Prohibition

Oops! I missed a birthday. Our lovely drug prohibition is 105 years old, today -- March 15, 2020 -- Happy birthday, prohibition, and hats off, to all the people out there who are profiting from it.

Prohibitionists claim that prohibition didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, create our drug problem.

Then explain history to me. For 56 years (1915-1971), the US had a policy of drug prohibition, while England and Europe had a policy of legal drugs. The two policies had different outcomes. Under prohibition, America had developed a large drug problem. Under legal and controlled drugs, England and Europe had small drug problems.

People saw what they saw, and they wrote about it. In 1938, a physician said about America’s large drug problem, “There is nothing like it in the world.” ¹

In 1954, the chairman of the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association joint committee on drugs went to Europe to learn how they were handling the drug problem. Europeans said, “What drug problem?” He learned that legal countries didn’t have a big drug problem.²

In 1971, Nixon instructed his new ambassador to France, to stop the flow of heroin through France, to the US. But the French were totally unconcerned about the flow of black market heroin through their country. They regarded heroin addiction as “the American disease.” Not a problem in France.³

Prohibition created our drug problem. That’s not an opinion. It’s history. For those who are afraid of this lesson of history, tell me why. Call me at 509 592 6612, or email me at [email protected], or be an ostrich.

Heed the words of history’s voices. Respect the Americans who were eye witnesses. Adopt the policy that they testify was successful, and that they asked us to follow -- legal and controlled drugs.

Wiley

Hollingsworth,

Pullman

1. (Drug Addicts are Human Beings: the story of America’s billion dollar drug racket: how we started it, and how we can put an end to it, by Henry Smith Williams.)

2. (The drug hang-up: America’s fifty year folly, by Rufus King.)

3. (Agency of fear: opiates and political power in America, by Edward Jay Epstein)