Pubdate: Wed, 13 Jul 2005
Source: Herald-Dispatch, The (Huntington, WV)
Copyright: 2005 The Herald-Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.hdonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1454
Author: Redford Givens

JUST LIKE PROHIBITION, DRUG WAR WON'T WORK

A recent letter writer makes a fundamental error thinking that a 
"united front" or tougher law enforcement will ever stop the illegal 
drug trade. Drug prohibition laws contain the seeds of their own 
defeat in the fact that a drug ban provides the price subsidy that 
enables the criminal black market.

Prohibition laws do not work because they increase the market price 
of the product being banned dozens of times. No amount of law 
enforcement can stop the competition for easy drug profits made 
possible by misguided laws.

The only way to end Huntington's drug problems is to end the drug 
policy responsible for them.

Before writing more about drug prohibition, the letter writer should 
do a little study on alcohol Prohibition and the disaster it caused. 
America's drug crusade is failing for exactly the same reasons 
alcohol Prohibition was such a flop.

It's worth remembering that Eliot Ness never put the bootleggers out 
of business. Repeal and a regulated market for alcohol did that. A 
drug war based on the same principles doesn't work any better than 
alcohol Prohibition did.

Redford Givens

Webmaster -- DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy

San Francisco, Calif. 	 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth