This week I found a political flyer for a San Diego city council candidate in my mailbox. “Join Us” it cries in large bold type. “Rally for More Police.” Then it provides a list of crime statistics in my district. We need “MORE COPS on our streets” so that we can have “Safe Streets for our children” and “Safe Neighborhoods for our families.”

What jumped out at me is that “narcotics” is the largest item on the list at 19% of the total. We don’t need more police. We need fewer crimes. The police might have more time to deal with those 50 rapes and murders if they weren’t wasting their time on 1,809 drug users, most of whom are probably just marijuana users.

Safe neighborhoods will come a lot more easily if we free up police resources by ending prohibition. Ending prohibition doesn’t just remove those 1,724 crimes. Just as it did during alcohol prohibition, modern prohibition results in more violence and it results in more robberies, break-ins, and theft. Ending prohibition will reduce those crimes, too. It will reduce the crimes committed by criminals trying to control the black market, and it will reduce the crimes committed by addicts trying to make enough money to pay black market prices.

When you have an addiction that costs hundreds of dollars to feed and makes you a criminal, you’re more likely to resort to crime to get that money than if you can feed your addiction for twenty bucks a carton at the corner market.

If it is really “time to put public safety in our neighborhoods first”, it is time to end prohibition.