The prohibition against alcohol took most of a hundred years to reach its final stage in the 1930s. Then the society gave up on prohibition and settled for alcohol regulation. A surprising thing happened when the same forces of the society who pushed alcohol prohibition applied the same prohibition logic to recreational drugs. Sadly they have gotten the same result from drug prohibition as they did from alcohol prohibition.
Albert Einstein contended the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So how long do we intend to be insane?
When I arrived at college in 1968 even my cow college had people doing illegal drugs. It was common knowledge that recreational drugs were readily available at “reasonable” prices. Today, at the same college, drugs are still readily available at “reasonable” prices after more than forty years of the War on Drugs.
Many people over the decades looked at the results and recognized the efforts were not effective and did more harm than good. Yet the efforts continue unabated. The sticking point is the principle that society should not allow people to hurt themselves. So we incarcerate millions of American citizens, “For their own good.”
Like alcohol prohibition, the Drug War has had three results: first, crime organizations have grown large and influential. Secondly, police enforcement and incarceration has become an industry. Finally, more people take drugs than before. More people started drinking during prohibition than before. Prohibition made our nation a nation of drinkers. The Drug War seems to have increased the number of drug users.
So why not stop the Drug War? Two reasons: first, no politician wants to face reelection accused of being soft on drugs. Secondly, the Drug Wars are an industry for our government.
The drug cartels are very sophisticated and technologically savvy. While they have the muscle of the prohibition crime syndicates, the cartels also have the means and inclination to engage in corruption of public officials on a scale never before seen.
Opposing them is the Government Enforcement Industry. Look at the millions of government workers on the enforcement side. They range from the prosecutors and judicial workers to the enforcement agents to the prisons. Recreational illegal drugs are a godsend for government jobs. I am all for the emotion of keeping innocents from harming themselves, it is just the century of our country trying to stop the illegal drug use has had nothing but failure.
So in many minds principle needs to be trumped by expediency. This is perhaps as it should be. Imagine if the principle of not harming oneself became a mainstream notion in our government. Let us look at all the ways that Americans make what some believe are unwise choices.
One thing at the forefront of government concern is excess calories. As a society Americans are fat. I know every pound I carry first went through my mouth to my middle. So why resist the government having a War on our being Fat? Should there be a ban on large sugary drinks? What about salt? It is a target-rich environment for our government wanting to save us fat people from ourselves.
What about not going to college or not having a job? If our Intervention Industry really wants a challenge, how about making sure each American does not marry the wrong person? That would get rid of divorce in our lifetime. Just imagine all of the government workers that could be hired to monitor our dating and possible marriage partners.
No matter what the desire is to save innocents from one harm or another I suspect the cure will be far worse than the disease. None of the above interventions will really work. Innocent citizens will be hurt more by the government efforts than they could possibly be hurt by their own actions.
We need to regulate drugs like we have with alcohol and stop this endless unsuccessful War on Drugs.
Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico on six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
