I saw this interesting entry regarding prohibition by Malcolmkyle on The Hive (that is his picture above). It is in reference to a discussion about the horrendous cartel violence occurring in Mexico. It provides some good insights and is will worth the read.
For those of you who are still living in some strange parallel universe, one where prohibition actually works, here is part of the testimony of Judge Alfred J Talley, given before the Senate Hearings of 1926:
"It has made potential drunkards of the youth of the land, not because intoxicating liquor appeals to their taste or disposition, but because it is a forbidden thing, and because it is forbidden makes an irresistible appeal to the unformed and immature. It has brought into our midst the intemperate woman, the most fearsome and menacing thing for the future of our national life."
"It has brought the sickening slime of corruption, dishonor, and disgrace into every group of employees and officials in city, State, and Federal departments that have been charged with the enforcement of this odious law."
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/judgetalley.htm
In 1923 the executive council of the American Federation of Labor issued an address to the American people after an exhaustive investigation of the effects of the Volstead Act. It was shown by this investigation that there had been–––
* A general disregard of the law among all classes of people, including those who made the law.
* Creation of thousands of moonshiners among both country and city dwellers.
* The creation of an army of bootleggers.
* An amazing increase in the traffic in poisons and deadly concoctions and drugs.
* An increased rate of insanity, blindness, and crime among the users of these concoctions and drugs.
* Increase in taxes to city, State, and National Government amounting to approximately $1,000,000,000 per year.
Source: THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION LAW HEARINGS April 5 to 24, 1926
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1920/senj1926/roberts.html
It's Prohibition that has created the dire conditions which have lead to a worsening of most of the problems we now see in society. Prohibition has put us all in harms way and serves only to provide a profitable market for criminals and terrorists.
This "merry-go-round" has been going on for far too long, and has not only fallen off it's axle, but has trans-mutated into a veritable "house of horrors"
1) increased violence, as in inner-city drive-by shootings or even bombs or mass killings in places like Mexico.
2) preventing the medical use of marijuana for the desperately ill or dying.
3) keeping a small group of criminals extremely rich (it's a $400 billion industry)
4) the enormous costs of enforcement ($50 billion last year, including about $12 billion to enforce marijuana laws.
5) the ruined communities and families because a breadwinner is sent to prison (at a cost of around $50 billion annually to house prisoners, plus an estimated $40,000 loss to the community per prisoner.
In addition to the societal cost of prohibition, it has a long history of driving the spread of harder drugs.
Poppies to morphine to heroine
Coca to cocaine to crack
ephedra to ephredrine to speed to methamphetamine
marijuana to skunk
mushrooms to ecstasy to 2CB/designers
At every step the reasons for the rise in popularity of the new form of the drug are one or more of the following:
a) it's easier to smuggle or
b) it's more addictive so consumers will want it hard enough to go to the black market or
c) it's cheaper to produce and yields more profit or
d) like a game of "whack a mole" a shutdown of producers in one area gives rise to business opportunities for another set of producers with a similar product.
Proceeding with this moronathon subsidizes organized crime, terrorists, corrupt politicians and the prejudices of culture warriors. Prohibition's distortion of the immutable laws of supply and demand insures that the only clear winners are drug cartels, terrorists and shameless, and most probably corrupt, tough-on-drugs politicians who've built careers on confusing drug prohibition's collateral damage with the substances that they claim to be fighting. The big losers in this battle are everybody else, especially us taxpayers who have been deluded into believing big government is the appropriate response to non-traditional consensual vices.