The War on Drugs Is Over; Drugs Won: The Failure of Drug Prohibition

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes at the very principles upon which our government was founded."- Abraham Lincoln

As Abraham Lincoln predicted, alcohol prohibition in the 1920s turned the cause of temperance into a national joke. Although consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume. Crime increased and became "organized." The court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point, and corruption of public officials was rampant. The only thing that Prohibition reduced was respect for the law.

Drug prohibition has not stopped the making, selling, buying, or using of recreational substances any more than alcohol prohibition in the 1920s reduced the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Federal, state, and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America “drug-free" and incarcerated nearly half a million people on drug charges--more than all of western Europe (with a bigger population) incarcerates for all offenses. Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other illegal drugs are as widely available as ever, particularly to young people.

The side effects of the moralistic War on Drugs have been a disaster. Many of the problems that drug prohibition purports to resolve are, in fact, caused by prohibition itself. Drug prohibition helps drug dealers and drug lords make higher profits in the illegal drug black market because prohibition enforcement drives prices up. Illegal drugs are much more expensive than they would be if they were legal since the products themselves are either common plants-- cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine)--or the cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Drug prohibition itself also causes most so-called “drug-related” crime. Drug violence is seldom caused by the drugs themselves, but rather by the criminal way in which drugs are sold. Nearly all drug-related murders involve one drug dealer shooting another. Just as Al Capone’s gang killed other bootleggers, drug dealers are violent because they have to be. How else can you run an illegal cash business with no police protection or recourse to the courts?

Leaving aside the failure of drug prohibition to accomplish its purported purpose, the worst aspect of the War on Drugs is its responsibility for a dramatic erosion of our basic freedoms and rights. Nearly every medium to large city now operates a paramilitary-style police unit that specializes in drug raids on homes. The standard of evidence necessary to obtain a warrant for such a raid is often nothing more than the word of an informant compelled to cooperate for his or her self-interest. Most of the techniques now used in the "War on Terror" were first developed for use in the Drug War. Warrantless searches, seizure of property upon arrest, wide-ranging wiretaps, and the general erosion of the assumption of innocence are all the result of the War on Drugs.

America was founded upon the ideals of freedom and individual liberty. The founding fathers envisioned a government that stayed out of the private lives of its citizens unless a citizen's action posed a danger to the welfare of his neighbor. Though government has a right and duty to protect us from harm by others, it should not interfere in bad decision making that puts no one else at risk. The very notion of protecting citizens from themselves is nothing more that the imposition of a religious moral code on everyone, regardless of his or her own beliefs. In this country, adults should be free to make choices that others disapprove of so long as the consequences of those decisions do not pose a direct or potential risk to the welfare of others.

Prohibition only creates crime and related social harms. This was the case with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, and it is the case now with drug prohibition. The War on Drugs has become a war on families, a war on public health, and a war on our constitutional rights. It only took our ancestors about 15 years to realize that alcohol prohibition was a failure and end it. After more than 30 years, the time has now come for contemporary Americans to end drug prohibition and regulate drugs just as we do alcohol and tobacco.