VIOLENCE AMONG YOUNG LINKED TO PROHIBITION

To the editors:

Sunday's update on the fight to reduce juvenile violence in Syracuse was
interesting. Several of those interviewed mentioned the root of the problem
but then went off in other directions. I'd like to add some historical
perspective in an effort to connect the dots.

"Losing our young" was a nationally recognized concern at another time in
our nation's history. During the early years of the 20th century Americans
were concerned with saving our children from the horrors of alcohol-ravaged
homes. Stories of abused children were common in the papers. Fathers
drinking up their paychecks leaving their families hungry. Drunken parents
beating kids. All very real problems. What to do? The answer seemed obvious
to many Americans. Prohibit alcohol.

Well just a few short years after doing so American began to realize that
the problems kids had as a result of alcohol abuse by their parents was a
much smaller problem than a whole new set of problems caused by alcohol
prohibition. Kids were selling alcohol to adults because, as minors, they
couldn't be prosecuted as severly as adults. Kids were growing up to love
the "easy money" available from selling illegal booze. Al Capone was only
seventeen when he went to Chicago and began his rise to eventual control of
the illegal alcohol business. Young men sprayed the streets with tommy guns
in disputes over territory. And fathers continued to spend their paychecks
on booze, (which was still readily available) and to beat their wives and
children. As the crime rose and the body count climbed and the streets
became more and more dangerous people who had lobbyied for prohibition in
an effort to protect the children realized their mistake.

A famous poster of the era shows a mother with here two young children at
her side. She is holding a ballot in her hand. The copy reads..."ThEIR
SECURITY DEMANDS YOU VOTE REPEAL" . Prohibition was repealed and things
improved quickly. Homicides and street violence plunged overnight.

The other day I was talking to an asst. district attorney from a
neighboring county who said she didn't handle drug cases for her office. "
Well, let me clarify that." she said, " I don't handle drug cases per se. I
handle the homicides, assaults, robberies and child abuse cases, probably
seventy-five percent of which are related to drug prohibition." Parents
doing prison time for drug possesion don't generally make good parents.
They're not there. Kids grow up in broken homes, look for easy money, get
into trouble with the law.

I'm not suggesting that the harms drugs cause would dissapear if we
regulated their sale as we did with alcohol. We'd still have neglected and
abused kids out there. But when was the last time we read about a shooting
occuring over the sale of bootleg alcohol? 1934? When did the current rise
in this sort of street violence begin? in the early eighties, the same time
as America began its "War on Drugs". When will it end? When we realize the
harm prohibition causes and reconsider how we deal with drugs in this country.

Nicolas Eyle, executive director, ReconsiDer: forum on drug policy, Syracuse