Tag: prohibition

Where Are America’s Dry Counties?

While the U.S. ended federal Prohibition in 1933, local restrictions on alcohol still persist across the country to this day.

As Visual Capitalist shows in the map below, based on work by Wikipedia user Mr. Matté, many counties remain “dry,” banning the sale of alcohol entirely, or “moist,” allowing only limited sales.

Where Alcohol is Still Restricted

The data, crowdsourced from local government sites and media reports, reveals that alcohol restrictions are concentrated in the South, particularly in states like Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Arkansas stands out the most in the map above, with a patchwork of red and orange counties indicating either total bans or partial restrictions on alcohol sales. In fact, the state has long struggled with outdated liquor laws, where even grocery stores in “moist” counties may be prohibited from selling wine or spirits.

Alcohol Status: It’s Complicated

Here’s what the terminology means:

  • Dry county: No alcohol sales allowed by law
  • Moist county: Alcohol sales are partially restricted (e.g. allowed in restaurants but not in stores)
  • Wet county: Alcohol can be sold without county-level restriction

Even within “wet” counties, individual towns may choose to remain dry, and in “dry” counties, specific towns or establishments can apply for exemptions, creating a legal maze for consumers and businesses alike.

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Coca Prohibition Is More Harmful Than The Plant Itself, World Health Organization Review Concludes

The consumption of the coca leaf in its raw form by millions daily across the Andes carries no significant risks, but official coca control strategies are associated with “substantial public health harms,” according to a review commissioned by the World Health Organization.

Filter viewed an advance copy of the report that was distributed to members of the WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD).

Coca, the mildly stimulating and medicinal leaf that is the base ingredient of cocaine, was banned globally by the UN in 1964 after its investigators claimed coca leaf chewing is “definitely harmful” and “the cause of racial degeneration of many population groups.” A WHO paper also described the use of the calcium-rich plant as “a social evil.”

But despite U.S.-backed militarized efforts to eradicate coca leaf production in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador throughout the decades-long drug war, the consumption of the plant—which for many Indigenous communities holds profound spiritual value—has remained stubbornly prevalent, with production in Colombia at all-time highs.

“Research reviewed for this report did not reveal evidence of clinically meaningful public health harms associated with coca leaf use,” states the comprehensive scientific review commissioned by the ECDD. “The research record does, however, robustly document the substantial public health harms associated with coca control strategies at all scales.”

The review is currently in draft form and subject to copyediting. It was commissioned amid growing international calls to end the blanket prohibition of coca, as Filter previously reported.

In October, the ECDD will discuss the report, which was prepared by an international group of independent contracted experts, and consider whether to recommend a change to coca’s current Schedule I status—the most restricted category, meaning researchers often find it impossible to source the understudied leaves.

Any recommendations would be presented in December to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which has a rotating membership of 53 United Nations member states. In March 2026, the CND would vote on any recommendations. It could reschedule or even deschedule the coca leaf—which would have huge ramifications, ending the criminalization of its use and potentially providing a major economic boon for Latin American producer countries.

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Marijuana Prohibition Is And Always Has Been A Sham

Since its inception, efforts to criminalize the marijuana plant and stigmatize those who consume it have been predicated almost entirely upon gross exaggerations, racial stereotypes, and outright lies.

The initial push for cannabis criminalization, which began in earnest more than a century ago, had little to do with promoting public health or safety. Instead, the decision to target and prosecute cannabis users was fueled by xenophobia and media sensationalism.

For instance, a July 6, 1927 story in the New York Times, headlined “Mexican Family Goes Insane,” farcically claimed: “A widow and her four children have been driven insane by eating the marihuana plant, according to doctors, who say there is no hope of saving the children’s lives and that the mother will be insane for the rest of her life.”

An academic paper titled “Marijuana,” published in 1933 in The Journal of Law and Criminology, similarly made over-the-top allegations about the plant’s supposed dangers. The authors wrote, “The inevitable result [of consuming cannabis] is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception, ending in death.”

In 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — America’s first ‘Drug Czar’ — successfully lobbied Congress to ban cannabis nationwide. He did so through the continuous use of racist rhetoric. “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use,” he asserted. “This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

Fast-forward to 1971. That’s when the Nixon administration declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one.” The lynchpin of this campaign was stamping out the use of marijuana, which Congress had just classified as a Schedule I controlled substance — the strictest federal category available. Yet, privately, Nixon acknowledged that he did not think cannabis was “particularly dangerous,” and he lamented the “ridiculous” penalties faced by those arrested for possessing it.

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A New Study Adds to the Evidence That Drug Busts Result in More Overdose Deaths

Prohibition makes drug use more dangerous by creating a black market in which quality and potency are highly variable and unpredictable. Ramped-up enforcement of prohibition magnifies that problem, as dramatically demonstrated by the deadly impact of restricting access to pain medication at the same time that illicit fentanyl was proliferating as a heroin booster and substitute. That sort of perverse effect pervades drug law enforcement, as illustrated by a new study that found drug seizures in San Francisco were associated with a substantial increase in overdose risk.

The study included 2,653 drug seizures and 1,833 opioid-related deaths from 2020 to 2023. “Within the surrounding 100, 250, and 500 meters,” RTI International researcher Alex H. Kral and his two co-authors reported in JAMA Network Open on Wednesday, “drug seizures were associated with a statistically significant increase in the relative risk for fatal opioid overdoses.”

