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Lessons learned from Prohibition and drug control in the 20th century
by Michelle Calderon, Staff Writer for AnaiRhoads.org
27 April 2006
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AnaiRhoads.org - The history of prohibition and the aftermath that resulted from it has developed into a domino effect that has generated more problems in the world. In the beginning, the anti-alcohol movement was created by physicians, ministers, and large employers concerned about the drunkenness of workers and servants. The movement was devoted to convincing people that alcoholic drink in any form was dangerous and destructive. Supporters regarded alcohol the way people today view heroin: as an inherently addicting substance. Alcohol was believed to be the major cause of nearly all social problems: unemployment, poverty, business failure, slums, insanity, crime, and violence (especially against women and children). However, the era of the drug prohibition did not prevent any of these problems. In fact, prohibition tended to drive out the weaker and milder forms of drugs, and to increase the availability and use of stronger and more dangerous drugs. A drinking culture based on beer and wine was replaced by one based on gin and other hard liquor. Homicide soared and so did police corruption. Wiretapping became a new law-enforcement technique, and courts invented ways for the police to evade the Fourth Amendment. The gang warfare spawned by alcohol prohibition spurred calls for restrictions on Second Amendment rights. For the past seven decades, Americans had been able to buy, sell, and own machine guns. This changed when alcohol was prohibited. Organized crime in its modern form was created. The dreadful results are well documented.
Today, the war on drugs is without national boundaries against an undefined enemy. Drugs, and alcohol are all highly portable, highly prized by many people, despised by others, and can be abused. Each has been the object of societal sanctions. As a result, Prohibition created a funding source for terrorists. And so, as the US pours more and more resources into the war against terrorism, the question arises whether the US can truly fight these two different wars at once.
In the name of protecting the public, the war on drugs has led to greater government power in many areas. The once unbreakable line between the police and military has crumbled. Our prisons overflow with people convicted of drug-related crimes, but drugs are more available than ever. New terms like "body cavity search," "no-knock entry," "racial profiling," and "stop and frisk" have entered our vocabulary. Stronger laws cause more crime and violence.
In order to recognize that prohibition does not work, a person does not have to like the prohibited object. A liberal can wish that guns were never invented, but still realize that gun prohibition will increase gun violence and will lead to a huge loss of Fourth Amendment rights and other civil liberties for everyone. To wage a successful war on terrorism there are many lessons that need to be drawn from the failed War on Drugs. In addition to draining our resources drug prohibition is funding terrorism. Unless America come to terms with these, Americans are likely to spiral into a cycle of violence that may well exceed September 11 and leave Americans with far fewer rights and freedoms than we have even known. (The Patriot Act, for example).
Another error made in the drug war is that we allowed prejudice to cloud our judgment. Despite the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s, the domestic drug war in the US has included community profiling of poor, often black and brown, neighborhoods, racial profiling of individuals and disproportionate incarceration of African Americans. As a result the injustice and discrimination of drug enforcement has made it less popular and less effective. Now the war on terrorism is going down the same path: looking at browns, Arabs and Moslems – even though the last big terror incident involved the very white Timothy McVeigh.
Increasing numbers of people (physicians, lawyers, judges, police, journalists, scientists, public health officials, teachers, religious leaders, social workers, drug users and drug addicts) now openly criticize the more extreme, punitive, and criminalized forms of drug prohibition. These critics have pointed out that drug policies are expensive, ineffective at reducing drug abuse, take scarce resources away from other public health and policing activities, and are often racially and ethnically discriminatory. Criminalized drug prohibition violates civil liberties, imprisons many nonviolent offenders, and worsens health problems like the AIDS and hepatitis epidemics. Harm reduction is a major part of the critical opposition to the current drug policies. Being aware of these consequences, there seems to be no other solution. What damage has prohibition already done to society that experts have not accounted for? With this in mind, even if facts and statistics are available as it is today, how good are future researches in predicting the aftermath of any proposed solution to the problem or fixing the many consequences of the damages done already.
Prohibition is a failure. Some have proposed that all could be cut off instantly by simply taking the drug trade out of the hands of the gangsters and putting it in the hands of government regulators. This may not be a solution but simply a deterrence for organized crime and terrorism from its’ current illegal activities. However, the alternative path organized criminals and terrorists choose to take part afterwards would still be linked with the era of “prohibition”. Hopefully, if lessons are in fact learned, those paths would be less damaging to society. More likely, if not realistically, if lessons are not learned, history will repeat itself as it has been doing.
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