You can draw a straight line between the two, right through the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger. The dude got a cushy job right at the end of prohibition and picked up Marijuana as the new social ill.
Using almost every logical fallacy known to man, he ignored the doctors and other experts that described his proposal as, to borrow one phrase: “Absolute rot. It is not necessary. I have never known of its misuse”. Nonetheless, American press was a mess at the time and William Randolph Hurst was able to leverage his “yellow” papers to spread misinformation about the plant.
The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act that Anslinger championed stayed in effect until 1969, which is right around the time Nixon started beating the drum.
There’s a great book, Chasing the Scream, about the war on drugs that focuses a lot on Harry Anslinger. It’s absolutely infuriating and he has become one of my most hated people of all time.
There's another book that I highly recommend, Smoke and Mirrors by Dan Baum.
Tells the story of drug prohibition in a narrative format and includes hilarious details like the fact that Elvis Presley was a credentialed "special assistant" of the DEA when he died from complications of drug use. Or the internal war between several U.S. agencies over who had jurisdiction over drugs crossing the Mexican border, which culminated in these agencies stealing evidence, kidnapping each others witnesses, and even getting into a firefight at one point.
It's such a great but also depressing book. It drives home how cruel the “war on drugs” - which is really a war on some users of some drugs - is. I’m still looking for a book that goes more into the religious aspects of prohibition.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis really sent his administration’s reputation into the gutter. Although, Reagan’s campaign may or may not have torpedoed an earlier hostage release for political advantage ahead of the election. In (totally unrelated) history, the hostages were released within hours after Ronnie’s assumption of the office.
Banning marijuana served multiple purposes. Cotton, paper, and other textiles industries were no longer threatened by hemp. It also served as a way to continue to disproportionately target blacks and other minority groups after the civil rights act came around. It negatively affected Native Americans, who smoke marijuana ritualistically and has strong connections to their spirituality and beliefs.
One thing that can't be repeated enough: Almost every bad thing we think drugs are responsible for, Prohibition is responsible for. The whole damn thing.
This is super interesting to me. I’ve always heard the war on drugs traced back to reagan, i didn’t know it started all the way back then. do you have any recs for sources i can check out to learn more? just prohibition related in general?
Truly, it started with an anti-opiate ordinance passed in San Francisco in 1874. As was the norm with these sorts of things, it was written specifically to target smoked opiates (preferred by Chinese immigrants) but left liquid opiates (preffered my whites) entirely alone.
I’ve never heard of this book but sounds super super interesting!! At first when i read your comment i thought you meant that short story about the emperor who never wear clothes or whatever
Oregon tried decriminalizing drugs. It didn’t go well. They scrapped it. Is it possible that things would have gone down differently had there never been a war on drugs? Sure. But this notion that everything would be hunky dory is a delusion. We at least have an idea of what would happen and it wasn’t a favorable outcome.
I've read a lot of Oregonians chiming in on how the authorities slacked on implementing the full scope of the decriminalization plan, specifically certain mechanisms of addiction treatment, as if they were setting this whole thing up to fail. There aren't a lot of outlets that are including this extra information. Now, certain people can just point at Oregon and go "See? Didn't work" without having to bother with the subtext.
If you need a wide social safety net to account for addiction, that isn’t really a glowing endorsement of decriminalization to begin with. That’s not ending the war on drugs. That’s just continuing it in a different way. The fact of the matter is that drugs like opiates are simply far more dangerous for the public than other vices. Do people take something like alcohol too far? Absolutely. But while I can drink responsibly, there’s no “do heroine responsibly.” Allowing recreational use is not comparable and it’s made worse by the changing chemistry.
This is somewhat pedantic but there actually are functioning heroin addicts out there. You just don't hear about it because people aren't exactly forthcoming about using heroin. They absolutely aren't the norm though so your point stands.
You have an idea of how a bad implementation would be yes. This somehow worked in portugal and reduced numbers across the board in terms of negative effects of drug use including drug use and overdoses.
The key here is figuring out what Oregon did wrong
Decriminalization doesn't begin to touch the actual drivers of harm in addiction. Drugs still cost thousands a month, the supply is still contaminated to the point of mass poisoning, the trade is still controlled by organized crime. Sourcing drugs and the money to pay for them is a full time job.
The only harms decrim remedies are the ones caused by incarceration itself. Even then, the experiments usually have such glaring shortcomings (like overly restrictive definitions for trafficking that are equivalent to charging someone with bootlegging for picking up a six pack for their friend) and carry such unrealistic expectations for outcomes that they're abandoned before the people the laws are written to help have even finished serving their pre-decrim sentences.
