In the short term, drug prices are higher, which means desperate addicts increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. Those who get caught are placed in prisons that transmit violent habits and values rather than reduce them. Just as alcohol prohibition once did, the drug war fuels crime. Prohibition was repealed in 1933 amid concerns that the thriving black market was financing organized crime and exposing minors to liquor at levels previously unheard of. The infamous mobsters of the 1920s and 1930s did not ID customers for age, nor did they add warning labels to potentially lethal bottles of bathtub gin.
Protections are in place today to keep liquor out of the hands of children.
No such protections exist when it comes to popular illicit drugs. Drug policies designed to protect children have given rise to a youth-oriented black market in which marijuana, the most popular illicit drug, is readily available, despite its illegality. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, which is why keeping it out of the hands of children during their formative years is critical. As previously mentioned, the black market has no controls for age. Fortunately, marijuana is relatively benign compared to alcohol, which continues to be the most popular recreational drug.