Booze, smokes worse than some illegal drugs: study

[blueblood]

I was talking about the practice of drunk driving as a whole, the whole practice is illegal and the number of occurences of that is going down.

I don't think booze should have been made legal in the first place, like you said it causes lots of problems. Pot causes problems in itself. What if booze was illegal, would the problems be just as numerous?

[guyser]

I What if booze was illegal, would the problems be just as numerous?

I really never thought about it. The revenue would certainly be down. Beyond that I dont know.

[BubberMiley]

What if booze was illegal, would the problems be just as numerous?

When it was illegal during prohibition, consumption initially went down and then steadily increased until, by the time of repeal, it was basically at the same level as before prohibition. So initially prohibition made alcohol less available to the general public, but organized crime stepped in to fill a black-market demand, and made it readily available to the point that the law had little effect other than to provide enormous revenue to gangsters. If you look at average consumption of marijuana before its prohibition, its use is dramatically more prevalent now than it ever was when it was legal.

People simply do not base their decision to do drugs on whether or not it's illegal (except for, maybe, teenagers who are attracted to its outlaw status). In general, people have too strong a sense of personal autonomy to ever let the government dictate what they should or should not consume.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html

[blueblood]

What if booze was illegal, would the problems be just as numerous?

When it was illegal during prohibition, consumption initially went down and then steadily increased until, by the time of repeal, it was basically at the same level as before prohibition. So initially prohibition made alcohol less available to the general public, but organized crime stepped in to fill a black-market demand, and made it readily available to the point that the law had little effect other than to provide enormous revenue to gangsters. If you look at average consumption of marijuana before its prohibition, its use is dramatically more prevalent now than it ever was when it was legal.

People simply do not base their decision to do drugs on whether or not it's illegal (except for, maybe, teenagers who are attracted to its outlaw status). In general, people have too strong a sense of personal autonomy to ever let the government dictate what they should or should not consume.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html

That's a very good point. My opinion of why booze and pot should be illegal is what you are posting. People are always going to do illegal activities, it's human nature and you said it yourself that some teenagers are attracted to the outlaw status. Try and look at it this way, isn't it better that it's all focused on only pot? So it's illegal, is it really enforced? Your graph shows that booze usage after the prohibition went down somewhat, but soon after that people went for another fix, and then another and another. Right now it seems that pot is popular and has a lot of controversy surrounding it. My main point is thank heavens it's only pot (which is relatively harmless compared to what else is there), what if it turned into coke, crystal meth, etc. If coke or crystal meth became the next pot (as far as # of users go and trying to get it legal) we'd have a real big problem on our hands. This is why I figure the lesser of two evils and keep it where it is.

Another problem we have now is the abuse of legal prescription drugs, it's starting to become a problem, so why make it legal, I don't see why it should be made legal nothing will change.

But the government back in the day shouldn't have made it all illegal in the first place, maybe we'd still be stuck with opium tents and cheap whisky.

[Charles Anthony]

People are always going to do illegal activities, it's human nature and you said it yourself that some teenagers are attracted to the outlaw status.

You should also keep in mind that the outlawing of a product or service makes it a more lucrative business. Thus, people (teenagers included) might also be attracted to the potential profits.

But the government back in the day shouldn't have made it all illegal in the first place, maybe we'd still be stuck with opium tents and cheap whisky.

As you noted the problem with prescription drugs, I see no moral difference between opium dens and abusing "legal" narcotics.