PROHIBITION OF DRUGS IS A WASTE OF MONEY

"Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

The United States discovered that prohibiting the sale of alcohol did not stop the sale of alcohol. In fact, the country was awash in alcohol, some of which was poison.  Prohibition of alcohol fueled horrendous violence in cities from Chicago to New York. It took the Great Depression to end prohibition of alcohol. The end of prohibition did not cause any new social problems, and allowed the police to concentrate on other crimes, like theft and murder.

By prohibiting recreational drugs, we are ignoring the lessons we learned during the prohibition of alcohol.

When we prohibit the use of a drug, we make the drug expensive and worth smuggling. The amount of money a drug dealer can make means that it is worth fighting and killing over the right to be able to sell drugs.

The amount of money to be made from illegal drugs makes it worthwhile to bribe police and customs officers. 

The amount of money to be made from illegal drugs makes it worthwhile for the drug dealers to fight any attempt at ending the prohibition of drugs.

An in depth discussion of this is available at www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html.  I especially admire the sections of the article written by a former police chief and a federal judge.

We are now in a Great Recession. We do not have the money to waste on failed policies. We need to use our money wisely. Let us end the prohibition of drugs, tax the sale of recreational drugs, and use the money we save and earn to provide treatment to those people who need help to control their overuse of alcohol and/or drugs.