That is not the result that local authorities expected. “Since fentanyl entered the unregulated drug supply in San Francisco, California, around 2019, overdose mortality rates have reached record highs,” Kral et al. note. “This has sparked increased enforcement of drug laws.”

In December 2021, then-Mayor London Breed “declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco to enable ‘more coordinated enforcement and disruption of illegal activities.'” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who took office in July 2022, “made combatting open-air drug markets and holding drug dealers accountable a top priority of her administration,” her office brags. In May 2023, Kral et al. note, Gov. Gavin Newsom “authorized the assignment of California Highway Patrol and California National Guard personnel to a new multiagency operation with the San Francisco Police Department aimed at ‘targeting fentanyl trafficking, disrupting the supply of the deadly drug in the city, and holding the operators of drug trafficking rings accountable.'”

How did all of that work out? The day after cops busted drug dealers, Kral et al. found, the risk of fatal overdoses rose by 74 percent, on average, within 100 meters. The increase in risk persisted for as long as a week, falling to 55 percent after two days, 45 percent after three days, and 27 percent after seven days. That pattern reinforces the conclusion that these police interventions, which aimed to reduce drug-related deaths, had the opposite effect.

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WHO Calls for Punitive Booze and Soda Taxes on the Anniversary of Prohibition Repeal

How do you mark the anniversary of Prohibition’s repeal? At Reason we celebrate the hard-won victory of (relative) sanity that led to the passage of the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th Amendment and clearing the way for Americans to again (legally) consume alcoholic beverages. We also point to lessons that can be learned from failed efforts to use the force of law to prevent people from making their own choices.

But if you’re an international nanny-stater, you use the day to call for restrictions on popular beverages.

“WHO calls on countries to increase taxes on alcohol and sugary sweetened beverages,” the World Health Organization headlined a December 5 press release, precisely 90 years after the ratification of the 21st Amendment. “The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing today new data that show a low global rate of taxes being applied to unhealthy products such as alcohol and sugary sweetened beverages (SSBs). The findings highlight that the majority of countries are not using taxes to incentivize healthier behaviours.”

Admittedly, WHO is a meddlesome world organization, so one can’t expect it to always be aware of important political dates in any one country. Still, the irony is rich enough to make you reach for something sweet and buzz-inducing. Why not double down on control-freakery on a day when Americans with a modicum of historical awareness reflect on the defeat of such efforts?

That said, WHO didn’t call for outright bans on sweet and boozy drinks. The idea is to hike prices through the tax system so that people—presumably those with less money—can’t afford them and therefore become slimmer and more sober.

“Taxes that increase alcohol prices by 50% would help avert over 21 million deaths over 50 years and generate nearly US$17 trillion in additional revenues,” insists WHO.

WHO also points to polling data showing that majorities in multiple countries support sin taxes on alcohol, sugary drinks, and tobacco. Presumably, those surveyed could purchase fewer such products of their own accord but want pressure applied from above on those who might choose differently.

But what people support in the abstract isn’t the same thing as what they actually do when living under real-life policies. Laws and unintended consequences have a funny way of colliding again and again.

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5 “CRAZY” CONSPIRACY THEORIES THAT ACTUALLY TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE

Deception, lying, and hiding the truth are nothing new. Whenever there was a struggle for power, influence, money, or dominance, there was a conspiracy… Countless conspiracies turnout out to be true and today we will explore some examples.

As it turns out many of them hail from the United States, the land of “the brave and the free” (just kidding…). So, let’s check out some of the theories peddled across multiple sites over the last couple of decades. 

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Why the Feds Intentionally Poisoned Americans During Prohibition, Killing Thousands—and Why You’ve Never Heard about It

I was recently invited to speak to a student group about alcohol prohibition. During the course of my talk, I shared with them perhaps the most chilling historical account of America’s failed experiment to ban the sale of alcohol.

The Prohibition Era (1920 -1933), which began with the passage of the Volstead Act, had many problems. Virtually overnight, millions of Americans became criminals for the “crime” of having a drink. Instead of people trading money for a jug of beer or a bottle of gin, they had to make their own or turn to the black market. It resulted in a surge of organized crime and the rise of many of the most notorious gangsters in history, including Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, and Charles “Lucky” Luciano.

“In the absence of Prohibition, we wouldn’t have had the kind of syndicated criminality that occurred. Prohibition was the catalyst,” explains Howard Abadinsky, professor of criminal justice at St. John’s University and the author of the book Organized Crime.

One might think the surge of organized crime—which resulted in a corresponding surge of law enforcement to suppress it—would be the darkest consequence of Prohibition. It was not.

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Visualizing The History Of Cannabis Prohibition In The US

The legal status of cannabis in the U.S. isn’t always clear. At the federal level, it is an illegal Schedule I drug. However, individual states have the ability to determine their own laws around cannabis sales and usage.

But, as Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop details below, cannabis was not always illegal at the top level. It was only in the last 100 years that cannabis faced a prohibition similar to the alcohol prohibition of the early 1920s.

In this infographic from Tenacious Labs, we explore the fascinating history of cannabis prohibition in the U.S. dating all the way back to the 1900s.

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