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Just Like Prohibition, Drug War Won't Work

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1106/a05.html
Newshawk: chip

Pubdate: Wed, 13 Jul 2005
Source: Herald-Dispatch, The (Huntington, WV)
Copyright: 2005 The Herald-Dispatch
Contact: letters@herald-dispatch.com
Website: http://www.hdonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1454
Author: Redford Givens

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

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