ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author provides some specificity to the referenced threats to “democratic institutions, the rule of law, community welfare”, drawn from his own study of illicit drug enforcement efforts in the United States. His interest in organized crime, and in particular drug trafficking, arose as an aspect of his studies on discrimination against minorities in the Unites States. Ultimately the most fundamental civil liberties threat that the prohibition of drug use involves entails a form of statism that strikes at the values associated with individual autonomy. The organized crime elements which derive most of the income for all of their criminal enterprises form the profits in the production, distribution and sale of illicit drugs. The licit drug businesses that are substantially protected from open competition, maintaining a corner on the demand for psychotropic substances in the open “white” market.
