War on Some Drugs doesn't solve crime - It causes it

Thanks to Sherri Secor for sending this link to The Independent Institute's remarks on Rolling Back Drug War Crime. The article points out the nexus between the War on Some Drugs and crime statistics, framing it within the context of Prohibition I.

Before Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in 1919, homicide rates in America were relatively low. In the 1910s, about 5 in 100,000 Americans fell victim to murder. At the height of Prohibition, the murder rate climbed nearly 60%. But after the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition sixteen years later, the rate steadily declined back to pre-Prohibition levels. The War on Drugs, from the 1960s to the present, brought the homicide rate back up to about 10 per 100,000?almost twice the rate before Prohibition and the Drug War.

Citing economist Jeffrey Miron's book, Drug War Crimes- The Consequences of Prohibition, the author goes on to explore the direct effects of the current criminalization of some drugs and public safety. His conclusion is hard to refute.

America?s War on Drugs has spawned massive corruption, violent crime, and the destruction of constitutional liberties. Half a million Americans are locked up for nonviolent drug crimes, often under federal mandatory minimums that often put them behind bars for longer prison terms than rapists and armed robbers. This is a major cause of the overcrowded prisons in the United States, which now has the highest per capita prison population in the world.

America?s Drug War has become an expensive subsidy for violent crime; very few political reforms would do more to reduce violent crime in America than ending it, once and for all.

Saving money and lives. So what's not to like?