DEA: Alcohol Prohibition Worked Back In The 1920's

[mcurrier]

http://www.republicreport.org/2012/dea-prohibition-worked/

http://visiontoamerica.org/10529/dea-alcohol-prohibition-worked/

America’s embrace of alcohol prohibition from 1920-1933 generally ranks among the biggest mistakes in public policy in the 20th century. It was a period that resulted in a profound loss of personal liberty that gave rise to criminal syndicates that often used violence to control the black market of liquor sales.

But if you ask the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), alcohol prohibition was fantastic, and something we should reconsider as a society.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

What more could you expect from a government

that wants to control you, and a bunch of idiots

who wish to be controlled?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest bkelm18]

Yep it worked marvelously. That's why it was repealed.

Edited June 23, 2012 by bkelm18

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Oh yeh, what else was given up around

the same time? Your gun rights started

to go to Hell at the same time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TrickyNicky]

It did work great, providing of course you fell into one of two groups, criminal bootlegger or LEO charged with (and given extra funds for) stopping said bootleggers.

No offense to any DEA agents, but I'd rather see that particular waste of tax dollars shut down than maybe even BATFE.

If you needed any more proof the gov was in bed with criminals, there's your sign.

[DaveTN]

We as a country can’t control illegal drugs from being brought into or manufactured in our country. We can’t secure our borders from illegals that are helping to destroy our economy. The government says we don’t have the manpower or resources to stop illegals or drugs.

But someone thinks it’s a good idea to outlaw alcohol and start a whole new criminal enterprise? Where is the money going to come from? And where is the money going to come from to double the number of prisons we have now?

I swear that some dumbazz people think the government has an endless supply of money. Unfortunately it appears most of those people work in government jobs.

Since Obama hasn’t done anything to create any of the jobs he promised, maybe this is his way to create a whole new government agency and give his supporters jobs.

[TnShooter83]

But if you ask the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), alcohol prohibition was fantastic, and something we should reconsider as a society.

But it didn't work to generate any money. So they made it legal again and TAXED it.

It's typical government, The easiest way to get want you want is BUY it.

It's really no different than Firearms. They make it look like they don't want us to have them.

So they "compromise" and let us have them, so long as we pay the government money to make, sell, buy and shoot them.

[Garufa]

Prohibition was an abysmal failure just as the current prohibitions on recreational drugs are. Legalize it all, tax it and bust the offenders who can't control it.

What do we have to lose?

[TrickyNicky]

Prohibition was an abysmal failure just as the current prohibitions on recreational drugs are. Legalize it all, tax it and bust the offenders who can't control it.

What do we have to lose?

Exactly. Well said.

[Guest CCI]

Prohibition was an abysmal failure just as the current prohibitions on recreational drugs are. Legalize it all, tax it and bust the offenders who can't control it.

What do we have to lose?

Which recreational drugs?

[Chucktshoes]

Which recreational drugs?

All of them.

[Timestepper]

Since Obama hasn’t done anything to create any of the jobs he promised, maybe this is his way to create a whole new government agency and give his supporters jobs.

But Obama's supporter don't want jobs, they want paychecks.

[Moped]

Prohibition was an abysmal failure just as the current prohibitions on recreational drugs are. Legalize it all, tax it and bust the offenders who can't control it.

What do we have to lose?

Not a thing! If anything we have a lot to gain, by doing so!!! First off look at all the money that we'd save by trimming the LE and Bureau of Prisons bugets! Second, look at all the money to be gained by taxing it! Third of all, Mexico would more than likely settle down, since in one fell swoop, we took all the money away from the cartels. At the very least they would all go legitimate.

Which recreational drugs?

All of them.

DING, DING, DING! We have a winner! Legalize them all! Take all the money out of the business and watch the crime rate drop. There will be overdose deaths, but you know what? I don't really give a damn anymore. Too much money has been siffoned out of our pockets for the War on Drugs that's been a total failure. I'd rather pay to clean the junkies up one time, than put them in prison. Then just let them OD, if they can't clean up.

[Guest CCI]

Not a thing! If anything we have a lot to gain, by doing so!!! First off look at all the money that we'd save by trimming the LE and Bureau of Prisons bugets! Second, look at all the money to be gained by taxing it! Third of all, Mexico would more than likely settle down, since in one fell swoop, we took all the money away from the cartels. At the very least they would all go legitimate.

DING, DING, DING! We have a winner! Legalize them all! Take all the money out of the business and watch the crime rate drop. There will be overdose deaths, but you know what? I don't really give a damn anymore. Too much money has been siffoned out of our pockets for the War on Drugs that's been a total failure. I'd rather pay to clean the junkies up one time, than put them in prison. Then just let them OD, if they can't clean up.

Clean the junkies up. You can't help some one, unless they want help!

[mikegideon]

All of them.

You're pretty smart for a guy that wears toe shoes! I agree.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yep, darwin works in diverse and mysterious ways, including overdoses. You just can't be your brother's keeper unless you are also willing to be your brother's jailer and oppressor. If you want to be your brother's keeper, then ultimately ya gotta be Big Brother. Freedom is risky for folks who can't handle it. A shame but I didn't design the universe. It am what it am.

