Although intended to protect people from drugs, prohibition worsens the situation of drug users, increasing criminality and health problems. Drug sellers are more dangerous under prohibition. Prohibition enriches the worst criminals and leads to more violence. Prohibition corrupts the judicial system. Due to prohibition's nature, drug enforcement inevitably leads to overburdened courts and jails, fewer resources devoted against violent crime, and corruption at all levels.
Prohibition leads to destruction of other liberties.
Faced with failure, prohibitionists seek more and more infringements of individual liberties, from restricting speech to banning guns, from more intrusive searches to higher taxes. Prohibition deprives us of beneficial drug use. Prohibition discourages promising drug research, denies medically proven uses of recreational drugs, eliminates beneficial industrial uses of drug sources. Relying on an image of evil drugs, prohibition propaganda spreads ignorance of the true effects of drugs. Prohibition's critics come from all viewpoints.