Want to Stop Gun Violence? End The War On DrugsBy Jay Stooksberry The transport and sale of illicit booze became a prolific criminal enterprise backed by well-armed, violent gangs. The result: ahomicide rate in the United States that steadily climbedbetween 1920 and 1933. In addition, the rise of victimless crimesnamely, consumption or possession of alcoholadded to the already overburdened judicial system. Furthermore, alcohol consumptionwhat Prohibition laws sought to minimizeactuallyincreased nearly 70 percent. To call Prohibition a failure would be an understatement. This time we call it the War on Drugs, and its impact is even more deadly. Repealing Prohibition destroyed the monopoly on alcohol maintained by organized crime. Disempowering the black market produced anoticeable decline in the homicide rate. In fact, homicides continued to diminish each year for eleven years straight. Prohibition All Over Again Fast forward 82 years, and we are in the midst of Prohibition 2.0. This time we call it the War on Drugs, and its impact is even more deadly. If concerned citizens want to get serious about reducing gun violence, then they should be encouraged to focus less on policies that are ineffectiveassault weapons bans,gun buyback programs, andoutright confiscationand focus more on ending our failed, four-decade long, overly-militarized, trillion-dollar battle against narcotics. Lets put gun violence into perspective. There is no doubt that gun violence is a problem. Guns are used in nearly three-fourths of all American homicides. What typically brings gun control to the forefront of our political dialogue is the recurring tragedy of a mass shooting. However, mass shootings receive a disproportionate amount of media attention considering how much they actually contribute to our national homicide rate. Though recent tragic events shock the collective conscious, it is important to consider them in perspective of what is truly killing so many people. The War on Drugs is less of a spectacle than these mass shootings; instead, it is a slow-killing, institutionalized type of violence. Predictable Black Market Violence Without legal mechanisms in place, the only option for arbitration in the black market is violence. This violence takes many forms: turf wars between drug suppliers where civilians are also caught in the crossfire; no-knock police raids (sometimes occurring at the wrong house) where suspects are gunned down; drug addicts assaulting others to secure money for their addiction. The multi-faceted nature of the violence makes the task of fully grasping the available data difficult. The violence of the American Drug War has even spilled over internationallyprimarily in Latin America. Between 2007 and 2014, Mexican authorities estimates that164,000 homicides were the result of cartel violence. For perspective, during the same time period, civilian deaths inAfghanistan and Iraqtotaled 103,000 combined. A Way Forward How the Drug War is to be dismantled is open for debate; deescalating law enforcement militarization, emphasizing treatment over incarceration, decriminalizing certain substances, or outright legalization are all on the table for consideration. Despite our backwardness regarding most drug policies, the United States is ahead of most of the international community when it comes to the legalization of cannabisand we are witnessing some of the positive effects of those efforts. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana with Amendment 64 in 2013, resulting in a green rush of population growth. Despite the increase in population, Denver police reportsindicate a drop in overall crime, including a 24 percent drop in reported homicides. Granted, the Colorado experiment with legalized marijuana and its benefits is still new. Plus, it is difficult to demonstrate correlation with such a small sample of data. However, there is a distinct correlation between increased policing of controlled substances and the escalating violence of the black market in those substances. The Independence Instituteexamined arrest and homicide rates throughout the 20th century and concluded that the greatest contributor to violence is a violent black market caused by the War on Drugs today, and Prohibition in the 1920s. A Terrible Investment Even if we ignored the violence inherent in this failed policy, the War on Drugs would still be considered a complete waste of public resources. The United States has invested close toa trillion dollarsin drug-related law enforcement over the past four decades. And what was the return on investment? Ablack market valued at $100 billion annuallyand adrug use rate that is the highest in the world. Einstein defined insanity as repeating a specific action and expecting different results. If thats the case, our current Drug War isin the words ofEthan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliancethe international projection of a domestic psychosis. If we choose to continue down this costly and deadly path, we will continue to reap what we sowed over 82 years ago during our first failed experiment with prohibition: increased use of the banned substance, increased burden of cost on public coffers, and increased loss of lifeall due to failed policy. Jay Stooksberry is a freelance writer with a passion for liberty, skepticism, humor, and whiskey. When hes not writing for FEE.org where this article first appeared, he splits his time between marketing consultation and spending time with his wife and son. