But, as George Santayana remarked, those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it. He dispenses them weekly on his public-access TV show. An analyst with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for 24 years before being caught in the crossfire of Gov. Thompson's war on education, he thinks we really can all learn to get along. If you want to talk about what drug causes the most damage, it's clearly alcohol, and we've known that since 1776.
Tobacco runs a strong second.
You'd think we would have learned our lesson during the Prohibition era. Banning alcohol gave us problems 10 times worse than consuming it ever did. An increase in other forms of crime as addicts tried to pay for their expensive and illegal habits. A leaky border. Bribery and other forms of corruption.