Why does America think prohibition works with drugs when it never did with alcohol

OPINION: "Let's End Drug Prohibition," by Ethan A. Nadelmann, Wall Street Journal, 5 December 2008.

Provocative and intelligent argument that says "Most Americans agreed that alcohol suppression was worse than alcohol consumption."

The truth is, drinking is a lot worse than pot in terms of social costs.

Comments

[rblx]

Many prohibitions have behind-the-scenes corporate backers that play on social fears to advance their agenda. The oil companies of the early 1900's backed the prohibition of alcohol in order to suppress the use of ethanol in cars. By the end of alcohol prohibition gasoline was cheap and plentiful. By then, nobody saw a reason to switch back to ethanol. William Randolph Hurst owned forests and wanted to switch the newspaper printing business to wood pulp from hemp paper. Du Pont wanted to switch the Navy from hemp rope to their newly invented Nylon. Through propaganda (Reefer Madness, etc.) they were able to manipulate public opinion to ban marijuana and with it hemp.

Hemp is a superior paper and rope product and is infinitely more renewable than trees but we still prohibit it's use commercially, to say nothing about the federal harassment of medical marijuana vendors in states where they are legal and the squelching of legitimate studies as to it's effectiveness.

For more information on the unintended consequences of prohibition, I recommend visiting the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition web site at this URL> http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

[Tom Barnett]

Excellent comment.

[stuart abrams]

Depends how you define "works". Prohibition did significantly reduce alcohol consumption. Legalizing marijuana (or any other drug) would unquestionably result in higher levels of consumption. Legalized marijuana would not simply mean that hippies could grow the plants in window boxes - it would become big business. Lobbying firms would seek subsidies for marijuana growers; marijuana PACs would become major political forces; marketing techniques would be used to increase consumption; scientific techniques would be used to maximize THC content (which would convert pot into a very different sort of drug). It may be that as a society, we would be willing to live with all of these consequences in order to get rid of the costs imposed by prohibition, which was essentially the societal decision that was made when we got rid of the prohibition of alcohol. However, one should not ignore the fact that legalization carries with it significant costs. Any kind of regulation/de-regulation decision entails cost/benefit analyses. Personally, I favor decriminalization - treat possession of small amounts of marijuana like a speeding ticket - but not legalization.

[Matt R.]

My initial thoughts:I can see your point on marijuana, but more hardcore drugs like crack and heroin have horrible repurcussions. Thousands of crackheads walking about would be horrible.

Second thoughts:Thousands of crack/cocaine/heroin addicts ALREADY exist, so let them come out of the shadows.

[eric f]

You either bring the $ into the legitimate economy, or you get more places like Tijuana. We lost the drug war long ago, politicians just have no balls to quit building prisons.

[rblx]

eric, it's more than lacking the balls to quit building prisons. In this regard, the privatization of prisons, the influence of prison guard unions profiting from the increased incarceration of drug convictions and the enormous number of federal and state employees who's jobs depend on the "War On Drugs" drives much of the current decision making on Capitol Hill. Also, the "War On Drugs" propaganda has been so successful that elected officials have had a hard time winning re-election if they appear "soft on drug crime."

It's a shame. A lot of the funding that once went to our universities is now spent locking up our population in greater numbers per capita than any other country on the planet. Upon release from prison these people will have a difficult time finding work, especially in hard economic times. Many may have gone into prison as non-violent offenders, many of those will come out as hardened criminals.

[Huh]

Stuart - So, are you going to assert that the only reason that you aren't a drug addict is because the government keeps those drugs illegal?

Are you asserting that illegal drugs aren't already big business? Or that maybe that drug runners and producers aren't already a major political force to be reckoned with? Much of their current power centers on their existing outside the normal legal framework of society. They murder for fun and profit -- literally. It being murder, that is political power in its rawest form.

Really, I don't think that you believe anything of that nature.

But legalization would allow for government regulation and end the murder aspect of the business. Say what you want about big tobacco or the major beer brewers... but they aren't gunning down people on the street over minor business disagreements. That is because they exist within the legal framework and have access to the courts for settling their business disagreements.

[Michael]

Stuart, can you really call our current regime "regulation"? Outlawing something by definition reduces your ability to control content, purity, who's able to buy it and the circumstances of the purchase. It also eliminates your ability to tax the purchase at the same time the costs to society of the use increase.

[stuart abrams]

Huh:The things you cite (murder, tax evasion, etc.) are part of the costs of prohibition. The countervailing cost of legalization is increased consumption. Decreased alcohol consumption during prohibition is a documented fact. I have little doubt that if marijuana, heroin, or cocaine could be purchased as easily as a Budweiser or a Marlboro, that consumption of those drugs would also increase. And yes, that might even mean that you and I could have become drug addicts. It's a cost/benefit analysis - just don't pretend that the analysis works in only one direction.Michael:All regulation is a sliding scale, with prohibition at one end of the scale. There are many products or activities that as a society we have concluded have absolutely no social value (e.g. child pornography) therefore warranting total prohibition, even though prohibition entails costs (creation of black markets and enrichment of criminal organizations, loss of privacy to government searches, etc.).