Prohibition: Pot vs Alcohol

MW: Many defenders of drug legalization point to the unmitigated disaster of Prohibition in the United States. Is this a reasonable analogy?

PH: No. There is one parallel: an attempt to interdict supply without interdicting demand. Prohibition in the United States was directed against manufacture, supply, transportation, and sale, but not against possession or consumption of alcohol, just as there is no really effective law against possession or consumption of cannabis in Britain.

I don't think Prohibition could have succeeded. The United States is a huge country with vast internal unpoliced spaces, two enormous seaboards, and long borders with two countries that were not imposing prohibitions on alcohol.

Alcohol is enculturated. The drinking of alcohol is part of the central ceremony of the Christian religion. Prohibition was viewed, not unreasonably, by German and Italian Americans as an attack on their culture by Puritans and WASPS. It was doomed to fail.

Compare this with the spread of cannabis, which is not a part of our culture and is still only used habitually by a small minority. The use of Prohibition in reference to cannabis is just dishonest propaganda. Most people when they hear "Prohibition" think of Eliot Ness and The Untouchables, chopping up beer barrels with axes and raiding speakeasies. They have no idea just how feeble the enforcement actually was, never mind the difference between alcohol, a substance consumed legally for millennia, and cannabis, which has never been in mass use in either the United States or Britain. Even when cannabis was legal it was not used.


http://spectator.org...-peter-hitchens

Grow your own: Up 50% today!
Cheech & Chong: Get It Legal Tour
DC weighs easing pot laws, allowing six plants per household...

http://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=PHOT&p=D&b=5&g=0&i=p14330316189&r=1389223274095.png

Edited by Rogerdodger, 08 January 2014 - 06:28 PM.

MW: Many defenders of drug legalization point to the unmitigated disaster of Prohibition in the United States. Is this a reasonable analogy?

That's part of the reason it didn't work. Al was developed in the west because of polluted water - tea in the east. Also, Al was used as a self remedy for mental problems and physical problems.

Prohibition was viewed, not unreasonably, by German and Italian Americans as an attack on their culture by Puritans and WASPS. It was doomed to fail. Now days the idea of pot being illegal by the majority of Americans is just an old ignorant attack by the old 65+ and republicans. The alcohol industry doesn't want legal pot either. They fear people will drink less.. Nixon blamed pot smokers for not supporting his war in Vietnam, so he cracked down heavily... With all the ready information from the tech revolution this generation is starting to wake up to the facts. Just like Snowden showed everyone. The govt is the same as always. Intimidate and spy on the people to control them.

With Pot -- actually all drugs -- being mostly illegal in the US -- is that not the same -- with the same effect -- as Prohibition. IOW, both had/have organized crime, violence and murder omnipresent, people dying from drug/bad alcohol use, etc. etc. Just saying! The issues are SO similar then and now...despite what one calls the bans. The only real difference is that booze was big part of main street society and social life. Drugs -- ?

Edited by *JB*, 08 January 2014 - 10:29 PM.

Like Penn Jillette, I have never used drugs and am libertarian on this.
I'm sick of large powerful groups assuming moral authority and superiority and forcing their fleeting opinions on me with threats of boycotts, fines or imprisonment.

There may be some medical benefit to cannabis.
I've had friends with terminal cancer who said pot gave them some pain relief.

If you want to fry your brains or your liver or your lungs, go for it.
But don't ask me to pay your medical bills or endanger my life by driving high.

Penn Jillette:

And in a simplistic view of the world, when I was young I kind of vilified drugs for killing Lenny. If Lenny Bruce hadn't died of drug overdoses I could have seen him live. I would have seen him live. I might have met him.
That upset me and then Hendrix. That upset me. Because I think most people if they were alive today wouldn't be doing great stuff. Bob Dylan is still doing great stuff. I think Hendrix would have been doing great stuff now, and I blame drugs for that. That's another answer. The other answer is I've always wanted to be smarter than I was. I've never been that smart and I've always wanted to much, much, much, much smarter and the people that I saw doing drugs and alcohol were getting stupider and I hated that.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 08 January 2014 - 10:57 PM.

Like Penn Jillette, I have never used drugs and am libertarian on this.
I'm sick of large powerful groups assuming moral authority and superiority and forcing their fleeting opinions on me with threats of boycotts, fines or imprisonment.

There may be some medical benefit to cannabis.
I've had friends with terminal cancer who said pot gave them some pain relief.

If you want to fry your brains or your liver or your lungs, go for it.
But don't ask me to pay your medical bills or endanger my life by driving high.

Penn Jillette:

And in a simplistic view of the world, when I was young I kind of vilified drugs for killing Lenny. If Lenny Bruce hadn't died of drug overdoses I could have seen him live. I would have seen him live. I might have met him.
That upset me and then Hendrix. That upset me. Because I think most people if they were alive today wouldn't be doing great stuff. Bob Dylan is still doing great stuff. I think Hendrix would have been doing great stuff now, and I blame drugs for that. That's another answer. The other answer is I've always wanted to be smarter than I was. I've never been that smart and I've always wanted to much, much, much, much smarter and the people that I saw doing drugs and alcohol were getting stupider and I hated that.

There is the libertarian dream-world and there is the real world.

In the real world you continuously make a cost-benefit calculation. It depends on how big the problem is and how much freedom you are willing to give up.


Here was/is the Chinese situation and calculation:

In 1949, when Mao Zedong took over control of Red China, he was faced with a huge problem, for a significant portion of the population was addicted to opium and this was destroying the country from within.
Mao ordered that all opium dens be closed and anyone using opium be put to death.

Four years and 44 million people later, Mao didn't have an opium problem. Today, China still doesn't have significant drug problem, for those who are caught with drugs are put to death immediately.

http://blog.austinde...-war-solutions/

the population was addicted to opium and this was destroying the country from within.

That's one way to "weed" out the genetically weak.

It's definitely a complex problem.
Likely the powers that be would like a population of brain dead stoned voters.

But what's the COST of imprisoning pot smokers?
(The prison system is largely just another union slush fund, IMHO.)

If you drug test people getting welfare assistance, and employers require drug free employees, you might see a reduction in many problems.

I have a friend from high school who was a big drug dealer and user.
He was drafted into the army where he continued to smoke pot.
After the army, he joined the US Postal service.
They drug test and he didn't use until his recent retirement.

But is a life term in prison justified for smoking pot?
Judge throws out Tulsa woman's life without parole sentence
Devereux’s case involved several Tulsa police officers who have since been indicted or named in a federal probe of law enforcement corruption in Tulsa.
After refusing a plea deal of seven years in 2005, Devereux was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. She qualified for Oklahoma’s “three strikes” law for repeat offenders because of two prior drug-possession convictions, in 1999 and 2001.
A former Tulsa police officer testified today that he and three other officers kept drugs in patrol cars to be used as substitute evidence in criminal cases.



Maybe Darwin had a point.

High Times for POT stocks!
I wonder if these profits will go up in smoke or drop like a stone.
A great play here might be Betty Crocker brownies, or Taco Bell.
http://stockcharts.c...89286110552.png

Edited by Rogerdodger, 09 January 2014 - 11:52 AM.

Speaking of drug tests, how about requiring that of all politicians, police, judges, teachers and anyone else who works "for the people"? Boy that would sure "weed" out lots of people and change things mightily.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 09 January 2014 - 12:22 PM.