From: otto@garnet.acns.fsu.edu (John G. Otto)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Prohibition 2
Date: 23 Nov 1993 21:35:22 GMT
Message-ID: <otto-231193174909@hotline.cc.fsu.edu>

Tallahassee Democrat  page B1   Sunday 1993-11-14
Prohibition 2
War on Drugs: More harm than good?
by Charles Billings, professor in residence (FSU prof of
Political Science)

Three score years ago, America acknowledged the ignoble failure of
a "Noble Experiment".  On 1933-12-05, by the ratification of the
21st amendment, the nation abandoned its attempt to prohibit the
"manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors".

While many Americans at first were in agreement with the proponents
of prohibition, who held that the abuse of alcohol contributed
mightily to a host of social sins, by 1933 most Americans had come
to believe that efforts to enforce the anti-liquor laws had done
more harm than good.

Looking back on that era, historians concluded that the "Noble
Experiment" just didn't work.  Americans did not stop drinking -
the law simply pushed the lucrative liquor trade into the hands
of criminals like Al Capone.  Enforcement proved impossible and
unpopular even with the police.

Prohibition 2, a.k.a. "The War on Drugs", has had a similar negative
effect upon our contemporary society.  Three problems with the drug
war are especially troubling:

* The anti-drug bills passed during the election years of 1984, 1986,
  and 1988, while allowing politicians to appear to be tough on drugs,
  have simply filled our prisons while doing little to halt the flow
  of drugs.

* Non-violent drug offenders have seen their sentences for simple
  possession go up while violent felons have had their sentences
  reduced.

* Minorities have been charged with these crimes at a
  disproportionate rate that some estimate as high as 10 times
  that of whites.

In 1986 there were 32,682 prisoners in the federal system.  That
number had grown to 51,491 by 1991.  most importantly, 30,469 of
those were incarcerated for drug-related offenses.  The number of
federal prisoners in custody for drug-related crimes now almost
equals the *total* number incarcerated in 1986.

Closer to home, statistics from the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement (FDLE) reveal that nearly 1/4 of the prisoners in
our state's prisons in 1990 were there for drug offenses.

For some residents of Florida's inner cities, drug Prohibition has
created the most lucrative jobs available to the under-educated and
the under-motivated.  The artificially high prices created by the
criminalization of drugs, narcotics and controlled substances makes
the drug business highly profitable - if extremely dangerous - to
everyone involved.

One of the lessons we should have learned from Prohibition 1 - the
criminalization of alcohol - was that making an intoxicant illegal
in an attempt to curtail its use may lead instead to the creation
of criminal enterprises devoted to traffic in the illegal commodity.

As Prohigition 1 was the driving force behind the rise of organized
crime in the 1920s & 1930s, Prohibition 2 has enabled urban street
gangs to become the well-heeled, heavily armed crime families of
the 1990s.

Prohibition tends to erode respect for law & order and diminish
citizen support for agents of the criminal justice system.  Once
again, police officers have been compromised & judges have been bribed.
The case of US District Judge Robert F. Collins is one of the most
egregious examples of drug-seduced judicial misbehavior.  He was
convicted in 1991 of accepting a $100K bribe from a convicted drug
smugler.

Laws prohibiting citizens from consuming specific substances are
commonly based upon the belief that governments of men can, & should,
determine what adults choose to imbibe.  A generation ago,
a constitutional amendment was required to abrogate the doctrine of
individual freedom of choice & empower governments to prohibit the
manufacture & sale of alcohol by adults.  Prohibition 2 stands on
no such firm Constitutional foundation, yet it forbids a whole host
of substances, some of which have been held to be no more harmful
than legal tobacco or legal alcohol.

In light of the wave of crime & violence ignited by this new
version of the old policy of prohibition, it is time to renew the
national debate over the "War on Drugs".
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