USA - How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure?

[GForce]

How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure?
By David Borden, Drug War Chronicle. Posted June 30, 2008.

The day we legalize drugs is the day we can begin to clean up the mess that the drug prohibition experiment has created.


How long does an experiment need to continue before it's declared a failure?

For alcohol prohibition, our US version, it was about 13 years. Between mafia crime, poisonings from adulterated beverages, and the dropping age at which people were becoming alcoholics, Americans decided that the "Noble Experiment" -- whether it should actually be regarded as noble or not -- was a bad idea. And they ended it. New York State did its part 75 years ago today, ratifying the 21st amendment to repeal the 18th amendment, bringing the Constitution one state closer to being restored. It took another half a year, until December 5th, to get the 36 states on the board that were needed at the time to get the job done. But Americans of the '30s recognized the failure of the prohibition experiment, and they took action by enacting legalization of alcohol.

Industrialist John D. Rockefeller described the evolution of his thinking that led to the recognition of prohibition's failure, in a famous 1932 letter:

"When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before."

In the context of today's leading prohibition -- the drug war -- it's important to realize that those other drugs were made illegal even before alcohol was. It was December 17th, 1914, when the Harrison Narcotics Act passed the US Congress -- ostensibly a regulatory law to synchronize America's system with a new one being adopted by countries around the world. But law enforcement interpreted it as prohibiting drugs -- coca and opium, and derivatives of them such as heroin and cocaine, were the ones in question then -- and law enforcement got its way.

Which means that drugs have been illegal for almost a century. And yet despite a century of prohibition -- a century of fighting opium -- the Taliban could somehow make a hundred million off of it last year, that's how much of it is still being used. Our addiction rate in the US is higher today than it is believed to have been at the turn of the 20th century, and while other things that have certainly changed that could affect drug use, if you're fighting a "drug war" to end drug use, if addiction goes in completely the opposite direction, then you have a problem. A recent example of things going in the completely opposite direction as intended is cocaine prices on the streets of our cities, which according to DEA data is about a fifth of what it was in 1980 when adjusting for inflation and purity. The goal of the eradication-interdiction-arrest-incarceration strategy is to raise prices, in order to discourage use. Oh, and the drugs have gotten worse too -- who had ever heard of crack cocaine before 1986 -- 72 years after passage of the Harrison Act?

Marijuana prohibition, enacted in 1937, is an even less successful experiment than opiate and cocaine prohibition. For the harder drugs one might say at least that some young people have trouble getting them, although that's really just the kids who aren't into drugs. But marijuana can be purchased by virtually any high school student in the country, at virtually any high school in the country, and generally from other students. When kids are dealing drugs to other kids, and that is happening everywhere, what is the result of the experiment? What is its conclusion? Is further research really necessary at that point?

No, it's not. The findings are on the drug prohibition experiment are conclusive -- it's a failure. And while many of the people waging the drug war believe it's noble, that belief is misguided -- with half a million people incarcerated in US jails and prisons for drug offenses, the prohibition experiment is anything but noble.

The day we legalize drugs is the day we can begin to clean up the mess that the drug prohibition experiment has created.

Reputation Comments on this post:

It's about time something was done.

[mickenator]

The day the goverments get off there fat arses and legalise drugs it will benefit millions as the revenue will not just goto some large cartell instead the goverments of the world can put this money to good use and start to feed it's starving, cloth it's poor, house it's homeless and reduce the number of addicts hopefully that have to commit crime to fund there habbits. Think how much all these things in turn will save as crime goes down, people are no longer having to beg just so they can eat and cardboard cities would be a thing of the past as people can have a proper home for some it maybe the first time in there lives. What addicts there are would be able to get a proper structured detox and not have to hide there addictions in the closet for fear of reprisels.

[GForce]

I mean I've been seeing articles like this for a long time, and I still don't have much faith that I'll see the end of drug prohibition in my lifetime.

[mickenator]

It's unlikely to happen in mine either, but you can live in hope that maybe one day somebody will actually stand up and say "NO enough is enough we have to do something".

[stoneinfocus]

It´s not only prohibition, which is awfully wrong in our society, but it´s damn good approach to how those, who should never had gotten a say on laws and us, are abusing everyone and everything in heir position.

It´s one of their most effectiv ways of killing and manipulating in this section.

Without blood shed of people who are not yet directly involved in a fight between the powers and their primary targets, it´s not gonna change.

And the system has to be renewed by any means in a guerilla like warfare and with the same technologies of surveillance and killing, they are applying on us.This is how we could win, but we needed something like our own secret service for convincing others and extzerminating the fascist agents, and even recognizing the latter.

they´re a f#ckn submarine socio-economical killing machine, it´s close to impossible to tell, who is backing up the system and has the power, as their agents are in the best fascist manner denunciating and hiding among us and delivering people to the executives.

I´d be pretty simple, by starting at the top of the food chain and applying same means as they do, sharpenig the intuitive adn subjective judgement on humans in our sourrounding, who might be contact men usually they have too much money and too little concerns about gerneal problems with their lives, though they tell and it might look different on the paper, but that´s just papers... .

The regular democratic way is tricked and there´s no way, that way anymore and they know. -while we´re still hoping and trying real hard and wasting our efforts. while people are dying and things for us and all underpriveledged are getting worse and worse.

Look at the TV -there´s absolutely no real information or non-infiltrated people on the screen anymore havong the say on any socio-cultural issue, all this being laced with the shiny adds of the happy consumer´s world, as a disguise and for distraction purposes.

the war is being conducted by the powers but also away from the immediate world of the reigning system, alll criticism is beign destroyed by the "submarine" warfare of the secret agents, the mobm the agents and media and the buerocracy.

[mickenator]

Swim has heard a long time ago that world was run by a select few fat cats and powerfull businessmen and not by presidents and politicians these people are just there puppets and whilst they are making vast sums on other peoples misery then nothing will ever change.

[stoneinfocus]

We have to stop seeing this issue as an entertaining add-on to our boring and/or destroyed lives.

We only got one.

And swims cat is dead, killed and incapaciteted for being critically miaqwingg, slandered and whatnot...though existing...

Imagine the media had a psychological way to make sponge bob become the worst nightmare, linked to torture and the end of your live as you´ve known it.This is being done.i have no doubt after my cat took all the failures of its live of the last 15 years as her fault and started knew and unifluenced and then was nearly killed, slandered and tortured several times for doing so, with that being announcement befroehead, by total strangers, very randomly at the places where she showed up.