END PROHIBITION TO END CORRUPTION

Bill Richardson ought to read the history of alcohol prohibition.
(Opinion 2, Friday) We have been here before.

Official corruption was rampant during alcohol prohibition. In some
years, they fired ten percent of the prohibition enforcement staff -
and those were only the ones they caught.

Al Capone had his illegal booze shipments guarded by uniformed police.
As one contemporary minister noted, "I don't know of anyone who can
make a dollar go further than policemen and dry agents. By frugality,
after a year in the service, they acquire automobiles and diamonds."
We didn't solve that problem by arresting all the corrupt cops, or
even by arresting the Al Capones. This is a problem like cockroaches.
You can't just step on the ones you see. You must change the
environment that breeds them. We must end the modern drug prohibition,
just as we ended alcohol prohibition.

Excellent references on alcohol prohibition are at
http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm. Major government
commission reports on the subject over the last 100 years are at
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer under Major Studies of Drugs and Drug
Policy.

Clifford Schaffer

Agua Dulce, Calif.