Buffalo Politician Acknowledges Failure of Prohibition

Originally, I am from Western New York. I still have family up there whom I visit regularly, and I still pay some attention to the developments in the area. So I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to see this article:

Giambra Addresses Drug Legalization

Joel Giambra is the Erie County Executive, the county in which Buffalo lies. It’s nice to see a politician coming around to admitting the failure of Prohibition.

Giambra was then asked "how does legalizing drugs change the system breaking down there" and he said "when you legalize you have the ability to control...right now its out of control ."

You would think, given the fact that drug prohibition simply fosters uncontrolled, criminal black markets, that Conservatives everywhere would be in favor of legalization. After all, don’t Conservatives believe in “law and order” above all?

Now…I may be taken to task over this next statement by some of my more hardcore libertarian friends, but I’ve always said that when it comes to drug Prohibition, I’d be perfectly willing to settle for a compromise and have drugs of all sorts re-legalized and then (gasp!) regulated, as opposed to the current system, where they illegal and unregulated.

Of course, leave it up to the bureaucrats who benefit the most from Government-caused crisis to spout off their tired old rhetoric.

7 News spoke to Richard Gallagher, the executive director of Alcohol and Drug Dependency Services. Gallagher says he believes that legalizing drugs sends out the wrong message to kids. He also says that Marijuana is just the gateway drug to heavier ones.

For one, divorce is legal. Premarital sex is legal. Pornography is legal. Booze is legal. Smoking tobbacco is legal….(for now, anyway). Britney Spears is legal. What kind of messages do THESE things send to the chillllllllllllllldren???? (I thought Hillary Clinton cornered the market on using "the chilllllldren" as an excuse to advance her mad schemes. Apparently, Conservatives share common ground with Mrs. Clinton.)

And second, Gallagher is reasoning backwards, as most prohibitionists do. Sure, most hard drug users probably smoked marijuana. But that doesn’t mean all marijuana smokers will move on to harder drugs. That’d be like asking every crack addict, “have you ever drank milk?”, and then being surprised to find out that 99% of them said yes. Milk: The New Gateway Drug. How ridiculous is that?

In any event, a kudos to Mr. Giambra.