DID WE LEARN ANYTHING FROM PROHIBITION

To the Editor:

In "Cannabis distributor Les Crane slain" (Nov. 18), you quote
Mendocino County Sheriff's Detective Commander D. J. Miller as
linking marijuana growing with violence.

For 14 years, the production and sale of wine and other alcoholic
beverages were accompanied by enormous criminal gang violence. When
alcohol was made a crime -- but people were still willing to pay for
it -- Prohibition became a government charter to enrich and empower
violent criminal gangs like the Mafia. And Americans drank more
alcohol than they did when it was legal.

When asked what he thought of Prohibition, Will Rogers replied:
"Well, I guess it's better than no liquor at all."

More than a charter - Prohibition and violent gangs were a
partnership. During alcohol Prohibition, an estimated 15 percent of
American law enforcement officers were on the payroll of bootleggers,
rumrunners and criminal gangs. (It is impossible to maintain a large
criminal enterprise without police cooperation and protection.) Law
enforcement and government were regarded as a contemptuous joke by
most Americans.

In 1933, under the leadership of newly-elected President Franklin
Roosevelt, alcoholic beverages were legalized again, and all the
violence associated with the alcohol market ended overnight. The
manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages have ever since taken
place under strict government supervision, and the beverages are heavily taxed.

No one has been murdered over a wine deal gone sour since 1933. Even
the desperately thirsty just go to the neighborhood liquor store, pay
less than $10, and get the intoxication they want. The beverages are
certified pure, untainted and of precise potency by the government.
All disputes over sales turf by alcohol distributors are settled by
lawyers in civil court.

Detective Miller must now investigate a murder that could only have
happened because marijuana is a prohibited substance and a crime. If
it remains a crime, what does it say about police and political
priorities? That we prefer murders and violence to decriminalizing,
supervising and taxing a substance far less harmful to people than alcohol?

Robert Merkin

Northampton, Mass.