PROHIBITION NEVER HAS WORKED

This month marks 75 years since America repealed its disastrous
alcohol Prohibition. Toast!

Prohibition was the work of the early 20th century progressives' grand
social engineering agenda. It failed miserably.

The great social critic, H.L. Mencken, wrote of prohibition: "Five
years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: They
have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the
Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to
follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There
is not less drunkenness in the republic, but more. There is not less
crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of
government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not
increased, but diminished."

Sounds strangely familiar. But there's one positive thing we can say
about alcohol prohibition: At least it was constitutional.

Congress understood that the federal government hasn't the
constitutional authority to issue a national ban on booze without
changing the Constitution. When America repealed Prohibition, it was
with a constitutional amendment, recognizing that the power to
regulate alcohol is reserved for the states.

Contrast that with drug policy, in which Congress made no attempt to
comply with the Constitution in passing the Controlled Substances Act
(CSA) of 1970, which gave us our current version of Prohibition. When
it became clear that alcohol Prohibition had failed, it was repealed.
The drug war has failed, but our government merely claims more powers
to fight it more aggressively.

Drug prohibition has been every bit the failure alcohol Prohibition
was - and then some. Nearly 40 years after the CSA passed, 400,000
Americans are in prison for nonviolent drug crimes; domestic police
forces resemble an occupying military force; nearly $1 trillion is
spent on enforcement, both here and through aggressive interdiction
efforts overseas; and urban areas can resemble war zones. Yet illicit
drugs such as cocaine and marijuana are as cheap and abundant as they
were in 1970. The street price of both drugs has actually dropped.

Drug use violations are the most frequent arrest offenses in the
United States. Consequences are brutal. Half a million Americans are
incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails for nonviolent drug law
violations, helping our nation become No. 1 in the number of citizens
behind bars. With 5 percent of the world's population, the United
States houses 25 percent of the world's prisoners.

Are Americans really that bad? 751 prisoners per 100,000 population
exceeds the incarceration rate of all other countries on the planet.
Wisconsin holds 605 prisoners per 100,000, in the top 20 of the
states. Why?

Prison numbers are largely due to the insane policy of drug
Prohibition, which persecutes people who insist upon using substances
which the government has arbitrarily declared illegal. The other
reason is the lengthy sentences in America, often several times those
seen in other Western countries. Yet, we are told we must again expand
the capacity of the jails.

If logic, reason, law, or compassion can't persuade legislators to
reconsider their prejudices, perhaps a deep recession will. The
economy helped hasten the repeal of Prohibition 75 years ago. How
badly does Marathon County want to see nonviolent drug users in the
slammer?

The War on Drugs is America's longest war. It is long past time to
call a truce. We have more important issues to deal with. If you
agree, let your elected representatives know that.