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June 30, 2009
Comparing alcohol and drug prohibition
I'm reading the fantastic The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, and in one of the stories, a ethical and talented lawyer helps defend a speak-easy operator during alcohol prohibition. The police bust in and arrest her. The law is openly mocked, and she isn't in much trouble for that, even though she's in possession of between 15-20 gallons of illegal booze. Compare that with today.
A typical marijuana cigarette ("joint") contains between 0.5 and 1.5 grams of marijuana.. Most states that I know of have some sort of possession with intent to deal rule, like this one in Indiana kicking in at 30 grams. In contrast, there are 33.8 oz in a 1 liter bottle of liquor. Take a look at your liquor cabinet. I'm probably safe in guessing you have no intent to distribute alcohol for money, yet any one of your unopened bottles would be enough to upgrade you from misdemeanor to felony if it were an equivalent number of psychotropic doses of marijuana. Where as once prohibition laws treated even the equivalent of a corner bodega's worth of booze as a minor crime, today we consider far less than a household's booze for private consumption a major felony.
I also thought it was interesting that the upstanding, anti-corruption lawyer in the story is shown drinking in a another illegal drinking environment, and that includes at least 5 drinks. It is hard to imagine a story like that today. This suggests to me that drug prohibition will not end soon. The level of public contempt of the drug laws by good men has not reached the appropriate level.
Posted by OneEyedMan at June 30, 2009 7:02 AM
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