JUST LIKE PROHIBITION, DRUG WAR WON'T WORK

A recent letter writer makes a fundamental error thinking that a
"united front" or tougher law enforcement will ever stop the illegal
drug trade. Drug prohibition laws contain the seeds of their own
defeat in the fact that a drug ban provides the price subsidy that
enables the criminal black market.

Prohibition laws do not work because they increase the market price
of the product being banned dozens of times. No amount of law
enforcement can stop the competition for easy drug profits made
possible by misguided laws.

The only way to end Huntington's drug problems is to end the drug
policy responsible for them.

Before writing more about drug prohibition, the letter writer should
do a little study on alcohol Prohibition and the disaster it caused.
America's drug crusade is failing for exactly the same reasons
alcohol Prohibition was such a flop.

It's worth remembering that Eliot Ness never put the bootleggers out
of business. Repeal and a regulated market for alcohol did that. A
drug war based on the same principles doesn't work any better than
alcohol Prohibition did.

Redford Givens

Webmaster -- DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy

San Francisco, Calif.