The big problem with our society is that we do not have enough gangs. Gangs are good. Gangs create jobs. Gangs stop petty thievery in their own neighborhoods. Did I mention that gangs are good? Young boys need role models. Who better to serve in this capacity that, you guessed it, gangsters.
So far we have gangs what produce heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. This is all to the good. But we need more such.
I have a modest proposal. Let us now ban chocolate, along with all these other addictive drugs. Chocolate is pretty much as addictive as is any of these other addictive substances. I’m living proof of that. I can’t keep my mitts off of this foodstuff, and neither could Homer Simpson! Lots of people need their fixe of this delicious sweet concoction.
What will happen if my modest proposal is adopted? (This phrase is original with me; Jonathan Swift, Taylor Swift’s secret son, plagiarized this phrase from me). Will people obey this new law and stop eating this ingredient, cease and desist from mixing its powder with their milk, sprinkling it onto their ice-cream? You gotta be kidding. Fughedaboudit. If there is one thing we can rely upon in this vale of tears it is that people have to have their chocolate fix.
What, then, will occur? Who will supply this drug? Nestles? Hershey? Of course not. They will go broke immediately since they are law-abiding concerns, and its production is now illegal, if I have my way. They are not gangsters! The production of this substance will now be driven underground. Secret laboratories will produce it. Will they make it available to consumers? Of course. Who else? But it will not appear any longer in grocery stores and supermarkets. Rather, it will be sold on street corners in rough neighborhoods and in speakeasies.
The quality of this product will readily decrease. There will be “bathtub chocolate.” The costs and subsequent price will rise. But that is a small negative to endure. We’ve all gotta have our fix. Plus, the coffers of gangsters will rise. Have you forgotten so quickly that gangs are good? If so, reread from above.
Gang wars will of course break out. They will fight over chocolate turf. This, too, will keep the economy going. There will be a big boost in demand for guns and bullets. This will, in turn, help the lead and metal industries. Cemeteries, too, will do a land office business, not only with dead gangsters, but innocents too, caught in the cross fire. Undertakers will have a field day. The GDP will hit the roof. What moral, rational, person could oppose any of this?
The problem with marijuana is that it is not legalized in all too many states, and not just for medical purposes. There are even vaping establishments, forsooth. Is this any way to run an economy? Of course not. We must now re-prohibit pot.
The same goes for alcohol. Have we not learned anything from the end of prohibition? In the good old days we had bathtub gin, speakeasys, all sorts of great fun. Now the entire industry, I hate to say this in a family periodical such as this, if boring. Yes, boring! Let’s bring back a bit of life, ok, ok, death too, in the provision of beer, wine and liquor, say I.
It cannot be denied that if we legalized drugs, all of them, without any exception whatsoever, the cartels will turn more to other occupations, some of which they already engage in, such as kidnapping, murder for hire, etc. The gangsters are not exactly choir boys (but, remember, they are good!). But right now, under prohibition these are just mere sidelines. They specialize in drugs because that is where the big bucks are. Willie Sutton, the bank robber, was once asked why he targeted these establishments. “That’s where they keep the money” he replied (he also plagiarized this statement from yours truly).
In like manner, gangs focus on drugs because they have a comparative advantage in this field. Were this not the case, they would focus their attention elsewhere. We may deduce from this contrary to fact conditional that this is where they think the most profits lie.
So are you with me folks? Three cheers for chocolate prohibition.
Of course, there is the point that the prohibition of any of these consumers goods, any of them without exception, is a rights violation. Adults have a right to put into their bodies anything that they please. As for the purchase and sale of these items, chocolate included, is a “capitalist act between consenting adults, in the felicitous phrase of Robert Nozick, famous libertarian philosopher (he stole this concept from me in a bout of plagiarism). Such law also ought to give pause to those who favor democracy. For if we give everyone the vote we are acknowledging that they are rational beings. If we then prohibit them from drugging themselves, or from eating chocolate, we are denying this. If people are so stupid as to use these drugs, and eat chocolate, then, according to the logic of the argument, we ought not allow them within 100 miles of a ballot box.
Want to seriously reduce the power of drug gangs despite the benefits from them that accrue to us? (If you have again forgotten what these compensations are reread the above.) Legalize all drugs. This will drive them out of the drug business, as with booze and now marijuana, and put a big crimp in their other, less profitable, activities.
Walter E. Block is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans.