Let's Learn from the Disaster of Prohibition and Terminate the Drug War

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via ReclaimDemocracy!:



Let's Learn from the Disaster of Prohibition and Terminate the Drug War
By Mike Gray

First Published by Common Sense for Drug Policy, April 12, 2009


In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.

Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone.

Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well.

After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income.

At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles/2009/prohibition_drug_war.php