snyps said:
DeadNotSleeping said: More addicts, more accidents and a greater burden on the health care system. The average IQ will decrease, as will the number of eligible blood/organ donors. Criminal organization will choose to either compete with legitimate business to sell drugs, likely opting to cut corners on safety and sanitation during production to keep things competitively priced, or they will supplement the lost income by focusing on other methods at generating revenue. Racketeering and weapons smuggling may increase as a result. Average national life span will decrease. Number of infants born with birth defects or neurological conditions will rise--these persons may have the same difficulties moderating emotions as those born with FAS and so a hereditary predisposition towards violence may emerge in a greater number of families. Insurance premiums will rise in certain age groups. National averages for high school test scores will decrease. Border security will be increased to prevent smuggling outside of the country. |
None of that happened after alchohol prohibition ended in 1933. What makes this different?
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-There are more alcohol addicts per capita post-1933 than prohibition-era.
-Alcoholism has had a massive burden on health care, organ donation eligibility. Drugs do the same.
-Alcohol consumption has resulted in more accidents and has been a precurser to more violent and/or sexual crimes than there was during the prohibition.
-Alcohol has almost no effect on blood donation as it is easily purged from the bloodstream, but drugs remain present longer and have a more pronounced effect on organs that affect the properties on one's blood.
-Racketeering and smuggling was rampant in that time, though I owe that more to deficiencies in the investigative techniques and technologies of those times.
-Average lifespan has since increased since 1933; largely due to antibiotics and vaccines--neither of which are effective against organ damage drugs are responsible for. A greater accessibility to drugs results in increased use which results in adverse health effects. This has occurred with alcohol post-1933. So it shouldn't be different with drugs.
-When criminal organizations are denied sources of revenue, they invariably try to find it through alternative means, starting with an increased effort in their other activities. This happens everywhere. If drugs are part of their revenue, they will behave accordingly.
-Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has since increased since 1933. This condition impairs one to moderate anger--such persons are far more likely to go to prison for violent or sexual crimes. Similar conditions emerge when drugs are taken during pregnancy.
-The end of the prohibition era had the US aligning itself legally nearly equally to its neighboring countries. If the US ended drug prohibition but Canada does not, the Canadian government will tighten its borders, and this means that the US will do the same.
-Dry counties still exist in the US. When persons from said counties go to areas without prohibition, their alcohol intake increases on average. Greater accessibility and less legal ramifications results in increased use. This is reflected in insurance policies. DUI offenses increase insurance rates across the board; with more people doing drugs, even the perceived increase of risk in certain age groups will result in higher insurance premiums.
-Those most likely to indulge in the increased availabity of drugs are those in their teens and twenties; since drugs have a measurably adverse effect on one's mental function (memory and problem solving in particular), average grades will predictably decrease and the average national IQ will reflect this.
In short, a lot of this happened after prohibition-era 1933, so there is little reason why it will be different.