Prohibition of marijuana and other narcotics has caused an upheaval of crime within cities and suburbs, despite prohibitionism's intended function of social control. An historical and social background of Prohibition aimed at curbing alcohol, and other attempts at prohibitionism aimed at eradicating drug use, will show the problems inherent in such attempts at social control. Historically, propaganda campaigns used to attribute alcohol and drug use to undesirable societal fringe elements have done nothing to eradicate either "vice." On the contrary, it will be shown that attempts to ban these substances has lead to obsessive public fear and ill-founded attempts at social control. In many cases, the cure has been worse than the disease.
In order to gauge the impact of attempts at prohibitionism, it will be beneficial to look at the historical and social background of alcohol and drug use. Life before Prohibition and the "War on Drugs" will yield valuable insights into the origins of today's obsessive fears about substance use and abuse. In fact, it will be seen that substance-related crime has increasingly become a problem in direct proportion to society's attempts at control.
America's urban centers had experienced a gradual decline in the rate of serious crime over much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That trend unintentionally was reversed by the efforts of the Prohibition movement. Thornton cites the following statistics in his history of Prohibition: "The homicide rate in large cities increased from 5.6 per 100,000 population during the first decade of the century to 8.4 over the second decade, when the Harrison Narcotics Act, a wave of state alcohol prohibitions, and World War I alcohol restrictions were enacted. The homicide rate climbed to 10 per 100,000 population during the 1920s, a 78% increase over the pre-Prohibition period" (73).
Marijuana was consumed in the U.S. largely without societal restrict...