Rates of alcoholism, arrests for public intoxication and deaths related to alcoholism under Prohibition in the United States were several times higher than either before or after.
One factor in this, however, was the quality of alcohol being consumed. The drinks in a speakeasy frequently contained various poisons ranging from methyl alcohol to organophosphates to carbolic acid. Thankfully the US Government has largely seen the wisdom of not poisoning its citizens.
My understanding of drug treatment programs is that you may pay for them or face worse consequences. I was not raised to believe that justice should be so purchased.
On the subject of young people: pot dealers do not check IDs. Medical science indicates that marijuana interferes with pre-adult brain development. No one is proposing that marijuana be made more available to young people, or more generally that making it more widely available carries much innate benefit. The push for reform is simply an observance that, as with our other Prohibition, the cure is worse than the disease.
EDIT: Just to point out, possession of marijuana has been legal in Alaska for decades. For the most part, nobody cares. Some people smoke, some don't, nobody does it in public.
Rates of alcoholism, arrests for public intoxication and deaths related to alcoholism under Prohibition in the United States were several times higher than either before or after.
Evidence for this? I've seen contrary statements from a very eminent criminologist on the deaths from alchohol, at least. What is the best source for statistics on such issues?
My source was The Poisoner's Handbook, which suggests that deaths were not tracked well or at all in most of the US. The book gives statistics for New York City but a cursory examination of its sources does not seem to list where those statistics were obtained from. The best source for statistics likely doesn't exist, but likely bets would include hospital records and any statistics published by whatever coroner/medical examiner's offices you can find.
One source [0] seems to suggest that deaths were lower but rising. Deaths from poisoned alcohol tripled between 1920 and 1925.[1] The author of the latter paper (Mark Thorton) has written extensively on the subject, his book The Economics of Prohibition may be informative.
Comments
Rates of alcoholism, arrests for public intoxication and deaths related to alcoholism under Prohibition in the United States were several times higher than either before or after.
One factor in this, however, was the quality of alcohol being consumed. The drinks in a speakeasy frequently contained various poisons ranging from methyl alcohol to organophosphates to carbolic acid. Thankfully the US Government has largely seen the wisdom of not poisoning its citizens.
My understanding of drug treatment programs is that you may pay for them or face worse consequences. I was not raised to believe that justice should be so purchased.
On the subject of young people: pot dealers do not check IDs. Medical science indicates that marijuana interferes with pre-adult brain development. No one is proposing that marijuana be made more available to young people, or more generally that making it more widely available carries much innate benefit. The push for reform is simply an observance that, as with our other Prohibition, the cure is worse than the disease.
EDIT: Just to point out, possession of marijuana has been legal in Alaska for decades. For the most part, nobody cares. Some people smoke, some don't, nobody does it in public.
Rates of alcoholism, arrests for public intoxication and deaths related to alcoholism under Prohibition in the United States were several times higher than either before or after.
Evidence for this? I've seen contrary statements from a very eminent criminologist on the deaths from alchohol, at least. What is the best source for statistics on such issues?
My source was The Poisoner's Handbook, which suggests that deaths were not tracked well or at all in most of the US. The book gives statistics for New York City but a cursory examination of its sources does not seem to list where those statistics were obtained from. The best source for statistics likely doesn't exist, but likely bets would include hospital records and any statistics published by whatever coroner/medical examiner's offices you can find.
One source [0] seems to suggest that deaths were lower but rising. Deaths from poisoned alcohol tripled between 1920 and 1925.[1] The author of the latter paper (Mark Thorton) has written extensively on the subject, his book The Economics of Prohibition may be informative.
[0] http://druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults1.htm [1] https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html