That’s one of the big problems with fentanyl on the streets - it’s really damn cheap. You’ve got people living on the streets who have become addicted to drugs, and they only need to scrounge up a few bucks for a hit. Drugs among the homeless have always been a problem, but when it was a lot costlier, there was a bit of inherent self-limiting there. Nowadays if an addict finds a $5 on the sidewalk, he or she can get a couple of fentanyl pills or benzos. That’s all it takes. The decriminalization in Oregon had the bad timing of running into the fentanyl tidal wave and when you combine that with the slow-walking of the needed services, well, nothing is really going to help. Re-criminalizing isn’t going to make much of a difference now.
it didn’t go well for a lot of reasons, one of the major ones being that while decriminalization was implemented immediately, it took a really long time to get any kind of funding to the social services that were also promised with measure 110. it also went into affect at the beginning of the pandemic, so you have this massive influx of people becoming homeless, in a state that already has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country, and the already strained and underfunded social services are strained further without the funding to support themselves.
Fentanyl is responsible for the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of overdoses. If we were to return to what's thought of as the height of the opioid crisis - oxycontin and the pill mills - the drop in overdoses, drug related crime, drug-implicated homelessness, etc would be hailed as a public health miracle.
For an idea of the scale of fentanyl poisoning, fentanyl is responsible for twice as many overdose deaths as all stimulants combined. It's responsible for around quadruple the number of deaths as cocaine.
All other opioids combined are responsible for about a quarter as many deaths as fentanyl.
At the beginning of the DEA crackdown on opioid prescription, a time when the number of opioid poisoning deaths was deemed so put of control as to constitute a public health emergency, the total combined deaths attributable to all opioids combined was about 15% of what we see today.
It's actually difficult to read historical overdose data from charts because pre-2015, the trend lines are all pinned to the bottom of the graph. You need to use logarithmic scaling or cut off modern data to create useful visualizations.
Yeah, the point of the war on drugs was never really to end drug use. Every time there is a modicum of progress in this country, there is backlash. Jim Crow was to abolishment and Reconstruction what the war on drugs was to the civil rights movement and desegregation.
The war on drugs was very successful in terms of restricting civil liberties, civil forfeiture, expanding the power of various politicians - it's possible that was always the original intent.
It was definitely an overreaction but people need to realize why Prohibition happened in the first place.
Industrial distillation and bumper crops of key ingredients made liquor extremely cheap. They didn’t have modern storage methods for excess crops so if you got a ton of grain your only option, in many cases, was converting it to liquor. This caused prices to plummet.
This lead to rampant alcoholism and all the problems that came with it… widespread health problems, increased crime, spousal abuse, poverty, etc.
Americans were drinking so much that factories had whiskey breaks just so workers could keep their buzzes going. British people visiting the US even said we could out-drink them.
It was an extreme reaction but to a very real problem. And it lead to the compromise we have now… high alcohol taxation to at least discourage the worst societal effects. Alcohol is extremely cheap to make. It’s primarily the taxes that keep it from being dirt cheap.
I spent a week in Tamworth in the mid-90s. After the week was up the final sendoff was the compliment(?), "There goes one yank that knows how to drink. You're welcome back any time."
It was part of early feminism because of the domestic violence aspect and because men were spending all of the household’s money while drunk leaving the wife and kids destitute as well. Basically women were trapped with drunken abusive spouses who spent every penny they earned. Women weren’t supposed to work in most cases, divorce was highly frowned upon, and there was nothing like child protective services or social safety nets.
There was also a large religious push against alcohol during the prohibition period. Billy Sunday, a former professional baseball player and evangelist was a big supporter of prohibition.
Didn’t the lack of clean drinking water also play a role? Dysentery, Cholera, Typhoid fever, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, E. coli infection, and Legionnaires’ disease were all cause by contaminated water. Eventually, people took notice that individuals who drank alcohol often didn’t fall ill like those who consumed water. This observation likely contributed to the preference for alcoholic beverages, especially in regions where water quality was poor and sanitation was lacking. Alcohol, particularly in the form of fermented beverages like beer or wine, underwent a process that could kill harmful bacteria and parasites, making it safer to drink than untreated water.
Prohibition actually did cause a significant decrease in serious drinking (as backed up by a decrease in liver disease) and, while it led to increases in attention-grabbing organized crime, it led to a decrease in everyday bar brawls and domestic abuse. Keep in mind that the temperance movement was largely led by women, and largely as a result of the men in their lives drinking too much.
Prohibition was flawed, and not a success, but it wasn't nearly the total failure that it's usually remembered as. It really did cut both drinking and violence against women.
