As states hurtle willy-nilly towards legalizing marijuana and movements to legalize prostitution gain steam, at Vox.com German Lopez presents the evidence that what you’ve probably heard about Prohibition is wrong:
Alcohol policy “needs to be considered in light of an accurate interpretation of the history of Prohibition,†Cook said. “Instead of saying that Prohibition was a failure so alcohol control is a nonstarter, turn that around and say that Prohibition on its own terms was successful to some extent. And there’s no reason to reject this overall approach [of alcohol control] just because of a misread of history.â€
There’s a balancing act to strike. Prohibition had benefits when it came to health and some areas of crime and public safety, but it had a negative impact on pleasure, freedom, and other areas of crime and safety. That’s true in general for alcohol and other drug policy: Policies can impact freedom, pleasure, health, crime, safety, or a combination, but almost always with downsides in one or more of these categories as well — with different effects depending not just on the policy but the type of drug, too. Maybe a higher alcohol tax or some other approach would achieve a better middle ground than Prohibition did.
That’s something I have been saying for some time. What the real history tells us is that Prohibition broke the back of the saloon culture, injurious to poor families, reduced drinking, and did not spark an increase in violent crime. It worked. Its repeal was balanced by another reform implemented shortly after repeal: Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
For the sake of the planet, we need to ban, or at least tax, all the sex and, even more, the breeding.
I’m an avid fan of Gunsmoke reruns, but a big part of what I enjoy is pointing out all the hypocrisy to my wife, and anyone else who will listen. Miss Kitty Russel is the worst. Lots of makeup, big pretty smile, and the first drink always on the house. Employs widows and young wayward women as drink hustlers and most probably, prostitutes.
She encourages morning drinking and full time drinking to friend and foe, but when the bar full of drunken men with empty pockets turns violent, she feigns indignation and shock. Then she sends for the Marshall, who always resists her attempts to intoxicate him, to arrest, or more often kill, the more aggressive of these drunks.
Even Doc Adams makes most of his money digging bullets out of drunks.
No one ever seems to make the link between the constant violence and the town drug pusher, like you say, saloon culture, not wrong, that’s just the way things are in Dodge.
And that brings me to alcohol ads on TV, they say drink responsibly, but the imagery of four attractive young adults lugging four cases of Coors light up a pristine mountain to a musical score suggesting fun and romance tells the sub-conscience a different story. I’d like to see these ads reined in like cigarettes, but there’s just too damn much money behind them.
Good idea to tax sex, I always am in favor of taxes I won’t have to pay.