Opium prohibition 'didn't work out badly'

Ruth Malone, the editor of Tobacco Control, has been promoting prohibition under its latest euphemism of the 'tobacco-free generation' ie. banning anyone born this century from ever buying tobacco.

#Canadian anesthesiologist argues for #tobacco free generation plan: https://t.co/0Uw8hGuacb

— Ruth Malone (@MaloneRuth) February 24, 2016

This received a predictable, but reasonable, response..

.@MaloneRuth because #prohibition has been such a resounding success in the past 🙈 #DrugWars

— DrMA (@mihotep) February 24, 2016

Which, in turn, received an unpredictable and rather less reasonable response...

Didn't seem to work too badly on opium https://t.co/ison3QJTMW

— Ruth Malone (@MaloneRuth) February 24, 2016

*splutter*

What?! The prohibition of opium didn't work out too badly? For whom? The Taliban? Pfizer?

@MaloneRuth What? Are you serious? Opium used to be something middle-class housewives bought in Boots. Now it's a major driver of crime.

— ecigsplaza (@ecigsplaza) February 24, 2016

In what country is opium a "major driver of crime"? Evidence? https://t.co/2uO0Mrqvn0

— Ruth Malone (@MaloneRuth) February 24, 2016

Er, Afghanistan? Y'know, the place they grow it, process it and export it to the rest of the world as heroin.

For all those who piled on, I was referencing the historical opium smoking epidemic in the US, not heroin today. Discussed by historians

— Ruth Malone (@MaloneRuth) February 25, 2016

It certainly has been discussed by historians. Here's a potted history for the benefit of a twenty-first century would-be prohibitionist like Malone:

Opium was banned in the USA in the nineteenth century, leading to an upsurge is morphine consumption.

Morphine was then banned - as, indeed, was alcohol - thereby leading to an upsurge in heroin use.

Heroin was then banned and no one ever took opiates ever again. Since 1915, every generation has been an opiate-free generation. The rest of the world followed the US's lead and the global war on drugs ensued, leading to people consuming drugs safely, if at all.

No wait, that's not quite right is it?

What actually happened is that opium, morphine and heroin were banned, leading to a hundred years of heroin use because it's the strongest, most compact and most profitable opiate product.

Consumers take it in impure form in unpredictable quantities via hypodermic syringes, leading to overdoses and infection of diseases like HIV and hepatitis.

The manufacturers and retailers cannot use courts to enforce contracts and so they settle their disputes with indiscriminate violence.

So Ruth is right to say that there is very little opium smoking these days. Whether the prohibition of opium 'didn't work out badly' is more contentious, to say the least.

This has been discussed by historians. Let's read some of them before we do this all again.