>>But the effectiveness of prohibition laws, colloquially known as the “war on drugs,” must be judged on outcomes. And too often the war on drugs plays out as a war on the millions of people who use drugs, and disproportionately on people who are poor or from ethnic minorities and on women.
>There just isn't a profession with credible authority in that specific area. It's sort of like what a public policy think tank should make a recommendation based on. But I don't think any corporate interests align with the message enough to fund that sort of research/lobbying.
You don't need a particular profession to label the war on drugs an abject failure. Just examine the results. The war on drugs has not made one dent in the demand or the supply. It has led to ever more potent drugs with lower prices and profits going to violent criminals. It's a joke
> The war on drugs has not made one dent in the demand or the supply.
While I am also opposed to the war on drugs, let's not make overbroad claims. There is evidence that alcohol prohibition actually reduced demand. Not 100%, but significantly. From Wikipedia:
> The Prohibition was effective in reducing per-capita consumption, and consumption remained lower for a quarter-century after Prohibition had been repealed.[34]
> Nevertheless, once Prohibition became the law of the land, many citizens decided to obey it. Referendum results in the immediate post-Volstead period showed widespread support, and the Supreme Court quickly fended off challenges to the new law. Death rates from cirrhosis and alcoholism, alcoholic psychosis hospital admissions, and drunkenness arrests all declined steeply during the latter years of the 1910s, when both the cultural and the legal climate were increasingly inhospitable to drink, and in the early years after National Prohibition went into effect. They rose after that, but generally did not reach the peaks recorded during the period 1900 to 1915. After Repeal, when tax data permit better-founded consumption estimates than we have for the Prohibition Era, per capita annual consumption stood at 1.2 US gallons (4.5 liters), less than half the level of the pre-Prohibition period.32
32. Miron Jeffrey A. and Jeffrey Zwiebel, “Alcohol Consumption During Prohibition,” American Economic Review 81 (1991): 242–247; Dills and Miron, “Alcohol Prohibition and Cirrhosis”; NIAAA, “Apparent per Capita Ethanol Consumption.” The figure is for 1935.
> There is evidence that alcohol prohibition actually reduced demand.
no. The decrease of consumption in US that you posted is pretty much similar to the decrease in consumption during the same time in England for example - from 1900s to 1920s-1930s the consumption decreased 2-3 times and similar to the US it stayed that low until 1960s :
The Prohibition had no noticeable effect on consumption. The 2 World Wars and state of economy between the wars were the major factors what affected the consumption.
Saying that Prohibition in US reduced consumption is just like saying that Giuliani's "broken windows" policing and "stop and frisk" caused decrease in crime in New York - it actually didn't as the decrease in crime in New York followed the same trajectory as in other cities where weren't such policies applied. Or like it is frequently said on HN - "correlation isn't necessary causation".
>>But the effectiveness of prohibition laws, colloquially known as the “war on drugs,” must be judged on outcomes. And too often the war on drugs plays out as a war on the millions of people who use drugs, and disproportionately on people who are poor or from ethnic minorities and on women.
>There just isn't a profession with credible authority in that specific area. It's sort of like what a public policy think tank should make a recommendation based on. But I don't think any corporate interests align with the message enough to fund that sort of research/lobbying.
You don't need a particular profession to label the war on drugs an abject failure. Just examine the results. The war on drugs has not made one dent in the demand or the supply. It has led to ever more potent drugs with lower prices and profits going to violent criminals. It's a joke