
Prohibition was primarily the work of one pressure group - jsnider3
http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9566935/prohibition-myths-misconceptions-facts
======
mschuster91
Just look at the millions of dollars pot alone creates in tax revenue.

In a decade we will look back and think "how could we be so stupid for
decades".

And I'm looking forward when "harder" drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin are
legalized or at least tolerated - no more drug turf wars, no more shadow
states in Latin America, and especially far fewer deaths and medical issues
from contaminated drugs.

Drugs are actually pretty safe, what makes them so incredibly dangerous is the
contamination happening in the supply chain, from unclean manufacturing over
normal degradation due to improper handling to stretching at the dealer level.

~~~
highCs
> Drugs are actually pretty safe

I don't get it. Heroin for example is a serious threat for physic and mental
health isn't? If you sell them legally, uneducated and influenceable people
would consume them, not realizing entirely their act no? It's real questions,
I'm ignorant here.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
We don't know. There are many, many narratives.

The point is that drug policy is not targeted towards harm reduction or
safety, but towards the demonization of the drugs, which means there's
possible improvement if we stop doing that.

~~~
highCs
> the demonization of the drugs

It keeps the number of drug addicts low and then makes the harm and safety
problem less important at the same time?

~~~
ArkyBeagle
How would we know it actually does that? Somewhere between 50-90% of high
school seniors in the late '70s smoked pot at least once.

The problem with demonization in general is that it requires willing
suspension of disbelief, which is brittle.

Please remember also that Nixon's original WOD happened because lots of young
people were coming back from 'Nam strung out.

~~~
rco8786
> lots of young people were coming back from 'Nam strung out.

It's quite possible that we saw a bunch of boys coming back "strung out" from
the most psychologically damaging war in the country's history, not smoking
pot.

~~~
ArkyBeagle
The concern was over the alarming percentage on heroin.

------
oldmanjay
There is no shortage of people who know exactly how you are supposed to live.
Some of them get organized enough to convince the power structures to force
you.

I oppose these efforts wholeheartedly even when I agree with the aims.
Unintended consequences are the order of the day when you dabble in saving
people.

------
AlwaysBCoding
Also, Prohibition was enacted via a constitutional amendment, yet a large
portion of people simply ignored it. It always gets understated what a massive
crisis this ended up being for the integrity of the US Constitution. If one
amendment was seen as optional by an increasingly larger group of people,
maybe the others would be as well. It was important for the integrity of the
government that they repeal the amendment. I have a feeling if prohibition
were enacted via a complicated loophole like the one that keeps the horrible
21 drinking age afloat it would have been much harder to repeal in full.

~~~
lisper
You can actually see this happening today with abortion, which is becoming
increasingly unobtainable in the U.S. despite being (theoretically) a
Constitutional right.

~~~
agarden
Interesting observation. There is nothing in the Constitution about abortion
and it being a right, though. So what we are actually seeing is widespread
disrespect for Supreme Court rulings taking hold. The recent ruling on gay
marriage is only going to accelerate that trend.

~~~
mindslight
Why would anyone respect the judiciary when all 10 of the unit tests from the
Bill of Rights are presently failing?

~~~
tomjakubowski
I haven't heard anything about soldiers quartering in the homes of private
Americans without their consent.

~~~
mindslight
Mitchell v. City of Henderson

~~~
GFischer
Very interesting:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderson_Police_Department#Mi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henderson_Police_Department#Misconduct)

"Anthony Mitchell claims in a lawsuit that on July 10, 2011 he was at home,
when officers called his home and said they needed to occupy the house in
order to gain a "tactical advantage" in dealing with a domestic violence case
at a neighbor's home. Mr. Mitchell told the police that he did not want them
entering his home. Officers showed up a bit later and broke down the door
anyway.

The lawsuit alleges that officers are guilty of crimes including assault,
battery and abuse of processes as well as violating constitutional amendments,
notably, the suit alleges officers violated the Third Amendment to the US
Constitution"

~~~
hga
The Instapundit (a law professor) has written a paper on how things like
invasions of electronic privacy fit the concepts behind the 3rd Amendment (a
major reason the Brits did it was surveillance of the occupied houses'
inhabitants):
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2616034](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2616034)

He wrote this popular treatment a few months before the above paper:
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/01/constitutio...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/01/constitutional-
law-third-amendment-quartering-column/24220593/)

A couple of years before that he wrote this general column focusing
specifically on the Henderson event:
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/07/07/third-
amend...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/07/07/third-amendment-
henderson-nevada-police-column/2496689/)

------
forgingahead
_But one thing many don 't know is that Prohibition did, in fact, reduce
alcohol consumption: As Okrent told me, tax stamps from before and after
Prohibition's passage suggest there was, indeed, a decline in drinking — one
that was sustained for several years._

What? If there is a large illegal markets for alcohol sales, how can tax
stamps be considered an indication of alcohol sales?

~~~
rootedbox
"tax stamps from before and after Prohibition's passage"

because the after part?? less stamps sold post prohibition than pre would be
an indication of less use.

