Pubdate: Fri, 30 Sep 2011
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2011 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Norm Stamper
Note: Norm Stamper, a 34-year police veteran who retired as Seattle's chief
of police, is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com).

PROHIBITION: A PARALLEL TO MODERN WAR ON DRUGS

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper Reflects on the Violent U.S.
Experiment With Prohibition, As Depicted in Ken Burns' New PBS
Documentary. He Argues There Is a Compelling Parallel Between The
Damage Done by the 18th Amendment and the Current U.S. War on Drugs.

KEN Burns' new documentary on alcohol prohibition, premiering on PBS 
Sunday, reportedly begins with a Mark Twain quote: "It is the 
prohibition that makes anything precious."

As a retired police officer who worked to enforce today's prohibition 
- - the "war on drugs" - I think it's a lesson we would do well to remember.

It was the prohibition of alcohol that made it so valuable to 
criminals, providing the tax-free dollars that turned neighborhood 
street gangs into national crime syndicates headed by the likes of Al 
Capone and Charles ("Lucky") Luciano.

Prohibition did little to curb liquor consumption, particularly among 
young people. Moreover, as otherwise law-abiding citizens were 
suddenly deemed criminals, the resulting hypocrisy significantly 
undermined respect for authority.

Today, drug use, especially by adolescents, is shockingly widespread, 
and law enforcement's job has been made that much harder. In cities 
across the country, young people, poor people and people of color have 
come to view us as the enemy.

Our drug laws have given rise to a new generation of gangsters with 
names like Sinaloa, Los Zetas and La Familia. These evil and greedy 
cartels are raking in profits that Capone and his ilk could only have 
dreamed of.

Like the bootleggers of old, today's international cartels reap untold 
billions of dollars from the drug war, and they aren't afraid to kill 
to protect profits or expand markets. After alcohol prohibition took 
effect, the homicide rate skyrocketed by 78 percent. Nearly a century 
later, 4,323 U.S. homicides between 2005 and 2009 have been directly 
traced to the illegal drug trade - more than the number of Americans 
killed on 9/11 or in combat in Iraq. Even this figure pales in 
comparison to the 40,000 murders in Mexico since 2006 that are 
directly related to the illegal drug market.

It would be difficult for anyone who lived under alcohol prohibition 
to imagine today's drug war-related violence. Whereas the St. 
Valentine's Day massacre of seven alcohol-trafficking gangsters in 
Chicago made international headlines in 1929, today's drug cartels 
regularly kidnap and murder police and other government officials, 
roll severed heads into nightclubs and hang mutilated bodies from 
bridges - complete with threatening messages carved into the flesh. 
The violence is so frequent that each grisly incident is but a blip on 
the radar.

Just as in the 1920s, this violence stems from disputes over 
territory. Instead of bringing whiskey from Canada, organized 
criminals deliver illegal drugs from Mexico via a sophisticated 
network whose tentacles extend from our southwestern border to more 
than 1,000 American cities.

Previews show that Burns' documentary vividly depicts the lavish 
lifestyles of Prohibition-era gangsters, the more successful of whom 
banked staggering profits for their time.

Yet today's drug cartels are even more profitable. It costs about $75 
to produce a pound of marijuana, which then sells for about $6,000, 
depending on quality. Mexico alone produces more than 5,000 metric 
tons yearly, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

As with every historical documentary, we all know the ending to this 
one: At long last, Americans of all political stripes realized that 
the Prohibition experiment was a complete failure. Support for it 
collapsed, and repeal finally came with the 21st Amendment in 1933.

The repeal allowed the creation of thousands of new jobs in a 
reinvigorated alcohol industry, with millions of dollars earned in tax 
revenues.

Legalizing alcohol shut off a major source of funding for organized 
crime and took the violence out of the market. It's not surprising 
that you haven't seen any newspaper headlines recently about Budweiser 
and Coors distributors shooting one another over who gets to stock 
liquor stores.

It took just 13 years for the country to come to its senses. But our 
drug laws have been on the books for decades. Nevertheless, I believe 
we are closer than ever to undoing some of the damage through current 
initiatives to legalize marijuana.

With so many parallels to the past in evidence, Burns' latest work 
should touch off a long-overdue discussion about ending our current 
experiment with the war on drugs.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.