The Prohibitionists: 1920 to present
Attacking American Freedom and Safety
For nearly a hundred years now it has been obvious that prohibition and the aggressive policing thereof are not effective deterrents. New, oppressive laws and police with increased powers do not reflect, nor do they promote, a free and healthy society.
Regardless of this, high officials within various levels of government have continually advocated harsh laws using skewed facts on crime. As well, increasing the length of sentences has proven to have little, or nothing, to do with crime reduction or prevention. So, too, as it follows, increases in incarcerations, spending, and seizures to combat drug distribution has had little effect on drug use or availability. Professional advisors within the government already know these things. Yet, the war continues.
This war is driven by bad intentions.
From 1919 to 1933 the Federal Government instituted the prohibition of alcohol. This, too, did not reduce crime or eliminate alcohol in America. In fact, it ignited the explosion of organized crime and fueled the expansion of what are known today as the Italian, and to a lesser extent Irish, Mobs.
Predictably, today America’s prohibition of (certain) drugs has similarly increased crime, murder, as well as, fueled notorious organized crime networks. But this time since the raw substances used to produce many of these drugs cannot readily be produced within America’s borders, America has brought its prohibition, and resulting crime networks, to foreign—less rich—countries. This has resulted in massive destabilization, corruption in government, and widespread drug-gang or cartel warfare.
Again, prohibition has failed. At least, that is, if its intentions were indeed to decrease, or eliminate, illicit drug use and concomitant crime. Its outcome, thus far, has been nothing more than suffering, murder, and more sophisticated corruption in an overall less prosperous world. Countless resources, including precious human capital, are still being lost to the fight. Like drugs and fashion, crime, too, is a trend, not able to be diminished through force by the government nor the corporations.
In our own country, after the illegalization of alcohol made crime and murder skyrocket out of control, the law was ended. Prohibition had lasted 14 years. Through tough regulations , the wealthy corporations, over time, regained the alcohol revenues.
The case today is different. The vast majority of cartel warfare and policing thereof are outside of America’s borders. While the compounds used to produce the drugs are so easily and cheaply made in other countries that legalization would result in America being flooded. This, of course, would be to the chagrin of the powerful pharmaceutical companies who are now allowed the monopoly of opiate dealing. They would not be able to compete.
Plus, it is beneficial to American hegemony to see regions like Latin America destabilized.
When Prohibition ended, America’s murder spike ended as well. In the last year of Prohibition, 1933, the murder rate per year was about 1 per 100 people. Ten years after Prohibition ended, as old passions had enough time to cool, even during the Great Depression, the murder rate had fell to about half that. This took place despite the continuation of the organized crime networks to which it gave rise. In this case, the Mafia simply expanded its specialties.
How much have the wars on crime and drugs actually encouraged gangs and crime in the Western Hemisphere?
When dealing with impoverished and desperate people, who cannot visualize a happy future for themselves regardless, not the possibility of prison, torture, or even death will dissuade them. They will continue to join gangs, double-cross, and fight against both governmental and extra-governmental organizations for profit, until they find another way to provide.
From the beginning of America’s uncivil war on drugs in 1969, the murder rate became elevated above the Pre-war era for about the next twenty-five years. And if the Latin-American countries were taken into account, the murder rate is still very high indeed. It is obvious that it is not a war on drugs but a war on the poor and/or non-white. Until the demand is reduced, drugs will not be, nor expect to be, stopped from pouring over these borders or into our streets.Yet, Latin-American governments have been bribed; heads of states assassinated or deposed; in the name of criminalizing drugs. An action that almost entirely only benefits wealthy American interests.
For the Latin-American Presidents in full lock-step with America (such as Colombia and Mexico), the war in their country is being fought like a real war with gun battles, and strongholds, and high-valued targets. Our laws have now victimized millions around the world. And, to what end?
Unlike the first Prohibition, the second came with another war. Despite the protection of free association outlined in the Amendment of our Constitution, America declared a prohibition on “street terrorism”, i.e. gangs. Gangs are informal, and often tribal-like, organizations usually begun by school-aged minorities trapped in underprivileged communities filled historically with broken homes and extremely hostile police.
In California, these gangs were labeled street-terrorist organizations (a name that could more accurately describe the justice system as it operated in inner-city neighborhoods) and 5- and 10-year enhancements were put into law to be added to any criminal offense the police “believed” was done in the benefit of the gang. Running from the police while driving intoxicated was one such eligible offense.
Like the other prohibitions, and even wars such as Vietnam and the continuing –drone war—against Al Qaeda the American government’s heavy-handed injustice in many ways just led to increasingly more embedded and organized illicit operations.
As is the usual answer, California, like its father government, answered back with the war’s escalation. More prisons were built and police were given more latitude to enforce the government’s policy objectives.
In Iraq, the lesson was applied by General D. Petraeus. Instead of trying to win battles and increase murder he set out to win hearts and minds. And, wow, what a surprise: It worked!
What Can Be Done
The human suffering and loss is the tragic thing in all this. It is unnecessary barbarism. lets take a lesson from African-Americans who, for years knowing that the cards were stacked against them, subtly took action to delegitimize discrimination by the use of the simple phrase: “Don’t hate”. Something as capricious as teenage counter-culture or smart phones could reduce crime and drug use far more readily and efficiently than government hostility. Don’t destroy or demonize the next crackheads, simply stigmatize them, as African-American sub-culture has done.
Since the beginning of time, laws, especially criminal laws, did not create civilization. Civilization rose before criminal law. While righteous laws can benefit civilization, laws that are enacted from anything other than sincere logic are, in fact, criminal themselves. They are a crime against humanity. Humane laws are those made to honestly help, and not hinder, the individual and thus—not in spite of—society. These are what we deserve.
What if public schools had first tried to promote gangs by making them seem both unstylish and beneficial to struggling children? Gangs, unfortunately, are not just a style. They have served a purpose in the communities that only America’s police remember to focus on--to destroy anger and give hope. The election of Obama did that. To destroy a trend in children, just have a congressman like Ted Kennedy appear on television and talk about how totally hip and cool it is. Use the logic of Lincoln when he asked (granted a little too late) “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” Either this or perpetuate the suffering and the war cry--“Sic Semper Tyrannis”.
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