"Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Legalization is desirable for all drugs, not just marijuana. The health risks of marijuana are lower than those of many other drugs, but that is not the crucial issue. Much of the traffic from Mexico or Colombia is for cocaine, heroin and other drugs, while marijuana production is increasingly domestic. Legalizing only marijuana would therefore fail to achieve many benefits of broader legalization.
It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition. The U.S. has been at the
forefront of this puritanical policy for almost a century, with disastrous consequences at home
and abroad.
Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will
abandon one of its most disastrous policy experiments.http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/miron.legalization.drugs/index.html"
