In response to Brian's post "Prohibition Anyways" (April 22, 2012):
In addition to the difficulty of actually enforcing drug banning, I think that it may in fact increase people's desires to use the banned drugs. Most people who use drugs begin doing so during adolescence or young adulthood, when they have just moved away from their parents and are enjoying their new sense of independence. As such, they seek out ways to rebel against not only their parents, but society and the law as a whole.
If drug use were legal (although regulated), it would lose some of this appeal. As a result, the rate of new drug users might actually drop.
I used to think that this explanation was a bit of a folk understanding of why alcohol and drugs are so popular but now I think it's valid. There is not only a history of legal ban on alcohol in the US but also a history of social regulation against alcohol. So it's not only because of the drinking age and illegality of certain substances, but where these substances stand in the popular consciousness after more than 100 years of tension relating to these things.
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