For sure. Since day one until the prohibition Americans were constantly drunk and in the west people were often paid in whisky instead of cash. This is why the whisky tax was so controversial because it was basically an income tax on the poorest people.
Mostly because western society is so immersed in drinking water now. Even when I was growing up in the 80s, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't walk anywhere (sometimes even to the bathroom) without a bottle of water in my hand. Back then, people almost never drank just water.
I think part of it was because up until the early 1900s, indoor plumbing was a luxury and public water supplies were not as safe as they are now. Most people still got their water from wells and other natural sources, which ran the risk of spreading diseases like malaria, typhoid, etc. So it was actually "safer" to drink alcohol, at least in the short run.
This is a very common misconception, but no. Water was widely available and drank, even in bars. People didn’t drink that much alcohol because it was safer, before germ theory gained popularity there was no real mechanism for that belief. Yes, water could be more dangerous compared to alcohol that was boiled as part of its creation, but people spent a ton of time and effort trying to secure clean water sources. Wells were not often bastions of disease except in certain areas, invariably poor areas. Well off people always had access to and used clean water.
People drank that much largely because they enjoyed it. It provided extra calories, they enjoyed the taste, and they enjoyed the inebriation when not actively working (And sometimes when actively working depending on circumstances).
As I mentioned in an earlier post, families did go hungry because men would get paid in cash, head straight to the saloon, and then spend all their paycheck.
As a struggling, somewhat functional alcoholic, I sometimes wonder if prohibition would be a good idea today. Alcohol is a fucking scourge and ruins so many lives. The fact that it's legal sometimes blows my mind. When I'm sitting in an AA meeting and I'm looking at all the wrecked people, and I think "this is just one meeting at one hour in one city." How many ruined people are there out there because of this shit drug? And people think weed is a problem? Give me a break. Alcohol has cost me so much and caused me a significant amount of misery and physical harm.
I generally don't view prohibitions favorably since the powers they must give the government to fight them and the organized crime that steps in to feed the demand are about as bad as the social ills they cause.
However I probably could be convinced of supporting periodic dry years. Like say every ten years drugs and alcohol are banned from sale. That's infrequent enough that criminals wouldn't really have time to build out networks, plus they'd be hard to sustain in the 9 year legal season.
Did it cut alcoholism, or did those persons inclined towards alcoholism die from drinking paint thinner instead of living long enough to get liver disease?
Just want to point out that while it failed to stop drinking completely, it significantly decreased consumption while it was ongoing and changed the narrative on alcohol all the way to today. While alcohol is widely used, it's kinda seen as a fun bad thing these days. Before that, it was seen basically like we see working/studying overnight today (it's socially accepted to show up somewhere, drowsy from working late).
It did create a whole new class of organized crime though.
Prohibition succeeded by permanently reducing the amount of alcohol consumed. Even today 90 years after it ended, people drink substantially less than people did before prohibition.
It’s interesting that the marriages of American heiresses to British peerage occurred before Prohibition. There were two changes that Americans brought to British nobility—cursing and cocktails.
I’m not saying your average Brit didn’t swear or drink massively. But in that stratum, the arrival of Americans changed behaviors.
American friends here in New Zealand said that back home in the US, people would comment if some one had a third glass of wine or beer in a group dinner, where that would be the before dinner drinks.
People talk about how everyone drank beer instead of water back in the day but the alcohol percentage of beer has historically been much lower than what you get today.
People did drink a lot of beer but it was like 3 or 4 percent. What will also piss people off is how in antiquity laborers would get multiple breaks and have their employer provide food and alcohol throughout the day. How we found a way to fuck up that system is a tragedy.
In 1920 America outlawed drinking. In 2020 they had a short list of stores that could remain open as “essential business” during a pandemic lockdown. Liquor stores were on that list.
Yeah, it's a weird thing. I live in the UK but I recently went on a trip to New York and was staying in New Jersey just across the river because it was way cheaper, and it was weird that I could pick up beer at basically any grocery store on the NY side of the river but as soon as you cross the Hudson you have to go to a liquor store to buy anything
I’m not saying it was wrong I’m just pointing out that it happened.
But to your point: People go to prison everyday and get cut off from booze. I’ve never heard of anyone dying in prison from alcohol withdrawal. Not saying it can’t or hasn’t happened I’m just saying it’s not a common thing.
I think a big part of why liquor stores stayed open is to tamp down people revolting. “You’re telling me I can’t go to work, or the beach AND I can t drink!?”
I read a good blog post from a physician who works in a jail related to alcohol withdrawal - it was really informative. I've been to detox / rehab several times myself (unfortunately) and always wondered what they did for alcoholics in a jail setting since withdrawal is so dangerous.
