PROHIBITION DIDN'T END FOREVER IN 1933

The only thing amiss in Russ Smith's informative review of Daniel
Okrent's "Last Call" ("Temperance Tantrum," Books, May 8) is the
review's ending: "Mr. Okrent writes, 'national Prohibition was dead.'
It's safe to say that the country will never order another round."

While Mr. Okrent was referring to alcohol prohibition as "dead,"
regrettably, for the tens of millions of current cannabis consumers,
cultivators and sellers (notably the 20 million arrested since 1937)
the same government wisdom that created the farce of alcohol
Prohibition (with its medicinal and religious exemptions, and inherent
political and law enforcement corruption problems) also created the
second, longer national prohibition which has been plodding along an
astonishing 73 years and counting.

Millions of citizens eagerly look to historians to one day soon write
the definitive history of another failed and similar national
prohibition: one that was unsupported by the general public, riddled
with exemptions and disparity in enforcement, that fell during tough
economic times.

I can hardly wait to read "The Rise and Fall of Prohibition: Part Two."

Allen St. Pierre

Executive Director

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

Washington