For thinkers only: Prohibition doesn't work, does it?

Question

The advantage of ending censorship or prohibition is that the "naughty" or "super cool" factor fades fast. Legalise heroin and let users sign a legal declaration that they are are addicts and watch the heroin rate initially rise and then eventually plummet.drop. Study the US alcohol Prohibition of the 1930s which resulted in organised crime, violence and killings. Shouldn't prohibition be limited to specific categories of citizens such as minors and felons?

To Douglas: Don't the crack houses of today constitute much more harm to society than just the fact that people use drugs there. It's the links to daily crime that cause the real damage to society not the individual physical effects of the drug on the user.

Answer 1

Prohibition has an initial factor where it works temporarily.

However, prohibition tries to tackle drug use as a legal problem, instead of the social problem that it is.

All prohibition has done so far is put innocent citizens in jail, put drug users at higher risk for "Cut" products, and given real criminals an excellent way to make lots and lots of money, that's not taxed, nor traceable.

So here is a break down of prohibition

*Once law abiding citizens are now criminals*
*Real criminals become wealthy*
*Drug users are at a higher risk of death*
*Given kids an easier way to get drugs-Drug dealers don't ask for ID*

Answer 2

I basically agree with your goal, but I perceive the problem and the solution differently. I believe based on what I seen that you can't solve a problem without consider the problem from all sides.

Prohibition was an amazing example of an effort to solve one perceived problem, drinking, but the solution ending up creating far more difficult problem than it solved. For example, Prohibition created a market for homemade booze. It actually created a money making situation for many unemployed or under-employed people to make a product that could be done by most folks and readily sold and became a way make a real living.

The rub is that the prohibitionist were not out to create a job for daring booze makers who also were suffering farmers stuck in the Great Depression

There in lies the lesson. Prohibition was not a viable method of solving alcohol consumption, but it did prove that government intervention into economic development was a great way to create jobs. And jobs meant money to spend and goods to sell and finally taxes to collect for the government. Which could in turn invest money on economic development to employ folks and around and around and build dams or projects like roads or even a project like the TVA.

Basically saying no is not a good principle, but figuring how to say yes is the way to go.

Answer 3

Yes and have some flop houses like the old Opium smoke houses in the good old days