More arguments against drug prohibition

From Harvard professor, pot-head, Jeffrey A. Miron.

Excerpts:

"The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after."

"Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers."

"The U.S. repealed Prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Great Depression, in part because of increasing violence and in part because of diminishing tax revenues."

"Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will abandon one of its most disastrous policy experiments."

Note: The British Empire grew rich off of the drug trade. Forcing prohibition on other countries after we have grown rich from it, is hypocrisy.

It seems like the history of the Great Depression is repeating itself, with this article on Prohibition, with the deregulation that led to our financial crisis, and with an expanding of social programs.

Hmm.

Many are turning to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I'm more of a Grapes of Wrath kind of guy.