Oh, Onion… how do you manage to keep being so funny? All joking aside, the price for a singlecigarette inside Rikers (last I heard) is $20. This black market was created, of course, after smoking was “banned.” Most of the supply comes from C.O.s. Hell, for hundreds of dollar profit per pack? I might, too.
But the old-fashioned kind. Against alcohol. In Alaska. Of course it doesn’t work. Prohibition never does. Alcohol abuse and alcohol-related crime is a huge problem in small-town Alaska. After the drinking comes the sexual abuse and rape, often incestuous. A friend of mine is a public defender up there. Oh, the stories he can tell.…
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The New York Timescame out today with an editorialagainst lowering the drinking age. That surprised me, especially from a paper that says we’re not winning the war on drugs. I started drinking when I was 15. Most people do. Seems to me that the legal drinking age for beer and wine should be 16 or…
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Dave H. sent me the link to this cartoon by Chris Britt in the Peoria Journal Star.
Top university officials in Maryland – including the chancellor of the state university system and the president of the Johns Hopkins University – say the current drinking age of 21 “is not working” and has led to dangerous binges in which students have harmed themselves and others. “Kids are going to drink whether it’s legal…
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You don’t see headlines like this much in America anymore. But we used to (google “Jake Leg” if you’re interested in a tragic little footnote in American history). Fewer people die when drugs are legal and regulated. Prohibitionists in India wanted to protect poor people from themselves. So, in an entirely predictable bit of failed…
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