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No, the problems with drug abuse won’t go away if we end the WOD. It is my simple assertion that the WOD does more harm to our freedoms than it does to enhance our security.

Absolutely. There was nowhere near the amount of violent crime in the US prior to prohibition!

Both "Aspirin" and "Heroin" are trademarks of AG Bayer and Co.

Before prohibition and when first launched, Coca-Cola's key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine and cocaine could be purchased in concentrated form from the Sears catalog. There are very definitely beneficiaries of the "War on Drugs" but the beneficiaries are not the peons who get to pay for it all and duck the bullets. I think that the chances that the WOD will end during my lifetime are fairly remote, but that still doesn't mean that the societal costs of the WOD aren't still greater than the societal benefits. [/end rant]

(Just to preemptively answer the knee-jerk response to my rant, the only mind-altering drug I use is coffee.)

I promise, no knee-jerk reaction to what you wrote. That being said I do have some disagreements with you.

While prohibition may have increased homicides by mobsters who killed each other and occasionally innocent bystanders. It certainly increased the reporting of the crimes as they were almost always sensational by nature and often increased newspaper sales.

However, did alcohol contribute to rising crimes rates previous to the enactment of the Volstead Act (prohibition)? Statistics show that homicides began increasing at the turn of the century and climbed steadily. Obviously prohibition did not play a part prior to 1920 when sales of alcohol were prohibited. Strangely enough possession & consumption was not illegal during prohibition, at least not at the Federal level. The Amendment said nothing about those activities. Some states outlawed possession, consumption, and/or manufacture of alcohol, while others outlawed no activity other than the sale activity.

Prohibition did have positive affects though. Statistics show that deaths caused by Cirrhosis were reduced significantly. Domestic types of abuse were not really followed that closely back then, but my guess is that they shrank as well. Another statistic that was documented, regarding admissions to mental hospitals were markedly reduced during prohibition. My point being obviously, that prohibition had its positive affects, while attributing increased violence as questionable. We can say with confidence that violence attributed to prohibition was definitely used effectively to repeal prohibition.

History beyond prohibition shows that violent crime can be attributed to alcohol, as well as, drug usage. When you add in deaths attributed to impaired operators of vehicles, it is expanded even further.

What we do know is that laws will not stop those who choose to disobey laws as written regarding usage of legal & illegal mind-altering substances. These laws may or may not infringe on one's freedoms. If you want to engage in their usage, or you wish to make big money catering to their users, they infringe.

We also know that absence of laws regarding those same substances, also create problems for those imbibing and others that come into contact with them. In addition they create problems for society at large by increased healthcare costs, increased insurance costs, and increased likelihood of jeopardy from a percentage of them. As that percentage increases, those who abstain from them are impacted more and more, which is an infringement upon them.

I guess my overall point here is this. What is you proposed solution?

BTW, this is an interesting, if in places poorly written, piece on drug usage in America. Not just recent history but back to the times you described and even prior. Bad Medicine: A History of Narcotics in Pharmaceuticals