75 Years Ago Today, Prohibition Was Repealed*
*Prohibition of alcohol, that is.
Prohibition was a disaster, and no one regrets that it ended. The press has taken some notice of this, with varying degrees of perceptiveness. Earlier this week, Reuters columnist Bernd Debusmann nailed the parallels between prohibition of alcohol and current marijuana policies.
Amazingly, this morning’s San Francisco Chronicle splashes a Prohibition repeal story across its front page and fails to even consider any possible echo in current policies. “When booze became illegal, gangsters took over the booze business, and it became fashionable to break the law,” reporter Carl Nolte writes. Uh, does this sound familiar at all? Hello?
And in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, columnist Patt Morrison considered taxing marijuana like alcohol, but — misled by a RAND Corp. researcher — gets nearly everything wrong. She writes that “teasing out marijuana’s health effects and associated costs is almost impossible,” when in fact marijuana is arguably the most-studied drug on the planet, and researchers have consistently found any harmful health effects to be far less than tobacco and alcohol. And she assumes that “more people would smoke it regularly if it were legal,” though a recent World Health Organization study found no reason to believe that’s true.
Meanwhile, on AlterNet, MPP executive director Rob Kampia gives his thoughts on the two prohibitions.
Tagged with: alcohol and Rob Kampia and science by the author
3 comments
Linked over on Kos
It’s hard to put a positive spin on a recession, but maybe some of the economic arguments will start to stick.
I agree, Jamaste. If it is legalized, regulated, and taxed, that would creat a whole new industry upon which this country could form a more stable economic base.
Apart from personal and medicinal use, cannabis in it’s different forms could be used for many things: bioplastics, biodiesel, paper, textiles, and also has been used to rid the soil of radiation after a nuclear disaster such as in Chernobyl. Imagine the job force that would come from total legalization and regulation of this plant. Thousands of un-outsourceable jobs. And a new industry that could become (ideally) 100% based and made in America.
Richard, I agree with you and Jamaste. If you did some research you will find that cannabis was made illegal just as soon as a hemp gin was developed. The opposition was two families tied up in the cotton industry and were millionaires at that time (in the 30’s) only to become billionaires in the cotton industry. They even went so far as to get financially involved in a movie that made no sense “reefer madness” what so ever. They also paid lobbyists to go to Washington to get something that was made legal turned around to protect their business. Now today, cannabis would replace around 400 man made drugs (that cost too much), it would affect the cotton industry because it is ten times stronger than cotton, and it could be used as a source of fuel. Now that we are in this recession how long will it take before it is called a depression and congress realizes that it cost’s too much, (of money we don’t have), to fight a losing battle.
Leave a Comment