Alcohol Abuse Advice

Wake Up! …prohibition Doesn?T Work

Allow me to take you back in time to the 1920’s. Some of you may recognize this decade as the “prohibition era.” On January 19, 1919, the eighteenth amendment (widely recognized as the prohibition amendment) to the constitution was ratified, which reads as follows:

1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

In direct consequence of the Eighteenth Amendment, America began to notice some very disturbing problems: Problems such as gang violence, police corruption, and a whole new spin on the black market. People began making “bathtub gin,” which, because of impurities, injured and killed many. Men such as Al Capone rose to power, who spawned bootlegging operations that cost the lives of thousands of Americans.

Clubs referred to as Speakeasy’s, which were secret alcohol clubs held in hidden locations, were being established. As these clubs were broken up by power of police force, people were arrested, shot, and detained in the name of the “law.”

As these problems increased throughout the years, many began to see the ineffectiveness of the eighteenth amendment, and realize the harm it was causing the country, and less that 15 years later, the amendment was repealed by the 21st amendment.

The point here is that, in this case, prohibition didn’t work, in fact, it was a horrible failure which costed billions of American dollars, caused crime rates to escalate exponentially, and destroyed many thousands of American lives, while failing to significantly reduce the availability or consumption of alcohol. Additionally, it overcrowded prisons, and deteriorated the state of American law.

As the war on alcohol was in the 1920’s, so is the war on drugs today.

The phrase “war on drugs” should only have been a metaphor — like the war on poverty, a battle just as important as the “war” many lament is being forgotten in the wake of the war on terrorism. In fact, in my opinion, we’d likely be winning, or at least significantly advancing in the war on poverty if we took away the billion annual budget for the war on drugs and gave it to programs that help those who are in need. I suppose the question must be posed: Is it really more important to scare kids away from pot than to make sure they get enough to eat?

The Drug War as a whole fails entirely at its intended purposes. Instead of reducing the availability of street drugs, it simply creates a flourishing black market, where many of the same problems of the 1920’s exist today. Police corruption, gang violence, and deaths and injuries caused by impure drugs or lethal mixtures are more prevalent today than they ever were.

The availability of these drugs has not been reduced. Anybody with the desire to do so can obtain street drugs with minimal hassle. We still have much to learn from alcohol prohibition.

The truth is that drugs are everywhere. Anyone in this country who wants drugs can get them — even the people we keep shoving into our increasingly overcrowded prisons. We must way the pros against the cons in this war on drugs.

Another major point that I want to bring up is this: The prohibition of alcohol required specialized legal action, including an amendment to the constitution. No such amendment exists which allows the government to prohibit a free person’s use of marijuana, or any other drug for that matter.

Prohibition is entirely unconstitutional, and absolutely incompatible with American freedom. How can America call itself the land of the free when we have more people in prisons that any other country? How can America call itself the land of the free when we do not have the freedom to smoke a dried up, relatively harmless herb?

In relativity to alcohol and tobacco, the effects of cannabis on society, as well as individual health, are notably less, yet alcohol and tobacco are legal, and cannabis is not. This is because America proved the prohibition of alcohol to be foolish and impossible during the 1920’s, and fails to apply this knowledge to this modern day.

The declaration of independence states that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Also mentioned is that government derives their powers from the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter government when it becomes destructive of these ends.

Marijuana prohibition is in violation of two of the three principles I have just stated: liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We, as Americans, are having our liberty infringed upon by prohibition, which disallows us from harnessing the medicinal, recreational, and artistic potential of this herb. Our pursuit of happiness is also being directly infringed upon. To many, the use of cannabis is a ritual of great joy and pleasure, and the prohibition of this substance causes a significant disturbance in this pleasure. For the relative lack of harm that cannabis causes to an individual or society, it is unreasonable to suggest that this joy be infringed upon.

In the preamble to the Constitution, it states:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In my book, we would have a more perfect union if we abolished marijuana prohibition that perpetuating it. Just as in the 1930’s when Alcohol was again legalized, restoring peace and order to a newly broken society, we must strive to help restore order to today’s modern society.

To me, it is far from just to imprison an otherwise law abiding citizen for breaking a stupid rule. Too many talented people are being thrown into jail for possessing a simple plant. Mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers are feeling this effect. Businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and teachers are feeling this effect. Nearly every industry in the world has felt the sting of marijuana prohibition, yet nothing has been done do disestablish this unconstitutional practice of law.

Marijuana prohibition is not promoting the general welfare, Instead, it is promoting general chaos, criminalizing good people, and destroying the very foundations upon which this nation was created.

And, as previously stated, marijuana prohibition absolutely does not help to secure the blessings of liberty.

As Americans, we all have the power to do something about prohibition. We all have the power to voice our opinions, write letters to congress, visit with senators, write letters to the editor, vote in elections, become activists, and legally oppose prohibition in a plethora of ways. We simply have to do it.

It is our obligation as Americans to fix this country that we live in.

I would encourage you all to take action as you see fit