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Thats one of the biggest reasons for the war on drugs, to use it to take away your rights, to help bring about a cashless society, and to help the growth of more police and surveillance . And to make sure the govt. drug running was not harmed by competition. Think about this those that told you they needed a war on drugs, and told you they can win it, cannot even control drugs in a controlled environment like prisons and they wanted us to bekive they could do it in an uncontrolled environment, Whos the laughing stock in this scenario. the war on drugs? fast and furious where eric holder and oboma make deals with the drug cartels with payments of weapons? then try to use the gun sales to create reasons for gun control. go figure. the CIA has been running drugs since Vietnam and some coming back from Afghanistan tell us that the only reason we are over there is to patrol the roads to the hoppy fields so the farmers can get their crops in. End the war for narcotics and cocaine. Good idea! Not only will the addicted OFF themselves and thin the herd, the prison population will drop dramatically. Prices for the crap will drop low enough for the homeless to afford it and OFF themselves which leads to the answer of the homeless problem. It will lead to more jobs for funeral home services. YadaYadaYada! I guess you see the point. We all win! Its a start but youll never stop negros being negros I think there is a slight confusion here. The people who run America love concentration of wealth and monopolies of products and services. While the temperance movement was strong and influential, the conflagration of interest that enacted prohbition were more concerned with destroying local alcohol production and replacing it with centralized (criminal) production and distribution. Once prohibition was lifted, criminal organizations became legitimate with financial wherewithal to destroy the remaining competition, which has continued to the present time. Dont believe me, consider the Bronfman family and the Seagram distilleries empire. With hired thugs they transformed into gangsters and moved booze from Canada to and through the United States. Like all smart businessmen they deversified and invested their ill-gotten loot into other enterprises, like every would-be oligarch should do. Sixty years later had the family had the funds to manufacture the political career of John McCain in Arizona. The current situation is the complete reverse. The pharamaceutical industy (concentrated gangster wealth) and their acolytes currently have a monopoly and are fighting tooth and nail to preserve it. The beneficial aspects of marijuana and other medicinal plants are a direct threat to their cash stream and comfortable lifestyle. The war on drugs is a new cash stream supplement thier already enormous bank accounts. There is only way the war on drugs will end. The modern financial gangster have to be given the monopoly on marijuana and other medicnal natural plants and foods. Until then, the money is good and nobody really cares about the lives lost as part of the phony war. As a physician, I would have all drugs, and I mean all, legal and over the counter. If one goes to the many other countries (except western) most of the drugs are over the counter, and without the US influence, all drugs were over the counter. For the most part, I have found that few people want to get high on drugs, people want to be normal and it is illness be it physical or mental illness that pushes people into using drugs. Over the counter purchase of antibiotics in Asia, plus uncontrolled application in animal feed, is the reason were on the brink of losing them altogether in the fight against disease.But yeah, as for the rest of them, why not? I agree. Prohibition is great for Organized Crime. Believe me I know, and, thanks, by the way, for the 20th amendment. There have certainly been ups and downs but the 20s and 30s were good for this emigrant family (who came from a little island in the Mediterranean) who are now above average wealthy. I would just hope that todays fore bearers of the War on Drugs Organized Criminal element invest their money wisely. There would be no war on drugs if biblical law were the foundation for Americas government and society: Because Yahwehs law does not altogether prohibit alcohol or drugs, the answer is not to make them illegal as the Eighteenth Amendment (and church edict) did. Just as Amendment 18 was inept at controlling Mans efforts to control alcohol and drug abusers have been wholly ineffective. When Yahwehs law is enforced and convicted murderers are put to death, society never suffers from repeat offenders after someone is killed as the result of drunken carelessness. If someone is killed, injured, or disabled as the For more, see online Chapter 27 Amendment 18: Prohibition: Repealed for Good Reason of Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective. Click on my picture, then our website. Go to our Online Books page, click on the top entry, and scroll down to Chapter 27. Then find out how much you REALLY know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey in the right-hand sidebar and receive a complimentary copy of a book that EXAMINES the Constitution by the Bible. Enforce Yahwehs moral standards the vast majority of problems period would succumb to self-regulation. It would help IF everyone got SERIOUS about the war on drugs an SHUT DOWN THE southern border. THAT IS the drug pipeline. STOP IT THERE! 