Which is why Substance Prohibitions CAN'T EVER work. The government will never ever know enough about human desire to make them work. In addition market forces are at work. Supply and demand. And supply and demand works like the Internet. It routes around restriction.From: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ ... cture.html
Friedrich August von Hayek
This brings me to the crucial issue. Unlike the position that exists in the physical sciences, in economics and other disciplines that deal with essentially complex phenomena, the aspects of the events to be accounted for about which we can get quantitative data are necessarily limited and may not include the important ones. While in the physical sciences it is generally assumed, probably with good reason, that any important factor which determines the observed events will itself be directly observable and measurable, in the study of such complex phenomena as the market, which depend on the actions of many individuals, all the circumstances which will determine the outcome of a process, for reasons which I shall explain later, will hardly ever be fully known or measurable. And while in the physical sciences the investigator will be able to measure what, on the basis of a prima facie theory, he thinks important, in the social sciences often that is treated as important which happens to be accessible to measurement. This is sometimes carried to the point where it is demanded that our theories must be formulated in such terms that they refer only to measurable magnitudes.
It can hardly be denied that such a demand quite arbitrarily limits the facts which are to be admitted as possible causes of the events which occur in the real world. This view, which is often quite naively accepted as required by scientific procedure, has some rather paradoxical consequences. We know: of course, with regard to the market and similar social structures, a great many facts which we cannot measure and on which indeed we have only some very imprecise and general information. And because the effects of these facts in any particular instance cannot be confirmed by quantitative evidence, they are simply disregarded by those sworn to admit only what they regard as scientific evidence: they thereupon happily proceed on the fiction that the factors which they can measure are the only ones that are relevant.
"Conservatives" are supposed to know this stuff. And yet they have faith that because what they want is GOOD, the way the world really works is not applicable.
And of course because drugs cause harm - death, temporary or permanent mental incapacity, and other problems - some people take the lesson to heart and try to ban other substances that cause similar harm. Guns.
My advice? Give it up. Find another way besides government to reach the ends you desire. That used to be the American way before Progressive thought infected the Right and the Left.
You remember the Progressives? A coalition of the Right and the Left to use the power of government to improve the lives of its citizens. By force. The coalition is long gone but the precepts live on for both sides.
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And just let me add about abortion - any government strong enough to prevent it is strong enough to make it mandatory. Are you willing to risk that to reach your end?
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The Era of Big Government is over. Unfortunately Conservatives haven't quite caught on. Too bad.