The Profits and Violence of Prohibition Make Everything Worse.
Show me where prohibition does NOT make things worse.
I'll wait.
We should have learned this lesson before. The 18th Amendment banned the sale, transportation and manufacture of alcohol in America. But it was clear to some, that millions neither wanted this law nor would respect it. The great promise of peace was not in the air.
Speaking of the 18th amendment, why was it necessary to amend the Constitution in order to prohibit alcohol? Furthermore, how is it possible to prohibit other substances or property without going through the formal amendment process?
Prohibition-era crime statistics show a vast increase in crime, and the story of the time show gangs become organized and violent for profit.
“Capone managed to bribe both the police and the important politicians of Chicago. He spent $75 million on such ventures but considered it a good investment of his huge fortune. His armed thugs patrolled election booths to ensure that Capone’s politicians were returned to office. The city’s mayor after 1927 was Big Bill Thompson – one of Capone’s men.”
– We know that this happens constantly in the modern “war on drugs”.
Now that alcohol is legal, however, you don’t see Miller Brewing Co. and Budweiser gunning each other down in the streets. Due to continued draconian regulations, we do, however, still see men with guns looking for money and compliance. This will always accompany prohibition, even if it is in the form of regulation.
Logically then, cartel/gang violence would fall from an open market. “According to some government estimates, Mexican drug cartels make more than 60 percent of their profits from marijuana alone and control distribution networks in more than 250 American cities…”
Users would not be in as much danger of violence or fraud if they were able to trade on the open market. We saw it in alcohol prohibition, and we see it today in the war on drugs. The black market is dangerously fraught with poor quality products, outright fraud, and violence. Even the government has been guilty of actually poisoning alcohol during its prohibition, and now marijuana and therefore, probably other drugs too. There is even an argument to be made that prohibition is the cause for incredibly dangerous stuff such as “spice” and krokodil.
Current civil asset forfeiture laws, created largely for the war on drugs, encourage policing for profit. The perils to our liberties from laws that create perverse incentives in law enforcement are remarkably draconian. Most people wouldn’t believe that our rights have been turned on their head, our property is presumed guilty until proven innocent, and law enforcement stands to profit without accountability – all on the pretense of the war on drugs.
Modern prohibition (the drug war) and the opposite of prohibition (monopolistic prescription psychotropics) are the main causes of violence today.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://prohibition.diggndeeper.com/the-profits-and-violence-of-prohibition-make-everything-worse/
LOL! jk it's tyranny 😂😂
... to save the children.
"checks and balances" 😂
It makes no sense at all... prohibition only increases crime rate, deaths, gang on gang wars, casualties on both side and some that weren't even on any side. It would be much easier to legalize it, allow those same gangs to make their actions legal and tax them if they want to... The amount of revenue it would bring the country would be overwhelming... Unfortunately, there are still too many people in this world with a retrograde way of thinking, and most are in the government, unfortunately.
I agree with everything but the taxes. They have shown they can't be trusted with our money either.
I get your point though and sadly taxes are the inevitable.
The taxes are a whole different world, because even though I agree with you that most of them can't be trusted with our money, if not all of them, I also see taxes are important to pay cops, teachers and other public servants, water canalization, infrastructures, electricity, beach cleaning, etc...etc... there are so many things that they are used for.
Imo what we need are for governments to run on a public transparent blockchain which would enable full transparency of where our taxes were being used. But there is a problem with this, other countries would be able to see where and for what the taxes were being used, which would be a huge blow to the security of a country, so, we would probably need to reach unity and a consensus in the whole world, which is probably still far away in the future...
In the short-term I think the best thing to do is to focus on improving education so the next generation that goes to power is better than the previous one...
I think an option would be to open source our government needs. We have the tools right now. We just don't have the culture or experience, but that is changing very quickly.
I think you are completely right about the blockchain. If you haven't seen it already, check this out -> https://steemit.com/eos/@dan/does-freedom-require-radical-transparency-or-radical-privacy
As for education, we are seeing a growing divide. People are realizing the government schooling is not education. Things are changing and I'm super excited about that.