Prohibition

Every thing which is moral evil, and is detrimental to the interests of society, is not, therefore, properly punishable by society (e. g., prodigality, indolence, gluttony, drunkenness).
...
It is not the business of society to keep a man from injuring himself, but from injuring others. As to his personal interests he is his own master.

- R. L. Dabney, Systematic Theology, Chapter 48, Religious Liberty and Church and State.

These quotes are part of Dabney's argument that force (exercised by the State) is no remedy to the crime of heresy. But the principle itself applies more broadly.

One of the clearest examples today of disregard for the principle of the proper role of the State is the prohibition of mind-altering substances or narcotics. This disastrous policy and the enforcement of it, is led by America (who after her experience of 1920-33 she should know better), but is practically universal around the world.

Thus has the State usurped the role of the family.

The object of the family as to children is to promote their whole welfare. The object of civil government is simply the protection of temporal rights against aggression, foreign or domestic.

- R. L. Dabney, ibid.

In usurping the role of the family, the State practically becomes the family, thereby visiting upon us a measure of the evils of Communism. The State-as-family has become increasingly evident in Mr Blair's New Labour Britain.

Immediately following the above quote, Dabney continues:

But this is just the view which all claimants for high powers in governments deny. Like Mr. Gladstone, they claim that the proper view of government is, that it is an association intended to take in hand all the interests and welfare of human beings, of every kind; everything in which man is interested, and in which combination can aid in success, is the proper end of human government. It is to Pan: The total human association. Now, the plain answers to this are three: the Bible says the contrary. Rom.13:4. It is utterly impracticable; for, by the necessary imperfection of human nature, an agency which is best adapted to one function must be worst adapted to others; and an association which should do every thing, would be sure to do all in the worst possible manner. But last, and chiefly; if this is true; then there cannot be any other association of human beings, except as it is a part and creature of the State. There is no Church. The State is the Church, and ecclesiastical persons and assemblies are but magistrates engaged in one part of their functions. There is no such thing as the family, an independent, original institution of divine appointment. The parent is but the delegate of the government, and when he applies the birch to the child, it is in fact, by State authority! All combinations, to trade, to do banking business, to teach, to preach, to navigate, to buy pictures, to nurse the sick, to mine, etc., etc., are parts and creatures of the State! Or if it be said that the State, though it has the right to do every thing, is not bound to do every thing, unless she finds it convenient and advantageous, then the ethical argument is relinquished; and the ground of expediency assumed ...

Again, the argument here is against Establishmentarianism. However, the parallels are clear. In assuming parental responsibility for all individuals, children and adults and getting into the business of trying to stop a man from injuring himself, the State has become the family.

Tragically, the outcome has been disastrous. Prohibition has caused an increase in the use and abuse of the very substances it has sought to eliminate (because addiction to substances made artifically expensive by prohibition creates an incentive to 'push' and deal). Prohibition has caused a significant increase in prostitution (to finance personal addiction to substances made artifically expensive by prohibition) and in recent times thereby fuelled the transmission of AIDS and other serious infectious diseases. Prohibition has caused a significant increase in acquisitive crime, much of it violent, which all responsible members of society are forced to finance, through their property insurance policies. Prohibition has indirectly fuelled military conflict in some of the poorest countries of the world (profits, artificially inflated by prohibition, from the illegal trade in narcotics have become probably the most convenient means to finance trade in illegal arms).

In short, the policy of narcotics prohibition has not only been a far greater failure than the earlier policy of alcohol prohibition in the United States, but, far from reducing the sum of human misery, it has greatly increased it.

The general availability of narcotics is a perhaps a dreadful thing. But the effects of their prohibition is far, far worse. America's prohibition experiment in the 1920s failed miserably. The world's late 20th century narcotics prohibition experiment has failed even more miserably and on an even more spectacular scale. To expect different effects from the same set of causes and initial conditions is known as madness.

The State makes a dreadful parent.