bad. For example, his sentence “Drugs are a scourge”, is much more advanced and rhetorically pleasing than, “Drugs aren’t good”. This strategy also makes the letter much more entertaining to read.

Rhetorical strategies are crucial in any piece of writing that is meant to persuade. Even the most credentialed people, like Milton Friedman, are aware that they cannot rely on their achievements alone to influence others. By employing rhetorical strategies, Milton is successful in writing a persuasive letter to attempt to solve the war on drugs in America.