One Foot on the banana peel and the other...

<p> I was reading Shadowcat&#39;s experience with a strict manager nad the &quot;foot on the floor rule&quot; and got to thinking about Santayana&#39;s saying: Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.<br /> What two industries flourished in the 1920s and early 30s (while not outrunning demand and escalating to a bubble economy): Organized Crime and Drug store chains. Prohibition denied people something they really liked and so they went about finding ways to get their shot(s). We all know about Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Joe Masseria but did you all know that some drug store chains expanded wildly, because the law looked at booze as having a medicinal purpose. If you could get your doctor to prescribe booze for &quot;What ails you&quot; you could have that presription filled at the drug store.<br /> <br /> The point is that when you try to ban a product/service that has been around for a long time (forever) you simply create more risky, less savory ways of getting the &quot;goods&quot; or you see the work of a great lobbyist in creating loopholes a la the drugstore example.<br /> <br /> <br /> WHY DO WE OUTLAW DRUGS, SOME FORMS OF GAMBLING, AND THE SEX TRADE?<br /> The war on drugs is a failure - we have open warfare on our southern border, the regulation of gambling has been generally botched, and lots of women and guys are humiliated and fined etc, etc for doing what comes naturally. Take the sex trade: were all forms of non-violent practices legalized, you could bankrupt the pimps, provide for better health care for sex workers, generally upgrade the standards of most operations simply by normalizing it and placing a small tax on it to offset the cost of the job related health care. Drugs, the price should come down and the quality could be better maintained. Go to a state that has quasi legalized marijuana - the revenues are rolling in, there is much less violence associated with procurement.<br /> <br /> So instead of a foot on the floor SC owners and others in the trade, let&#39;s use our brains to develop a cross industry (mutual) organization to lobby for legislative changes that would move our society out of the 19th Century Blue Laws and into a time of more beneficial regulatory practice! And if by chance, I am simply not aware of the organization, why haven&#39;t I heard anything about it. I have heard about the sex worker unions in Europe so it&#39;s not like I&#39;m not listening.</p>