"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
How Can the War on Drugs Succeed When Prohibition Laws Failed?
America's Prohibition laws were meant to cut crime and boost morality – they failed on both fronts. By Johann Hari.
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The prohibition of drugs in America has its roots in racism. Even that "noble experiment," alcohol prohibition, started as tee-totalling protestant backlash against the wine- and whiskey-swilling Catholic Italian and Irish immigrants of the day. Prohibition laws are, and always have been, a tool of oppression. That's why it goes on, and on, and on, despite having failed in every way possible to control drug use. Because it was never meant to control drug use.
Prohibition hasn't failed; the so-called "war on drugs" hasn't failed. At least from the perspective of the drug warriors, their campaign to destroy human life and liberty is an unqualified success.