I gained a different perspective from watching the Ken Burns Prohibition documentary<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;kenburns&#x2F;prohibition&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pbs.org&#x2F;kenburns&#x2F;prohibition&#x2F;</a><p>Before I watched it I thought &quot;how could people be so stupid as to think they would ever ban alcohol&quot;. After I watched it I was like &quot;oh wow, people drank on average 1.5 bottles of hard alcohol a week? Drunks were everywhere? Opening a bar was super cheap because the alcohol companies subsidised them. Ok, maybe I get why people would vote for prohibition&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m not saying it was a good idea. It was clearly stupid idea which the rest of the doco made clear and is directly analogous to the war on drugs.<p>Another POV that gave me a new perspective was the idea that legal drugs (alcohol) kill way more people than the war on drugs kills. 3+ million a year die from alcohol. (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.who.int&#x2F;substance_abuse&#x2F;facts&#x2F;alcohol&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.who.int&#x2F;substance_abuse&#x2F;facts&#x2F;alcohol&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a>). Legalizing a bunch more drugs may have the unintended consequences of killing an order of magnitude more people than the war on drugs.<p>I&#x27;m not saying I&#x27;m for the war on drugs. All the unintended consequences of that are horrible as well. The USA&#x27;s police state, seizure laws, militarization, etc. But, the idea that we&#x27;ll end up possibly causing 10x more death from legalization makes me wonder if there&#x27;s some middle position