Pubdate: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL) Copyright: 2006 St. Petersburg Times Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/ Website: http://www.sptimes.com/home.shtml Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1644/a03.html Author: Priscilla M. Chase PROHIBITION'S PROBLEMS Remember Alcohol Dec. 3, Letter Life with legalized drugs is bad, but life with prohibition is even worse. The writer could have made his case even stronger by reminding us that national prohibition of alcohol was accompanied by reduced death rates from alcoholism and cirrhosis of the liver (See Dr. Clark Warburton's 1932 book The Economic Results of Prohibition). So what were Americans thinking when they ended national Prohibition? Consider this, from the 1930 resolution of the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform: "... National Prohibition, wrong in principle, has been equally disastrous in consequences in the hypocrisy, the corruption, the tragic loss of life and the appalling increase of crime which have attended the abortive attempt to enforce it; in the shocking effect it has had upon the youth of the nation; in the impairment of constitutional guarantees of individual rights; in the weakening of the sense of solidarity between the citizen and the government, which is the only sure basis of a country's strength." Those women knew life was better and safer with legal alcohol than life with illegal alcohol because they'd lived it both ways. They learned that driving a popular drug underground causes more societal damage than it prevents. Priscilla M. Chase, Palm Harbor - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine