Re: Do you believe in Prohibition?
You're making a common assumption for which there is no evidence.
The reason that Prohibition failed was simple. It did not stop people from drinking alcohol. Lifting Prohibition did not cause a sudden rise in the number of alcoholics (although it could be argued that the proportion of alcoholics in the population had dwindled, this was because of increased sanitation in the water supply over the previous 25 years preventing people from becoming alcoholics in the first place). There was also no significant change in the number of teetotalers. Some people drank alcohol, some people didn't and Prohibition didn't change this - those that wanted to drink still could, they just had to break the law to do so.
The assumption you are making is that if cannabis were to be legalised tomorrow, there would be a massive increase in it's consumption which would lead to an equally massive rise in health problems down the track (as well as there suddenly being millions of people turning up to work stoned). The reality is that any rise in users would be minimal and that 50 years from now you would be treating 50 patients per year for cannabis related medical conditions whether it is legal or not.
Another thing to consider is that, for children, it is often easier to obtain illicit drugs than it is to purchase alcohol or tobacco, add to this the fact that pot is, in Australia at least, much cheaper than alcohol and you can see that cannabis is more attractive to a teen than alcohol, meaning more teens will at least try it.
One of the effects of alcohol is that the more you drink, in one session, the more you want to continue drinking. Conversely, the more pot you smoke in a session the less likely you are to continue smoking that night - pot is a self regulating drug in that the more intoxicated you become the less you consume.
Another thing to consider, since it's been touched upon already, is the effects of cannabis, and other drugs, on the overall economy. When someone smokes a cigarette, they smoke a cigarette and that's it, aside from the taxes paid when you purchased your smokes there is no more impact on the economy. When someone drinks alcohol they will eventually buy a packet of chips, or some other snack, to go with it, and probably a pizza, kebab or burger on the way home (in a taxi if they're responsible). When a smoker drinks alcohol they invariably smoke more, in fact there are people that do not smoke cigarettes at all unless they are drinking alcohol. So, when a smoker drinks alcohol they add the purchase of the alcohol and their cigarettes and a snack or meal into the economy. Now, I'm not saying this to be funny, but when you are stoned you get the munchies. It is quite common for someone to spend $25 on some pot, smoke it, and then go out and spendanother $25 on food. In fact, I have seen, and probably done so myself, people spend as much as four times more money on munchies than they did on the cannabis in the first place.
As already noted, alcohol is directly responsible for violence, injury and death on an almost daily basis. Again I'm not being funny here, all a few bongs or joints causes is an urge to eat chocolate and fall asleep giggling at the TV.
Legalisation also has another effect. The State no longer has to pay for the trial and imprisonment of people incarcerated for having a bong and can divert it's resources to more important things like catching murderers and kiddy-fiddlers.
