Stupid and stoned...just how the Dems would prefer to keep the masses.
Prohibition didn't work for alcohol. Why should it work any better for marijuana?
4 Lessons Alcohol Prohibition Should Teach Us About Cannabishttps://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/cannabis-legalization-lessons-from-alcohol-prohibitionIt’s difficult to predict what the next four years will look like for cannabis users. While President-elect Trump has made a number of contradictory statements on the subject of legalization, his pick for Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions, holds some radical viewpoints, once claiming, “Good people don’t smoke marijuana.â€
This isn’t the first event of this nature in U.S. history. Producing insurmountable suffering and hardship, the so-called ‘Prohibition Period’ between 1920-1933 – referring to the 13-year ban on alcohol – was largely regarded as a large-scale political failure. Cannabis prohibition has yielded similar consequences, with both events leading to an influx in organized crime, attacks on minorities, and ironically, a rise in drug use.
Recognizing the parallels between these two time periods can help us make informed decisions about the future, no matter what our political alignments may happen to be. So what lessons can we take from America’s first prohibition?
1. Crime Increases Despite its negative reputation, alcohol prohibition was by some measures a success. The 18th amendment was popular for the majority of its duration, and Americans consumed significantly less alcohol. The benefits, however, were not without serious drawbacks. Organized crime groups thrived in territory that legitimate businesses were no longer allowed to inhabit. Prices of liquor spiked, the federal prisoner population multiplied, and the nation lost out on valuable tax dollars.
Because cannabis only became popular after it was made illegal, it’s a lot more difficult to determine exactly how much of an impact its prohibition has on crime rates. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, over 8 million Americans were arrested for cannabis-related crimes between 2001 and 2010. To this day, half of all drug arrests are marijuana-related, with enforcement costing taxpayers around $3.6 billion a year.
More at link above.