~~~
johngalt
If you've already built the infrastructure and practices to smuggle an illegal
good, it is unlikely that you immediately start paying taxes once it becomes
legal.

~~~
joshmarinacci
The illegal sale of something has risks and costs (obviously) so the criminals
will only engage in it if the price of the good being sold is high enough.
When prohibition started the price of alcohol went up to cover the risk of
selling it illegally. Once prohibition ended the price dropped and it was no
longer worth the risk to selling it illegally.

However, you are correct that they had already built up the infrastructure and
practices for smuggling, so they simply moved to other more profitable goods
like guns, harder drugs, and people.

------
microcolonel
I can't really tell what they're trying to say here.

The repression involved in the implementation of alcohol prohibition had an
effect of pushing a common and integral part of society into the black market.

The NRA is promoting the right to bear arms, and actually it would seem that
the effect they're seeking should be the exact opposite.

Effectively, as prohibition pushed a polite leisure into the black market. The
NRA's goal appears to be the exact opposite: that is, to keep a polite leisure
_out_ of the black market.

I don't think German understands the irony of this, because I get the
impression that they want to compare the moral status of the prohibition
movement to the moral status of the NRA.

~~~
patorjk
Here's the part of the article that explains it:

> The Anti-Saloon League knew that if you controlled the margins, you could
> win legislative majorities and even supermajorities. In any given district,
> they'd say, Look, 45 percent of the people are for the Democrat, and 45
> percent of the people are for the Republican. Who controls the 10 percent of
> the middle? And that's what they fought for — those 10 percent who would
> vote for whomever the ASL told them to vote for. By picking only one issue
> and not caring what legislative candidates — state or federal — cared about
> in terms of other issues, they were able to have an enormous effect. It's a
> practice that's been copied to the letter — I don't know whether by design —
> by the NRA.

~~~
hga
The NRA didn't get overtly political until after the 1977 Cincinnati (annual
meeting) Revolt. From my readings of the participants in that and the
following efforts, the most commonly presented principle, by Neal Knox, was
"When I feel the heat, I see the light." As in credibly threaten them with the
prospect of spending more time with their families, and enough of them will
adjust. Or be replaced, perforce. Ask the shade of Tom Foley, first Speaker of
the House to lose reelection since before the Civil War.

It helps that we're freaking huge, the NRA has 5 million dues paying members
now, and influences 100 million plus gun owners.

------
forrestthewoods
Comparing a group that wants to take things away to a group that wants things
to not be taken away is questionable.

~~~
mcantelon
As soon as I started reading the piece I wondered "who is Vox going to try to
smear with this piece?". Second second in gave the answer.

------
brandonmenc
> The campaign behind Prohibition was hugely successful — and may have
> inspired the NRA's modern tactics

I see the NRA adopting something more akin to pro-choice advocacy - a zero
compromise scorched earth policy, where any attempt to discuss banning the
most extreme products (late term abortions, unlicensed fully automatic
weapons) results in arguing uphill against a slippery slope.

(disclaimer: I am an NRA member)

~~~
Retric
The pro-choice side has let a lot of things slide without notice. Most notably
access is the line in the sand not discouraging hoops.

That said, the NRA has also let a lot of things slide. There pro armor
piercing bullets, but not anti-tank rounds. Even if the lack of anti-military
hardware makes the second amendment almost pointless.

~~~
hga
" _There pro armor piercing bullets_ "

Assuming you mean "They're", nope, they signed off on the ban of AP ammo that
can be shot from a handgun, which means all AP ammo short of, say, .50 BMG,
which I'm pretty sure would pulverize anyone's hand, wrist and arm.

As for "the lack of anti-military hardware makes the second amendment almost
pointless.", you suffer from a lack of imagination:

The small arms we're all allowed to own everywhere but NYC and D.C. are quite
sufficient to procure the heavier stuff.

Being able to reach out and touch someone from 800 yards and more means
something serious.

The US has never fought a war without a secure rear area.

There are many, many other things small arms make more achievable. Like making
it too expensive to do a lot of things en masse; as Alexander Solzhenitsyn put
it in _The GULAG Archipelago_ :

 _And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been
like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest,
had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to
his family?

Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they
arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in
their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at
every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose
and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people
with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?

After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no
good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the
skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria [Government limo] sitting
out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven
off or its tires spiked.

The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and
transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine
would have ground to a halt!_

~~~
geoka9
I'm afraid Solzhenitsyn is a bit naive in thinking that would've caused the
oppression to stop. The authorities would have just moved in the troops and
introduced military law, shooting people without hesitation. After all that's
what they did in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968.

~~~
shaftoe
I think you miss the point. Of course someone with a stick against the NKVD is
at a serious disadvantage. Of course Stalin didn't hesitate to murder
millions.

The point is the bitter shame at having gone quietly and meekly to the camps.
The regret at having not fought to defend oneself.

The counter example would be the Warsaw ghetto.

------
dools
Anyone looking for a brilliant and comprehensive analysis of prohibition
should check out "Chasing the Scream".

