We believe that drug prohibition is the true cause of much of the
social and personal damage that has historically been attributed to
drug use. It is prohibition that makes these drugs so valuable
— while giving criminals a monopoly over their supply. Driven
by the huge profits from this monopoly, criminal gangs bribe and
kill each other, law enforcers, and children. Their trade is
unregulated and they are, therefore, beyond our control.
History has shown that drug prohibition reduces neither use nor
abuse. After a rapist is arrested, there are fewer rapes. After a
drug dealer is arrested, however, neither the supply nor the demand
for drugs is seriously changed. The arrest merely creates a job
opening for an endless stream of drug entrepreneurs who will take
huge risks for the sake of the enormous profits created by
prohibition. Prohibition costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars
every year, yet 40 years and some 40 million arrests later, drugs
are cheaper, more potent and far more widely used than at the
beginning of this futile crusade.
We believe that by eliminating prohibition of all drugs for adults
and establishing appropriate regulation and standards for
distribution and use, law enforcement could focus more on crimes of
violence, such as rape, aggravated assault, child abuse and murder,
making our communities much safer. We believe that sending parents
to prison for non-violent personal drug use destroys families. We
believe that in a regulated and controlled environment, drugs will
be safer for adult use and less accessible to our children. And we
believe that by placing drug abuse in the hands of medical
professionals instead of the criminal justice system, we will reduce
rates of addiction and overdose deaths.
The twenty-first amendment to the U.S. Constitution
was ratified eighty years ago today, repealing the eighteenth amendment,
ending alcohol prohibition, and along with it the alcohol mobs
it had bred.
It’s time to do the same with drug prohibition,
and along with it not only drug gangs
but also
the epidemic of incarceration in this country.
Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land.