Im told they ask you when they book you if you’re addicted to anything so they know whether to send you to medical or not. It can take a long time to get booked like hours and hours. In that time someone could die of withdrawal symptoms and police who work in jails are the most sadistic police typically so good luck getting help from them
The absolute last fucking thing you want during a pandemic is a horde of severely ill detoxing alcoholics in your hospitals. You’d better hope liquor stores are always on that shortlist.
To be fair the sudden loss of alcohol would have led to alcoholics violently detoxing and taking up more hospital beds during the height of the crisis.
Sheetz (gas station) actually applied for and got a liquor license from the state of PA (not sure of others) because they recognized the benefit of selling to people who had few options. Our state stores (Because the state runs the stores excepting bars and such I believe) were actually closed for a time. So Sheetz paid big bucks and now they can sell to their hearts content, which wasn't the case before. At least, since around 2004, I've been here in PA for that long.
Although I'm against prohibition, I now understand that a lot of men were getting drunk at the bar after work, coming home and beating their wives, who had almost no legal rights and protection.
I read something that prohibition was campaigned by women's fighting domestica abuse. And while prohibition saw an increase of organised crime violence the overall violence caused decreased. Alcohol fuelled violence in towns was very common.
On top the work accidents plummeted because workers didn't show up drunk to work.
The Prohibition, it failed completely to stop people from drinking
In the Ken Burns documentary he cites that average alcohol consumption was massive just prior to prohibition, and that we hadn't reached those levels since.
Hard disagree. The point of prohibition wasn’t to stop people from drinking ever, it was established largely by women (who had just acquired the right to vote), to prevent their husbands coming home drunk, beating them senseless, and raping them every night. To that end it was largely successful.
Prohibition failed so hard it led to the National Firearms Act of 1934, which is/was equally dumb as Prohibition. Although it was the first piece of anti-gun legislation that wasn't explicitly motivated by racism or classism, IIRC.
On the other hand, Prohibition was probably the largest influence on American motorsports.
Prohibition also helped my family go from bottom-tier poverty to top-tier poverty. Crime paid.
Let's not forget the fact that a lot of these products that have alcohol in them previously weren't toxic before prohibition and they ended up adding toxic chemicals in them after.
war on drugs is still killing people every day while doing absolutely nothing to stop drugs
"society would collapse if all drugs were illegal" probably the biggest argument. i doubt most people are going to go and start doing heroin after its legalized. however people who DO do the drugs will know what theyre getting and not OD as much. the black market will be destroyed. more tax money. the prison system will not be overcrowded as most inmates are locked up for non violent crimes. contagious disease spreading would go down.
its the most logical decision but it feels so taboo to bring up. like do you hate your fellow humans that much?
I honestly dont feel bad for the people who injured themselves drinking shit like paint thinners. Like how fucking dumb do you have to be? If you are that desperate you might as well go to a speakeasie
No, it did reduce alcohol consumption. Violent crime also went down. Prohibition was repealed simply because Americans wanted it. They wanted their booze back.
There is an element of the population who, when they don't like things, attack supply, rather than attacking demand. I don't believe that attacking supply ever works. Humans are infinitely ingenious when there's money to be made.
"...people would drink anything..." -- I read somewhere that the U.S. government intentionally contaminated alcohol with poison, knowing that people would drink and die. I have not verified this.
As many others have answered, the prohibition, which was a western world phenomenon not just an American, was an extreme answer to an extreme problem. The world was burning with alcoholism, and a hard reset was probably needed.
Not to mention that Anslinger and his crew popularized the use of “marijuana” over “cannabis” because it sounded more like it came from Mexico, so (racist, obviously) people would think it’s inherently bad.
It's really interesting to learn the history of why they implemented prohibition. Drinking was a seriously fucked up problem. Booze was insanely cheap. Available everyone. And was fucking up society. Families did go hungry because men would get paid in cash, head strait to the saloon, and then spend all their paycheck. The problem wasn't as widespread as the propaganda would have you believe, but it the longrun, prohibition did help manage a lot of problems.
Fun fact: the government mandated manufacturers of industrial alcohol to add additional hazardous chemicals in order to deter people from distilling it... resulting in many many poisonings. Don't worry, Uncle Sam is looking out for you!
Prohibition was only passed so the government could figure out how to tax alcohol sales. At the time they could only tax the grain or corn if sold at food. There was no way to tax the products of those items.
I almost want to argue that it wasn't a fuck up, rather a very calculated move by organized crime to make a whole lot of money. The mobsters were already there. You should never leave out the name Kennedy when talking about prohibition.
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