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Marijuana ban failing just as Prohibition did
1/30/08|Concord Monitor| by Matt Simon

The hearing on HB 1623, the bill to reduce penalties for marijuana possession, made for some interesting drama in the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

The most eye-opening statement came from Berlin Police Chief Peter Morency, president of the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police. Morency claimed that "87 to 90 percent of our crime rate is directly related to drugs and alcohol." This mention of drugs and alcohol in the same breath got the attention of Democratic Rep. Timothy Robertson of Keene. Robertson asked Morency if, following the logic of marijuana prohibition, he would be in favor of reinstituting alcohol prohibition.

To the astonishment of virtually everybody in the room, Morency didn't say no. "Knowing what it (alcohol) causes to families, I certainly would consider it," he said. "But I can't go there - it's something that's legal now, and we have a huge financial burden as a result of it."

I hope Morency is alone among New Hampshire police chiefs in his unfortunate misunderstanding of history. Alcohol prohibition was one of the most disastrous social policy failures in U.S. history. The financial burden of policing the newly created black market proved exponentially higher than the financial burden of enforcing legitimate laws governing reckless and aggressive behavior. The taxation and regulation of alcohol has been a great success in New Hampshire and the United States. The problems caused by irresponsible drinkers are dealt with by law enforcement, violent gangs no longer control any piece of the alcohol market, and the term "police corruption" is no longer associated with alcohol.

Despite the fact that alcohol is a dangerous drug, a drug strongly associated with assaults, domestic violence and severely impaired driving, the people of New Hampshire know better than to believe government has any right to stop adults from drinking. Many members of the law enforcement and criminal justice community have come to understand that prohibition is a failure for marijuana as well (a less dangerous drug, by any honest scientific standard), and the organization known as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is growing by leaps and bounds.

We hope to one day convince the chiefs of police and others in the law enforcement and criminal justice community that marijuana prohibition simply creates more problems than it solves. In the meantime, I expect the people of New Hampshire would appreciate some assurance that the individuals who enforce New Hampshire's laws do not secretly covet a return to the violent, crime and corruption-ridden days of alcohol prohibition.

 

Logos

I'm fond of pointing out to people that there is no way that we could outlaw alcohol or tobacco simply because of the tax revenue gained from its sale, not to mention that it would take even more money to police the laws. The nation would go broke without all that revenue.

When they agree with that, I ask them how much money could be saved in law enforcement resources if we eliminated the criminality of cannabis, not to mention the tax revenue generated by government regulation?

I usually get a "I never thought of it that way before" which is exactly what I'm looking for.

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Brother Logos
The more I learn, the less I know. | Truth doesn't change, only our perception of it does.
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BillieBudd

Well keep up that line of inquiry, Brother..so often a disagreement over weed legality ends up like a food fight between pre-teens(usually the weed advocate is worst offender). The only way to convert those who we feel are misinformed is to get them to think in a different light...and using an economic argument is a good tactic...

Buzzby

The nation has already gone broke. Haven't you noticed? The Bush administration is about to borrow $150,000,000,000 from China to pay for its new bread-and-circuses program, passing out free cash to the citizens.

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Logos

The only thing I have noticed is that Gold isn't worth twice what it was 5 short years ago, but that the dollar is worth half what it was just 5 short years ago.

I got an e-mail not too long ago that was a forward originally from someone who is a goods purchaser in China or Japan and the point they were trying to get across was that given the devaluation of the dollar, Japan and China wouldn't be able to absorb the weak dollar any more and that just about everything was going to increase in price by a LOT this year.

That is one way to rid this nation of any semblance of a middle class if it is true, not to mention the mess that the dems will have handed to them this fall...

It's going to be an interesting bunch of years we have to look forward to.

I have said for a long time that if we ever went to war with China we would run out of spare parts for our military in very short order as a great percentage of what our military relies upon is made there. As it turns out, they could just own the nation with what we will owe them...