I would disagree with this. Prohibition does work. But it has to be enforced at all levels of a society, or it will not. Societal forces that allow for the sub-culture to form and exist must also be controlled, or the behavior will be continued.
"No-fault" divorce and single parent homes are two of those societal forces. Children raised without guidance from both parents in a stable home are almost guaranteed to enter the party scene, and continue the same behavior which caused their parents predictable failures.
Especially harmful is the absence of the male role model - Where the woman yields, is nurture, loving and giving, it is the man who is generally unyielding - He is law and justice, demanding responsibility and discipline.
Our education system teaches narcissism, and the popular culture backs it up. "Do your own thing" is not liberty. It is libertine. Until society returns to some semblance of right and wrong, nothing will truly change.
But, now I am arguing your case, aren't I? Not really. Prior to the 60's drugs were all illegal at the state level to some degree. and the popular culture was against them, as were societal and familial norms. The prohibition against drugs worked pretty well.
To legalize drugs is to finally lose the last leg of that fight to liberalization. That cannot be good. What needs to occur is strengthening of the other legs. As I said upthread, I agree that the fed has overstepped it's bounds, and that states rights and personal rights have been lost. Those must be restored. But there must be a uniform means of addressing the issue in order to be effective.
And foremost among them, before anyone says ANY effort has been made, close that damnable border. Seal it off. That is definitely within Federal jurisdiction, and is way cheaper and more effective than any other thing they might endeavor to do. Until that is done properly, and with great vigor, don't even tell me that they have tried and lost.
Prohibition is like Marxism -- it's a good idea that hasn't ever worked anywhere, apparently, because we haven't had enough of it.
But it has to be enforced at all levels of a society, or it will not. Societal forces that allow for the sub-culture to form and exist must also be controlled, or the behavior will be continued.
Addiction is not a problem of a particular subculture. Addicts are blue-collar workers, executives, housewives, streetwalkers, professional athletes, schoolteachers, truck drivers and physicians. You're focusing on "the party scene," club kids and hippies, who form just one sliver of the problem (but who do a disproportionate share of the prison time).
Prior to the 60's drugs were all illegal at the state level to some degree. and the popular culture was against them, as were societal and familial norms. The prohibition against drugs worked pretty well.
Prior to the 20th century, there simply was not such a thing as an illegal drug in most of the US. Patent medicines and "tonics" were the main medications for most 19th century Americans, and those had THC, cocaine, morphine, sometimes all three.
Addiction was commonplace, though not on the scale we see today. People overdosed and died, people went into hospitals for treatment, and doctors would routinely prescribe opiates in smaller, measurable doses to wean their patients off the hard stuff.
The first federal law regulating drugs wasn't until 1906, and that merely required accurate labeling. Heroin wasn't outlawed until 1924, and marijuana until 1937. Prior to federal government involvement, there were not comprehensive anti-drug laws at the state level; they were relatively few and widely scattered.
Marijuana was outlawed after a campaign of public hysteria stoked by the Hearst newspapers with the active encouragement of the liquor industry, which feared that if their customers discovered weed they wouldn't come back to booze when prohibition ended.
Back to my main point: Drug prohibition is not a phenomenon as old as the Republic. There was no law at all until the 20s, and the laws weren't very actively enforced until the '60s. Drug prohibition is not the way things always were; it's a construct a couple of generations old, no more traditional or sacrosanct than the "Great Society."
"Communism does work. But it has to be true Communism, not the flawed imitations found in existing Communist regimes."
"Gun control does work. But the existing regulations have too many loopholes that need to be tightened up."
"Government welfare does work. But the system needs to be reformed and tweaked a little to prevent abuses."