{"id":6922,"date":"2013-12-05T15:45:42","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T20:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6922"},"modified":"2013-12-05T15:46:43","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T20:46:43","slug":"80-years-ago-alcohol-prohibition-ended-time-to-end-drug-prohibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/80-years-ago-alcohol-prohibition-ended-time-to-end-drug-prohibition.html","title":{"rendered":"80 years ago alcohol prohibition ended: time to end drug prohibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe twenty-first amendment to the U.S. Constitution\r\n\r\nwas ratified eighty years ago today<\/a>, repealing the eighteenth amendment,\r\nending alcohol prohibition, and along with it the alcohol mobs\r\nit had bred.\r\nIt’s time to do the same with drug prohibition,\r\nand along with it not only drug gangs\r\nbut also\r\n\r\nthe epidemic of incarceration in this country<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\nEleanor Roosevelt wrote in her newspaper column My Day, 14 July 1939,\r\n\r\nProhibition<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nLittle by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making\r\npeople drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers\r\nof a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the\r\nold situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were\r\ninjuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the\r\nact was a violation against their own sense of morality and no\r\nviolation against the law of the land.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAs\r\n\r\nLaw Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) says:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWe believe that drug prohibition is the true cause of much of the\r\nsocial and personal damage that has historically been attributed to\r\ndrug use. It is prohibition that makes these drugs so valuable\r\n— while giving criminals a monopoly over their supply. Driven\r\nby the huge profits from this monopoly, criminal gangs bribe and\r\nkill each other, law enforcers, and children. Their trade is\r\nunregulated and they are, therefore, beyond our control.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nHistory has shown that drug prohibition reduces neither use nor\r\nabuse. After a rapist is arrested, there are fewer rapes. After a\r\ndrug dealer is arrested, however, neither the supply nor the demand\r\nfor drugs is seriously changed. The arrest merely creates a job\r\nopening for an endless stream of drug entrepreneurs who will take\r\nhuge risks for the sake of the enormous profits created by\r\nprohibition. Prohibition costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars\r\nevery year, yet 40 years and some 40 million arrests later, drugs\r\nare cheaper, more potent and far more widely used than at the\r\nbeginning of this futile crusade.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWe believe that by eliminating prohibition of all drugs for adults\r\nand establishing appropriate regulation and standards for\r\ndistribution and use, law enforcement could focus more on crimes of\r\nviolence, such as rape, aggravated assault, child abuse and murder,\r\nmaking our communities much safer. We believe that sending parents\r\nto prison for non-violent personal drug use destroys families. We\r\nbelieve that in a regulated and controlled environment, drugs will\r\nbe safer for adult use and less accessible to our children. And we\r\nbelieve that by placing drug abuse in the hands of medical\r\nprofessionals instead of the criminal justice system, we will reduce\r\nrates of addiction and overdose deaths.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[87,14,70,19,72,20],"tags":[8733,8704,7284,8728,8701,8709,8730,8702,8710,80,12,7,6],"class_list":["post-6922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","category-economy","category-ethics","category-history","category-incarceration","category-law","tag-alcohol","tag-economy","tag-eleanor-roosevelt","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-incarceration","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-leap","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1NE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6924,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions\/6924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}