The Jim

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Prohibition vs. Regulation
An Analysis of Drug Prohibition as (Irresponsible) Public Policy
The "Social Contract," is accepted by most political scientists as the basis of Western democratic government. One of its fundamental considerations it that public policy should be enacted for the sole purpose of protecting or enhancing the welfare of the governed. In the event that a policy can be clearly shown to work against that welfare, it should be repudiated or suitably modified.
Commerce, that process by which goods and services are bought and sold, is essential in any society. It provides not only the basics of subsistence, but also those extras which enhance happiness for the current generation and add to the patrimony of posterity.
Man is naturally entrepreneurial and competitive; history has demonstrated, particularly since the Industrial Revolution, that unregulated commercial activity leads to exploitation of the least fortunate, depletion of natural resources and pollution of the environment. To limit these abuses, governments have come up with two quite different general ways to limit commerce: regulation and prohibition.
How Are Regulation and Prohibition Different?
Many people see little difference between the government telling them how to do something and telling them what they can't do at all. To most, both are simply unwelcome examples of the government flexing its muscles. The recent discussions of the "tobacco deal" in the press, in Congress, and on television, have confirmed a long held suspicion: there is little accurate popular understanding of the critical difference between normal regulation and criminal prohibition. It's important to understand their critical differences as methods of limiting commerce if we wish to analyze drug policy realistically.
Both regulation and prohibition laws are justified as part of the Social Contract. In the United States, an attempt has been made to limit such powe...