Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The War on Drugs: Because Prohibition Worked So Well

Forty years ago, the United States locked up fewer than 200 of every 100,000 Americans. Then President Nixon declared war on drugs. Now we lock up more of our people than any other country -- more even than the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China.
A war on drugs -- on people, that is -- is unworthy of a country that claims to be free.
Unfortunately, this outrage probably won't be discussed in Tampa or Charlotte.
The media (including Fox News) run frightening stories about Mexican cocaine cartels and marijuana gangs. Few of my colleagues stop to think that this is a consequence of the war, that decriminalization would end the violence. There are no wine "cartels" or beer "gangs." No one "smuggles" liquor. Liquor dealers are called "businesses," not gangs, and they "ship" products instead of "smuggling" them. They settle disputes with lawyers rather than guns.
Everything can be abused, but that doesn't mean government can stop it. Government runs amok when it tries to protect us from ourselves.
Drug-related crime occurs because the drugs are available only through the artificially expensive black market. Drug users steal not because drugs drive them to steal. Our government says heroin and nicotine are similarly addictive, but no one robs convenience stores to get Marlboros. (That could change with confiscatory tobacco taxes.)
Are defenders of the drug war aware of the consequences? I don't think so.
John McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, indicts the drug war for "destroying black America." McWhorter, by the way, is black.

Read more: http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2012/08/29/the_war_on_drugs_because_prohibition_worked_so_well

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