Seems like this book would be a good read:
The new Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary Prohibition is a five-and-a-half-hour missed opportunity to demonstrate why bans on substances are doomed from the start. Fortunately, for those who want to understand the irresistible lure of all types of prohibitions, there is Christopher Snowdon's The Art of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition Since 1800. Although Snowdon's comprehensive history will never reach as many people as the PBS series, The Art of Suppression makes the case that Burns seems to go out of his way to avoid: that prohibition of products that people desire, whether alcohol a century ago or Ecstasy today, is bound to fail miserably.
Common sense tells me that the best way to deal with all drugs is to treat them like alcohol, not punishing those who use, but setting penalties for well-defined misuse; i.e., the law's proper role is when someone else is harmed. But experience tells me that those who promise stiff penalties for misuse as a tradeoff for legalization of use will then find a thousand excuses not to enforce them.
