Prohibition

Opioid abuse is taking a tremendous toll on America, with 42,000 opioid-related deaths in 2016.

In today’s episode of In The Tank, Donny and Jim debate about the unintended consequences of alcohol prohibition, and discuss proposed minimum wage hikes. John Nothdruft also comes on to discuss the financial state of the states and potential Mars contamination. The trio also talk about some of the best presidential campaign and debate blunders.

As early as 2004, various medical journals published articles claiming that small-community smoking bans resulted in nearly immediate reductions in heart disease. For example, the high-profile BMJ reported that hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) declined 40%, from 40 to 24, in Helena, Montana, after implementation of a smoke-free ordinance (here). Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, reported that AMI admissions dropped 27% “within months” in Pueblo, Colorado (here). Similar reports came from Bowling Green, Ohio (here), Monroe County, Indiana (here) and beyond.

Recently on his show, former Gov. Mike Huckabee ran a segment called, “Does the GOP need to start listening to millennials?” The answer to this question is not only a “yes,” it’s a “you should have started listening several years ago.”

In 1919 the eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of “intoxicating liquors” in the United States and by 1933 the era of prohibition was over when the twenty-first Amendment rescinded it. Alcohol consumption was and is a social problem, but sometimes the government is not the right vehicle for dealing with them.

Obamacare is the ultimate expression of the progressive and/or liberal approach to government and it is, just as was the case of Prohibition, the increasing resistance of the American public and will be, at some point, repealed.

[First published at Crain’s Chicago.] This is no way to solve budget problems caused by years of reckless spending. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle proposes a $25 tax on…

Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai is leading the charge to privatize the state’s liquor sales. Pennsylvania can count only Utah in its company in terms of states that retain total control…

The Wall Street Journal on Monday informed us that “state legislators passed about 31,000 new laws in 2010, down slightly from the previous year.”  That works out to about 620…