Arguments For and Against Drug Prohibition

Arguments about the prohibition of drugs, and over drug policy reform, are subjects of considerable controversy. The following is a presentation of major drug policy arguments, including those for drug law enforcement on one side of the debate, and arguments for drug law reform on the other.

Famous quotes containing the words arguments for, arguments, drug and/or prohibition:

    Compared to football, baseball is almost an Oriental game, minimizing individual stardom, requiring a wide range of aggressive and defensive skills, and filled with long periods of inaction and irresolution. It has no time limitations. Football, on the other hand, has immediate goals, resolution on every single play, and a lot of violence—itself a highlight. It has clearly distinguishable hierarchies: heroes and drones.
    Jerry Mander, U.S. advertising executive, author. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, ch. 15, Morrow (1978)

    ‘Tis happy, therefore, that nature breaks the force of all sceptical arguments in time, and keeps them from having any considerable influence on the understanding. Were we to trust entirely to their self-destruction, that can never take place, ‘till they have first subverted all conviction, and have totally destroy’d human reason.
    David Hume (1711–1776)

    Behind the steering wheel
    The boy took out his own forehead.
    His girlfriend’s head was a green bag
    Of narcissus stems. “OK you win
    But meet me anyway at Cohen’s Drug Store
    In 22 minutes.”
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)