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From time to time, people discuss prohibitions here. The general zeitgeist is often that one particular interpretation of the the US's experience with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s is conclusive for all prohibitions of any type everywhere and always. Nevermind that there are alternative interpretations of the US's experience with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. Nevermind that different prohibitions are different. We now have one data set from South Africa.
Perhaps they just didn't keep the prohibition long enough over any time period for the data to show that murders would have really gone up massively over time. Perhaps murders aren't the right measure. (EDIT: Perhaps there were other restrictions that happened concurrent to the alcohol prohibition; one might be interested to see if there are any differences in start/end dates for other restrictions and see if there is something like a DiD.) Lots of interpretations, but only one limited data set. I'm not a huge fan of alcohol prohibition, personally, but I wonder if that is, to some extent, a luxury belief of mine.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that alcohol prohibition reliably reduces the murder rate in the long run. This is worth taking into account, but it's hardly conclusive of whether we should have alcohol prohibition. Reducing the speed limit on all roads to 25mph will reliably reduce traffic deaths; outlawing TVs and bookshelves over a certain size will reliably save the lives of several hundred young children each year who are killed when furniture falls on them; not to mention all the lives that would be saved by banning candles and fireplaces; etc. Personal liberty has a great deal of value and I think we should be skeptical of prohibitions even if the data suggests they are "good" for people.
I sympathize with this in regards to full prohibition of alcohol unless you live in a sufficiently fallen society. Sufficient problem and prohibition is not only justifiable but a moral imperative and you are extremely unreasonable if you are not willing to consider that there is a red line. If your society has enough of a problem with alcohol abuse then it should be banned no question.
For example alcohol prohibition towards Indian "native" Americans is a no-brainer. It is extremely destructive towards them and makes them dangerous to others as well. Both how alcohol affects them, and the general problem of alcohol abuse in their community, is an example where the skepticism must be towards those who decriminalized it, at the expense of the people affected.
The trade offs in comparison to the examples you mention aren't there. Still, I also sympathize with considering idea of freedom even if it causes harm, provided the harm isn't large enough or comes with other significant benefits. Alcohol is damaging enough that the weight would fall in favor of prohibition except for one reason.
The only reason I don't support prohibiting it is because it is so entrenched culturally, and there is historical continuity and significance. So there is a more significant trade off because it is a more important part of living and past culture. Of more normal and respectable people too. So there is a point there. However these are advantages but of a much different nature than books, or getting faster to your destination than 25 miles per hour. But alcohol is bad enough. It carries a significant cost. And certainly restrictions and trying to curtail alcohol abuse is good.
We should put a line to it and prohibit harmful drugs who don't have that history. Alcohol is bad enough but its byproducts are too culturally significant. The rest of harmful drugs are not. The damage that alcohol abuse inflicts in society is bad enough and we should not allow more to be added to it.
Yes, there is a line where prohibition makes sense, but I don't think any human society comes close to crossing that line when it comes to alcohol. This is especially true given that alcohol has proven its ability to coexist alongside the development of advanced human societies over the course of several millennia.
The following winter (this was the year in which Cn. Pompey and M. Crassus were consuls [55 B.C.]), those Germans [called] the Usipetes, and likewise the Tenchtheri, with a great number of men, crossed the Rhine , not far from the place at which that river discharges itself into the sea. The motive for crossing [that river] was, that having been for several years harassed by the Suevi, they were constantly engaged in war, and hindered from the pursuits of agriculture. The nation of the Suevi is by far the largest and the most warlike nation of all the Germans. They are said to possess a hundred cantons, from each of which they yearly send from their territories for the purpose of war a thousand armed men: the others who remain at home, maintain [both] themselves and those-engaged in the expedition. The latter again, in their turn, are in arms the year after: the former remain at home. Thus neither husbandry, nor the art and practice of war are neglected. But among them there exists no private and separate land; nor are they permitted to remain more than one year in one place for the purpose of residence. They do not live much on corn, but subsist for the most part on milk and flesh, and are much [engaged] in hunting; which circumstance must, by the nature of their food, and by their daily exercise and the freedom of their life (for having from boyhood been accustomed to no employment, or discipline, they do nothing at all contrary to their inclination), both promote their strength and render them men of vast stature of body. And to such a habit have they brought themselves, that even in the coldest parts they wear no clothing whatever except skins, by reason of the scantiness of which, a great portion of their body is bare, and besides they bathe in open rivers.
Merchants have access to them rather that they may have persons to whom they may sell those things which they have taken in war, than because they need any commodity to be imported to them. Moreover, even as to laboring cattle, in which the Gauls take the greatest pleasure, and which they procure at a great price, the Germans do not employ such as are imported, but those poor and ill-shaped animals, which belong to their country; these, however, they render capable of the greatest labor by daily exercise. In cavalry actions they frequently leap from their horses and fight on foot; and train their horses to stand still in the very spot on which they leave them, to which they retreat with great activity when there is occasion; nor, according to their practice, is any thing regarded as more unseemly, or more unmanly, than to use housings. Accordingly, they have the courage, though they be themselves but few, to advance against any number whatever of horse mounted with housings. They on no account permit wine to be imported to them, because they consider that men degenerate in their powers of enduring fatigue, and are rendered effeminate by that commodity.
C. Julius Caesar. Caesar's Gallic War. Translator. W. A. McDevitte. Translator. W. S. Bohn. 1st Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 1869. Harper's New Classical Library. Hirt-Gal 4.1-2.
The Gauls are exceedingly addicted to the use of wine and fill themselves with the wine which is brought into their country by merchants, drinking it unmixed, and since they partake of this drink without moderation by reason of their craving for it, when they are drunken they fall into a stupor or a state of madness. Consequently many of the Italian traders, induced by the love of money which characterizes them, believe that the love of wine of these Gauls is their own godsend. For these transport the wine on the navigable rivers by means of boats and through the level plain on wagons, and receive for it an incredible price; for in exchange for a jar of wine they receive a slave, getting a servant in return for the drink.
Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History. Book V, Part 25.
Is this supposed to imply that the Suevi prohibited alcohol consumption entirely? Or just wine? Obviously the Nordic peoples of the Viking age were famously producers and drinkers of mead, and contemporary Germanic peoples famously enjoyed ale, so unless those were cultural innovations that arose centuries after the Suevi - or unless the Suevi were an outlier - I would assume that alcohol consumption was not unknown among their people.
Importation of unwatered wine by various Gaullish tribes is noted to have produced what appears to be a wide-spread plague of alcoholism. The price of wine rose so high that in addition to paying vast sums of precious metals to the merchants, the Gauls were willing to enslave their own and trade them for the stuff (who were promptly shipped to Roman vineyards and put to work making more wine grapes to be sent to Gaul). I added in a quote from Diodorus Siculus attesting to this to my post above.
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