------
anigbrowl
There's a lightly fictionalized account of how this was engineered in Richard
( _Manchurian Candidate_ ) Condon's largely-forgotten novel _Mile High_.

------
rosege
Drugs dont need to be illegal because nature provides the penalty already.

------
seivan
I've thought the same way recently, in fact the anti-gun "zero compromise
scorched earth policy" is part of the reason why I've grown to like the right
to bear arms. Amongst other ideas that would be considered conservative.

~~~
planfaster
Did you see Hillary a couple of days ago saying it would be worth it to look
into a mandatory gun-buyback program like they did in Australia?

Gun control has always been the appetizer for gun confiscation.

EDIT: for those who think I'm misinterpreting:

Clinton made the comments during a campaign stop in Keene, N.H., when an
attendee asked about Australia’s 1996 and 2003 buy-back programs that
collected roughly 700,000 banned semi-automatic rifles and other firearms.

"I think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level, if that
could be arranged," Clinton responded.

dublinben, please _show_ me how I'm misinterpreting what she said rather than
just _accusing_ me of doing so.

~~~
dublinben
You're grossly misrepresenting what she actually said.

~~~
forrestthewoods
[http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/16/politics/nra-hillary-
clinton-g...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/16/politics/nra-hillary-clinton-guns-
democrats/)

""I think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level if that
could be arranged," she said in response to a question about Australia's
nationwide buyback initiative that began in 1996."

I, uh, would have to say that checks out?

~~~
hga
As Wikipedia puts it
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_buyback_program#Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_buyback_program#Australia)):

 _Unlike the voluntary buybacks in the United States, Australian buybacks of
1996 and 2003 were compulsory, compensated surrenders of particular types of
firearms made illegal by new gun laws._

The financial compensation was paltry; that for being converted from a citizen
to a subject...?

~~~
Frondo
They're still citizens; that kind of talk is emotion-laden hyperbole, and has
no place in this kind of discussion forum.

~~~
hga
I obviously strongly disagree. If you're disarmed, you're barely better than a
serf, you are most certainly "subject" to anything your armed government cares
to now impose on you.

The truth may be ugly, but it does no one any good to pretend it doesn't
exist.

~~~
Nadya
As with centuries of civilizations before us - there are people who think
their current government is non-corrupt, flawless, serving in the citizens'
best interests at all times, and would never use force or brutality against a
population to get what they want simply because they _can_ against an unarmed
population. That there are no outside forces capable of harming the
population, even if the government comes to their defense, and we're "past all
that" because we've lived in a blink-of-an-eye overall "peaceful" time. If you
ignore all the wars going on as we speak.

Same people, different generation, different government.

~~~
Frondo
I'm not sure what government you're talking about, but where I live (the
U.S.), I think of the government as _made up of people largely like me_ , and
I'm neither wealthy nor well-connected.

Is it perfect? No, but nothing human is. Is it accessible? Oh yes. Is it
something I, and everyone else, can work to be a part of and make better for
all citizens? Of course. Do guns play _any role at all in that work_? Not a
one. This--the discussion of the role of government in a democratic society--
is a place for words and ideas, not weapons.

We _are_ past the might-makes-right attitude of "I have guns so I'm OK". Now
we talk.

~~~
planfaster
First you should ask the presidents and politicians of the world to give up
_their_ guns and their security guards' guns. Then you might have a case to be
made to the citizens.

While attempting to do that you might realize that you in fact do live in a
world where might-makes-right and that the "democratically-enacted rule of
law" paradise they sold you through your TV is just that.

You might also realize that you are wrong in thinking that the US government
is made up largely of people like you, _neither wealthy nor well-connected_.
This is the epitome of naivete, to think US politicians aren't wealthy and
their careers aren't a game of who-knows-who.

~~~
Frondo
I think you and I must live in very different worlds.

You said that the democratically-enacted rule of law "paraside" is something
that TV sold me.

I don't own a TV set, and I spend the occasional evening and weekend being
part of that democratic process. I engage with the other folkspeople in my
community, and with our elected officials, some of whom I'm already on a
first-name basis with. We talk about stuff, upcoming new regulations, the
state of the city and neighborhoods.

I get that you feel pretty disempowered, but I can't really think that that's
anything but your choice. I also get the sense that guns give you back that
sense of being empowered, like "even if no one listens to me, at least I have
a _gun_." That's not any meaningful sense of power, though, you're not going
to persuade people to come around to your point of view with a gun. A gun in
your pocket just doesn't give you any democratic legitimacy.

Which, it's funny, buying your way into a false sense of power, while
relinquishing your own actual legitimate political power, _that 's_ the sad
thing.

Oh, but I'm naive. Yeah, getting out there and engaging politically is _hard_.
I'll just go buy my way into a meaningless sense of power, and stay at home
instead. King of my castle, while democratic society passes me by.

------
vaadu
"There was the incredible advocacy campaign from the Anti-Saloon League, whose
anti-alcohol messaging looks like a more fervent version of the National Rifle
Association's gun rights messaging today."

You it it right there.

