What are the effects of prohibition?
Prohibition, and the attempts made to enforce it, have created a number of serious local, national and international problems. The key effects of prohibition have been: • The creation of global criminal networks who exploit prohibition for profit and power and now control an international trade worth 100 billion a year • The creation of local criminal gangs who are a significant source of street violence, gun crime, intimidation, burglaries, petty theft and other anti-social behaviour • An increase in offending by pushing low income problematic users into prostitution and acquisitive crime (eg shoplifting, burglaries, street robberies) in order to pay the inflated prices of street drugs.
