Pubdate: Thu, 21 Mar 2002
Source: Daily Independent, The (KY)
Copyright: 2002 The Daily Independent, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.dailyindependent.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1573
Author: Donald A. Nash
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n448/a06.html
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n463/a06.html

ALCOHOL PROHIBITION WAS NOT A FAILURE

According to the reasoning of Allan Erickson (March 9 ), our country needs 
to abolish all prohibitions against murder, robbery, drunken driving, 
spouse and child abuse and slavery.

He claimed all prohibitions have failed, so the prohibition of slavery 
brought about by Abraham Lincoln, at the cost of thousands of lives, must 
be a failure.

As to alcohol prohibition, he (also Stan White, March 14) needs to do some 
historical research. National alcohol prohibition was not a failure. Before 
prohibition, Neeley institutes were a chain of prosperous alcohol 
rehabilitation establishments. During prohibition, they went out of 
business because of a lack of patients. Bellevue Hospital in New York 
changed its alcoholic ward into a children's clinic. Drunken driving and 
crime decreased nationally despite propaganda about racketeering in large 
cities.

Repeal of prohibition was the failure! After repeal, crime and drunkenness 
doubled within a decade. According to a Readers Digest report in 1983, 
alcohol sales provided $12.2 billion in taxes but cost the nation $89.5 
billion in liquor and crime control, health care, not counting family 
poverty, spouse and child abuse, highway accidents and death it brings 
about. What do you think repeal of illegal drug use would cost the country?

Abraham Lincoln compared prohibition of liquor with prohibition of 
slavery.  He said, "Whether the world would be benefited by the total and 
final banishment of all intoxicating drinks seems to me to not now any 
longer be an open question....The liquor traffic is a cancer in society 
eating out its vitals and threatening its destruction. It cannot be 
regulated; it must be eradicated...."

What do you think he would say about illegal drug traffic today?

Donald A. Nash

Grayson
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