I worked in substance abuse counselling decades ago. Some get worse, some stay the same, some get better. I will hazard an edumacated guess that toxic impurities in street drugs and the uncertain dose in street drugs hurts the health of drug abusers more than the drugs themselves.

I don't care one way or t'other about taking drugs. There have been serious but "non-obvious" lost freedoms that I don't see often discussed among the long list of more obvious and visible problems with prohibition aka the war on drugs--

Back in the late-beatnik era, before the hippie era when drug use exploded in middle class youth and the variety of street drugs widened-- You would never guess it, but I was a nerd as a kid and adolescent. It isn't just a malady of later life. In grammar school thru high school I had lots of scientific gear to dork around with at home doing dumb kid experiments. When I was about 12 in New Orleans and was busy making rockets and other chemical and biological experiments and fiddling with electronics. Am pretty sure that heroin and opium were the main drugs of abuse at that time and place. Maybe a little pot and a little cocaine. I was too square to know about it, but am fairly certain that was the situation around 1960.

I could get most chemicals of interest off the shelf at the local pharmacy. The old dude had a whole aisle of chemicals and some lab equipment. He'd sell me nitric or sulfuric acid or sodium hydroxide no problemo. The dude would ask what I wanted it for and I'd bore him with the grisly details. I don't think he was breaking the law to sell the stuff. One time I wanted to vivisect a rodent and asked the pharmacist what I should sedate the rat with, and he sold me a really nice ground-glass syringe, a pack of #26 insulin needles and some kind of sedative to knock em out with. The folks didn't give me any guff about having such thangs even after I almost burned down the garage one time. If I had actually suceeded in burning down the garage maybe they would have got more strict.

Anyway, compared to modern times, doesn't that sound like science-fiction unbelievable freedom for kids to be able to study what they are interested in? Fat chance a kid or even an adult could so easily score certain materials legit retail nowadays, just because they want to buy them.

I clearly recall when it began to change-- I had lost interest in chem by 1967 in college, but had college nerd friends interested enough in chemistry/physics to have rather impressive labs in their apartments and rented houses. At that time a goofy college kid toting big boxes of glassware and pressurized tanks of gas into his rented house didn't even raise an eyebrow among neighbors, as far as I ever noticed. Nerds will be nerds. But then the authorities started taking notice of such activities, and the days of a well-equipped home lab were mostly long gone. Even if companies would sell lab equipment and chemicals to some long haired kid, the authorities kept such a close surveillance that it made kids too paranoid to risk the attention.

So that is one non-obvious freedom fatality of the war on drugs. Drug manufacture ain't the only thang you can do with a home chem lab!!

Edited June 24, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[daddyo]

Surely you guys aren't expecting the gummit to do something that actually makes sense.

[DaveTN]

Drugs won’t ever be legalized. Take the whole criminal/enforcement element out of it. You think we have high unemployment and a drain on social programs and medical care now; see what happens if you legalize drugs.

What makes you think the costs of drugs would drop if they were legal, or that drug users would not be breaking into your homes or robbing you to get money to buy them?

A whole new industry would be developed to grow, process and distribute the drugs; they would want paid.

The manufacturing industry doesn’t drug test because they are illegal; they drug test because you can’t have someone that is high working around machinery and putting everyone else at risk.

Our economy and society would crumble at even a faster rate than it is now.

[Chucktshoes]

Dave, the legality of drugs doesn't seem to have had much of an effect on the points you bring up. There already exists an industry around the production, delivery and retail of drugs. Only, instead of using advertising to increase market share, they use violence. You cannot sever the harm done by the criminal enterprises that control the narcotics trade from the conversation.

[Guest bkelm18]

Drugs won’t ever be legalized. Take the whole criminal/enforcement element out of it. You think we have high unemployment and a drain on social programs and medical care now; see what happens if you legalize drugs.

What makes you think the costs of drugs would drop if they were legal, or that drug users would not be breaking into your homes or robbing you to get money to buy them?

A whole new industry would be developed to grow, process and distribute the drugs; they would want paid.

The manufacturing industry doesn’t drug test because they are illegal; they drug test because you can’t have someone that is high working around machinery and putting everyone else at risk.

Our economy and society would crumble at even a faster rate than it is now.

There is a euro country, I forget which, that legalized most drugs. Contrary to what people like you say, they have seen many benefits, many like those others have laid out.

[DaveTN]

Dave, the legality of drugs doesn't seem to have had much of an effect on the points you bring up. There already exists an industry around the production, delivery and retail of drugs. Only, instead of using advertising to increase market share, they use violence. You cannot sever the harm done by the criminal enterprises that control the narcotics trade from the conversation.

So you think that the violence will stop? Are the drugs going to be free? Of course they aren’t. Are the cartels in other countries and the street gangs here going to disappear quietly into the night, or are you saying they will clean up their act and open retail stores and become productive citizens?

