Prohibition Effects Quotes

In fact, the whole thing about prohibition is this: it isn't the initial cost, it's the humidity.

I have read a great deal of economic theory for over 50 years now, but have found only one economic "law" to which I can find NO exceptions: Where the State prevents a free market, by banning any form of goods or services, consumer demand will create a black market for those goods or services, at vastly higher prices. Can YOU think of a single exception to this law?

90% of the problem with marijuana is prohibition related, not use related.

Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

Prohibition, like so many other policies imposed from the moral high ground, typically by those who do not drink, disproportionately affects the poor who resort to illegally brewed alcohol when they want a drink, not infrequently leading to their death, and are more likely to be harassed by the police.

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognised. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.

The war on drugs is identical to the prohibition of alcohol: all you're doing is making criminals rich and powerful.

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.

Complete prohibition of all chemical mind changers can be decreed, but cannot be enforced, and tends to create more evils than it cures.

The ban on sports betting does exactly what Prohibition did. It makes criminals rich.

There is no evidence to show that prohibition has ever had its intended impact. Of course, just as banning beef has reduced beef consumption, banning alcohol will lead to reduced alcohol consumption. But, there appears to be little or no correlation between, say, domestic violence or household impoverishment and prohibition.

The drys seemingly are afraid of the truth. Why not take inventory and ascertain the true conditions. Let us not leave it to the charge of an antiprohibition organization, or to any other private association, let us have an official survey and let the American people know what is going on. A complete and honest and impartial survey would reveal incredible conditions.

Evidence...proves that prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it.

For every prohibition you create, you also create an underground.

In Norway, as in America, prohibition has been carried through from moral motives; but the outcome has been highly unfavorable. In the first place, much more and far worse home-made spirits are drunk, so that intoxication has increased instead of decreasing. In the second place, Portugal and Spain, whose sales to Norway were suddenly stopped, grew furious and took revenge by ceasing to buy Norwegian klip-fish (salted and dried fish), which had been the chief nourishment of the poorer part of the population in those countries. Norwegian finances suffered severely in consequence.