The War on Drugs is the perfect substitute for the Cold War. We can continue to pursue policies that don’t work on the cheerful assumption that if we just do more of what doesn’t work, it will solve the problem.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1990-02), “The Czar is Hooked,” The Progressive
(Source)
Collected in Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? (1991).
Quotations about:
Prohibition
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Why, it is the prohibition that makes anything precious. There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Note (1896-02), Mark Twain’s Notebook, ch. 24 “Ceylon and India” (1935) [ed. Albert Bigelow Paine]
(Source)
Speaking of Adam and the original Forbidden Fruit. Written while in Bombay, India.
There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely desperate.
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) French playwright, actor, director
“Sûreté générale: La liquidation de l’opium,” La Révolution Surréaliste (Jan 1925) [tr. L. Dejardin]
(Source)
Senator Smoot is an institute
Not to be bribed with pelf;
He guards our homes from erotic tomes
By reading them all himself.Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“Invocation,” New Yorker (Jan 1930)
(Source)
Nash's poem was about US Senator Reed Smoot (R-Utah) (1862-1941), who had announced an effort in his tariff bill to ban the importation of pornography, leading to headlines of "Smoot Smites Smut." The bill went on to become the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, passed in June 1930.
The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“The State of the Union”, Esquire (May 1975)
I was one of those who was very happy when the original prohibition amendment passed. I thought innocently that a law in this country would automatically be complied with, and my own observation led me to feel rather ardently that the less strong liquor anyone consumed the better it was. During prohibition I observed the law meticulously, but I came gradually to see that laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1939-07-14), “My Day”
(Source)
Little by little it dawned upon me that this law [Prohibition] was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1939-07-14), “My Day”
(Source)
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in the United States is closely connected with this.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“My First Impression of the U.S.A.” (1921)
(Source)
Later published as "Some Notes on my American Impressions" in The World As I See It (1949)
