Charles Lemos says ...

8 Words of Wisdom for Week Ending 4/3/2009 #1

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.

Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.

Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.

What happens when the crackdown on drugs creates more problems than the drugs themselves? We know that this will be true, because this has been true since the dawn of our prohibition of drugs. There aren't problems with the "War on Drugs" ... the problem is the "War on Drugs". How much money will we continue to throw away while simultaneously failing at everything we are attempting to accomplish? Lemos has much more at the link below.

Source - MyDD