Prohibition

[path12]

Originally Posted by Drake

I wonder if the abused and neglected children of alcoholics feel this way (i.e., it's just a small percentage, so the social damage isn't that great).

I actually think prohibition was stupid, but I also spent half a decade working in drug and alcohol treatment, so I always have mixed feelings about "people should be able to do whatever they want" arguments about drugs and alcohol.

I mean, in principle, the absolute freedom argument sounds good...but once you've seen enough kids whose drunk, pissed off, alcoholic moms decided it would be a good idea to pimp them out or put cigarettes out on them...or enough families shattered by divorce...or enough second, third and fourth generation alcoholics because successive generations of kids couldn't overcome the damage inflicted on them by their addicted parents, it rings hollow.

How small is the percentage when you start looking at the network of damage inflicted by one alcoholic? One person is killed by a drunk driver...do we just count them in the percentage of damaged folks, or do we include all the people who knew and loved them?

I guess you can tell that I don't drink much anymore.

Drake, you are one conflicted mofo.

EDIT: That's a meta comment more than about this particular one. And it's not meant poorly.

[RendeR]

I gotta say, normally Rainmaker's posts do one of two things: make me laugh hysterically or make my blood boil.

This thread is an ace for him though, he's dead on and I'm rather impressed with how well he's stated things.


Drake: Having some personal backround with the alocohol issue I can understand where you're coming from, and of course those that become victims of irresponsible people are always going to feel outrage when their plight is minimalized into mere numbers, however that doesn't change the fact that those numbers are small when compared to the nation/world as a whole.

Prohibition ought to be a blazing signal fire to all the righty and lefty fundementalists who think banning something will fix anything. Prohibition FAILED, miserably and if anything created more problems than it solved.

Human beings generally don't react well to be told "No you can't have that...because we said so." It generally gets a big FU and then people find ways around the situation.

In my own experience having free access to things actually helped me learn to moderate their use. I admit that for a couple things (alcohol and the Internet) it took some real hard life lessons to learn moderation, but I did learn.

You can't legislate knowledge and personal growth. Only life experience can give people that. banning things just defers life experience until you're older and more dangerous.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by RendeR

Prohibition ought to be a blazing signal fire to all the righty and lefty fundementalists who think banning something will fix anything. Prohibition FAILED, miserably and if anything created more problems than it solved.

Indeed. I know a lot of people think prohibition failed mostly because people just brewed their own beer and said, FU! But the real failure of prohibition is how it boosted organized crime. I mean they never had as much power as when they were the ones controlling the alcohol.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Alcohol doesn't cause abused and neglected children, bad parents do.


Life sucks sometimes. People abuse things in life and hurt others. Your example of drunk driving doesn't fit as driving drunk is illegal. You go to jail for it and for a long time too if you kill someone (unless you're in the NFL). I'm for as strict of penalties as possible on that crime and believe it's extremely important to stop. But alcohol isn't the problem there, it's people who choose to drink and drive.

Personal responsibility needs to play a role in society. You can't band everything that has the ability to be used negatively. You can't ban all unhealthy foods because it causes early heart attacks which will cause pain and suffering for friends/family. Sometimes you have to turn the blame away from the vice they are abusing and toward the person that is abusing it. Punish those who abuse it, not everyone.

Right. I do, in fact, mostly agree with you. Prohibition is a poor choice, and people really do need to pursue a path of personal responsibility.

I've just known too many people who were made to suffer because one person wouldn't or couldn't be responsible, and the depth of that suffering changed the trajectory of their entire lives.

I'm not pretending I have answers. Remember, I was a smoker up until 4 months ago and I was the first person to bitch about all of the stupid non-smoking laws and higher taxes by anti-smoking zealots.

I suppose the best answer is just to count my blessings that I was lucky enough not to be born into an environment like that.