Prohibition and the Drug War
Orlando Sentinel
October 24, 1999
What do Prohibition, drug war have in common? Sure failure
Charley Reese
Let's take a short quiz on liquor prohibition. In 1919, the Constitution was
amended to ban the manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages in
the United States. Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
Did Prohibition succeed in banning liquor? No.
Did Prohibition cause the formation of powerful criminal gangs? Yes.
Did Prohibition cause violence as a result of these gangs fighting over
territory? Yes.
Did Prohibition cause a huge amount of public corruption? Yes.
Did Prohibition result in a general disrespect for the law? Yes.
When Prohibition ended, did the United States suddenly go to Hades with
everyone becoming an alcoholic? No.
All right now, let's fast-forward to the war on drugs.
Has the war on drugs succeeded in banning illegal drugs? No.
Has the war on drugs caused the formation of powerful criminal gangs? Yes.
Has the war on drugs caused violence as a result of these gangs fighting
over territory? Yes.
Has the war on drugs caused a huge amount of public corruption? Yes.
Has the war on drugs caused a general disrespect for the law? Yes.
If we ended the war on drugs, legalized these drugs and allowed people to
buy them by prescription or from carefully licensed and regulated dealers,
would the United States go to Hades and everyone become an addict? I don't
think so. For evidence of that, we have pre-drug-ban history, during which
life went along pretty much as normal.
Then, how can we justify continuing this failed effort that has caused more
damage to the Constitution than it has to the drug dealers -- all of whom,
of course, are replace-able.
I don't think that people should take drugs, not even most of the ones their
doctors prescribe. In a free society people should be free to choose and
free to suffer the consequences of their own choices.
The current drug war is a racket. Everybody but the taxpayer is making money
on it, and, after nearly 40 years, illicit drugs are flowing as freely or
even more freely than before. In the meantime, the government uses the drug
war as an excuse to whittle away the traditional rights and liberties of all
American citizens. And taxpayers are taking it in the gazoo.
A drug is a drug is a drug. If people become addicted to them -- and
thousands become addicted to doctor-prescribed drugs already -- then that's
a health problem, not a police problem. There is nothing inherently evil in
morphine, heroin, marijuana or cocaine. They each produce certain effects,
just as other drugs do, but those effects do not cause people to commit
crimes.
What causes the crime is drug prohibition. It limits the supply to illegal
dealers and therefore drives up the price. Addicts will sometimes resort to
crime to finance their own habit if they have no other source of income. But
it is important to understand that the criminal behavior is produced by the
legal prohibition, not by the drug.
The drug use, in a legal setting, would cause no problems other than to the
user, which is the case in alcohol consumption. We could still have laws
against operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, just as we
do in the case of alcohol.
I wonder how long the American people are going to put up with government
officials making saps out of them. That's what they're doing. They feed you
propaganda and then extract billions of dollars from your pockets to waste
chasing people who are simply supplying a product for which there is a
demand.
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