"You cannot read this book without recognizing the social tragedy that has resulted from the attempt to prohibit people from ingesting an arbitrary list of substances designated 'illegal drugs.' . . . Not since the collapse of the attempt to prohibit the ingestion of alcohol has our liberty been in such danger as it now is from the misnamed 'war on drugs.'"
-- Milton Friedman, Hoover Institution

"The nation i scrying for an honest weighing of the dollar and societal costs of the drug war against its limited accomplishments in reducing the admittedly serious problem of drug abuse. This volume addresses the many ways in which America is paying for its drug war -- many billions of dollars spent, encroachment on individual constitutional rights, distortion and corruption of plicing, and incarceration of over 400,000 people in a frustrating attempt to keep the drug market from responding to domestic demand."
-- Alfred Blumstein, University Professor, H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University

"The War on Drugs is this generation's Vietnam--with 'success' apparently being measured by a body count filling our prisons with nonviolent users. This war, however well intentioned, is having a corrupting effect on law enforcement and traditional concepts of due process. After Prohibition explores those consequences and possible alternatives. Such an exploration is the more important since politicians of both parties remain adamantly unwilling to do so as they blindly prusue--at great expense in terms of both dollars and human values--a war that cannot be won."
-- Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Former Attorney General of the United States