ANOTHER FAILED PROHIBITION

The violence in Chicago and the increasing deaths from opioids in the
suburbs could both be prevented if lawmakers would learn the lesson
of Prohibition.

Alcohol prohibition had the intention of making society better by
outlawing the sale of an intoxicating substance, but it led to
violence, corruption and products that were even more dangerous
because they were unregulated and adulterated. The war on drugs is
another failed prohibition.

The gangs that plague this city fight over drug-dealing territory,
but if we took these substances out of the underground market and
regulated them, as we do alcohol and tobacco, we would financially
undermine the gangs.

Until lawmakers find the courage to regulate drugs in a legal market,
cartels and gangs will control the production and distribution, and
more people will become addicted.

Dan Linn, Lower West Side