Jonathon Hoag's Diary
Don't back up.
The Disaster that was/is Prohibition
could buy bags of the pure stuff in a supermarket for about the same price as sugar. As it is, junkies normally have to steal every day to support their habit. Going to prison is always on the horizon.
In the early part of the 20th century, people with the best of intentions came together and gathered enough political power to prohibit the making, transporting or selling of alcoholic beverages. They naively believed that this law (which required a Constitutional amendment) was actually going to keep people from drinking! They were going to fix the world! They had a laundry list of social problems which they believed would disappear with the signing of a legal document. Instead, they almost destroyed the United States.
The government got between 30 and 40% of its revenue from alcohol taxes, so they knew they would have to find a replacement source. The government saw a chance to get the one they coveted the most, the income tax. Direct taxes were also unconstitutional so that also required a Constitutional amendment. Neither of these amendments were popular with the general public; however, the prohibitionists were on a religious crusade and they were willing to do almost anything to advance their agenda. Women were the largest constituency for the support of prohibition as many of them had been on the receiving end of violence by drunken husbands. The tax was passed first; I suppose the politicians didn’t want to take a chance on prohibition passing and the income tax failing. Initially, the tax was to be small and only on the very rich, but once the camel got his nose under the tent the result isn’t hard to imagine especially as we are all now burdened with it and under constant threat of prosecution should we fail to pay correctly and promptly. We may not have gotten involved in WW1 had the government not had the income tax to jack up through the roof to pay for it.
Small gangs in the border cities turned into full-fledged mafias with all the illicit money to be made moon-shining and bootlegging, much of which found its way into the pockets of the police and other government officials basically destroying the legal system. It only lasted 13 years but the damage was done. With alcohol suddenly legal again, the gangs turned to other illegal vices like prostitution and gambling, and later drugs to support their organizations. Beyond that, since they had the infrastructure in place, they expanded into child trafficking.
Now to the police, everyone is a suspect. When they make a traffic stop, they look all around inside your car to see if they can spot some evidence of drug use. In the past, they wouldn’t bother anyone unless they were committing a violent crime or stealing. In my experience, the police are no longer here to protect you, they are here to arrest you if they can find an excuse.
This is not only a self-inflicted burden to the US, our drug war has caused even worse problems for our neighbor states like Mexico, Central America, Columbia and some Carribean nations. In Mexico, at the end of 2006, President Calderon declared war on the cartels and by 2013, an estimated 120,000 lives were lost and an estimated 22,000 disappeared. By comparison, we had about 53,000 Americans KIA in Vietnam over 10 years of war. The tsunami of illicit money flowing south corrupted everyone in the governments and likely prevented these countries from achieving a higher standard of living.
Since prohibition began, millions of people have had their lives ruined going to prison for many years for a crime with no victims. To be clear, many people are and have been victims of drug addiction but that has only been exacerbated by prohibition which prevented most of them from seeking medical help. The drugs were always available, just at a high price and low quality.
The bottom line is any kind of prohibition of vices is unworkable at best and tyrannical at worst. If you were to take a sheet of poster paper and write on the top, “prohibition” and under it, divide the sheet into two sides with “benefits” on one and “detriments” on the other, I can’t think of anything that would go on the benefit side. The one thing most people might say is a benefit is it reduces consumption. However, the empirical evidence says otherwise. Unlike street drugs, pharmaceutical drugs are pure and uniform in amount while street drugs are commonly mixed with God knows what and the concentration of the desired product may vary hugely. That makes an overdose fairly common plus they can get sick from the fillers.
Ending prohibition, as far as I can see, is virtually impossible. The mafia would definitely not want that nor would Big Pharma, nor would the crooked cops, DA’s, judges and border guards. Even if a majority of the population had an epiphany and supported ending it, they would not be able to get the politicians on board. Probably the best way to abolish these authoritarian laws is through the Supreme Court. In the past they have supported them but perhaps one day we will get some rational people on there.