Young kids have always experimented with pot and alcohol. Most have survived the experimentation process; some have not. How will that work when the experimentation is with methamphetamine and heroin? Once they are addicted where will they get the money to buy their drugs?

The “lets legalize drugs†push comes from a bunch of pot heads that make the argument pot is safer than alcohol. That may be true. Are you making the same argument about methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and oxycodone?

Who is going to pay for the treatment and rehab centers?

DUI will still be crime only it will go through the roof. Who will pay for the costs associated with that?

No one is going to seriously consider the legalization of drugs.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The way you raise your children has more to do with whether or not they become drug users or

responsible people than any government school or law making something a criminal act will. It's

a problem of how much government intervention you're willing to admit into society and tax you

that will determine your fate.

I don't buy the "legalize and tax" argument any more than the "war on drug" argument. Both have

their problems and both involve administrative costs and structures that we are allowing to exist.

I don't know the solution, yet, but legalizing it won't fix much, except for those who think taxing

something can control behavior, which is bogus. If you start getting the government out of your life,

even slowly, you will change behavior in this country. Taxing something else just empowers another

agency or politician and something else will sprout up later that will be just as bad as what you tried

stop earlier.

I guess we all have our pet peeves and mine are the gun laws. Of course that is a non starter, most

of the time, and we have let restrictions become embedded about guns. That NFA fee is a tax with an

agency that is out of control and has very little good use, except to restrict a legitimate citizen from

owning certain types of weapons. We need to be undoing laws before we start adding more.

I can deal with a lot of things, but I can't deal with this ever expanding government, nor can you say

"lalala" and make it go away.

Government shapes social structure, or attempts to, by enacting laws that will adversely affect your

life. Don't give me that "legalize and tax it" crap unless you have something else you are getting rid of

first. What worked, allegedly, for some other country, doesn't mean a thing.

Getting back to a decent, moral family structure and raising your kids to respect others, without expecting

a government to do it in the schools, will go a long way to get things right around the country. And not making

excuses for everyones behavior would help. If you think the liberal's post modernistic society is bad then quit

living it.

Maybe that's asking too much, but that's more of a fix than simply legalizing and taxing something. Some of you

appear to be big government guys, after all.

[Guest bkelm18]

Some of you

appear to be big government guys, after all.

Nope. I just don't have ridiculous utopic visions of a future that includes a reduced govt. Not without a violent reversal of world trends. I don't see that happening either.

Edited June 24, 2012 by bkelm18

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That may be what happens, 'ya think? A smaller government ain't utopic. Governments that grow tend

to collapse due to their own weight.

Aah! We've made our own bed. Might need to change the sheets before we sleep in it, next.

I wasn't digging at anyone, Spock. It's just the unintended consequences that need to be understood.

You know that's logical, too.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

No one is going to seriously consider the legalization of drugs.

Hi Dave. You are most likely correct. OTOH the PROGRESSIVE POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS-- Meddlers and busybodies who wanted to run people's lives-- To forcibly "improve society"-- The same movement that pushed thru prohibition also enacted the first drug laws. Because the USA eventually came to its senses about alcohol prohibition, there is the remotest chance that drug laws may eventually be "partially repealed". Some time after pigs fly but considerably sooner than ice water in hell.

So you think that the violence will stop? Are the drugs going to be free? Of course they aren’t. Are the cartels in other countries and the street gangs here going to disappear quietly into the night, or are you saying they will clean up their act and open retail stores and become productive citizens?

If recreational drugs were legalized under an alcohol/tobacco model (ATFE)-- Or a behind-the-counter "restricted non-prescription" pharmaceuticals model (FDA)-- Dunno the best path though an idealistic libertarian would not want to hand it over to any federal alphabet agency. However if recreational drugs did happen to be handled like booze, tobacco, or "the morning after pill"-- Some of the smarter drug lords would go legit. Why not? Hire top lawyers, pay the fees, licenses, political contributions and bribes. Strike deals with Walmart and RiteAid, or booze/tobacco distributors, depending on implementation. Drug kingpins who go legit would throw their street thugs under the bus.

After repeal of alcohol prohibition, whatever happened to the small-time hoods and smugglers in the bootleg biz? After prohibition was repealed and it became difficult to compete against retail? The customer could choose--

1. Buy a consistent product at retail. Priced on industrial-scale production cost + retail markup + tax. No risk of arrest for attempted purchase or possession. Bought at a relatively safe store.

2. Buy inconsistent product from a gangster in the back alley. Running perpetual risk of getting ripped off, mugged, shot or arrested.

A petty criminal peddling inconsistent booze in a back alley couldn't charge any higher price than a liquor store. Maybe customers are alcoholics but they ain't fools. A small time hood could skate on taxes but would have to undercut retail price to retain the customer base. Law enforcement was leaning on the small time hoods but law dawgs were not leaning on legit retail. The cost+risk of black market operations would be high and the selling price would have fallen to no more profitable than selling taters. Most folks won't run an unprofitable risky biz. Some would get a job and others would change crimes.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Lester Weevils