Prohibition's failure was demonstrated in South Buffalo this week, The Buffalo News reported. Despite nearly a century of drug prohibition, a car dealership near Southside Elementary School and a West Side barber shop were among several sites used to sell cocaine mailed to Buffalo from Puerto Rico, according to authorities.
Prohibition agents arrested some 28 individuals involved in the purchase and distribution of cocaine as well as stolen prescription drugs like Percocet, Valium and Lortab throughout Buffalo and the suburbs, bringing 213 indictments, according to the News.
News reader William Aiken has seen it all before. "Buffalo seems to be addicted to these long, large scale investigations that don't appear to have any impact on the black market or the availability of drugs. This story has become so common, it's almost not newsworthy," he told Drug War Chronicle.
According to the News, the narcotics sweep involved local and out-of-state arrests, and was headed by the New York State Attorney General's Prohibition Task Force, with prohibition agents from Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Lancaster and state troopers assisting at busts in Buffalo, Cheektowaga, West Seneca, Lackawanna, Hamburg, North Tonawanda and Angola. An arrest was also made in New Jersey, according to the News, and the investigation continues in Puerto Rico, where no arrests have yet been made.
In a sign of just how endemic the flaunting of the prohibition laws is, authorities revealed that the investigation was in fact a spin-off from another investigation conducted by state police and the prohibition task force into yet another bootlegging ring.
While enforcing prohibition laws, authorities frequently witness the degrading effects that prohibition has on the addicted, who are driven to desperate measures by the high street prices for drugs that prohibition creates. According to the News, one buyer at the car dealership returned for more after a nearby woman offered him sex in exchange for drugs. Studies of heroin maintenance programs in countries including Switzerland have found that addicts cease committing drug-related crimes once receiving the drug legally.
Even very harsh sentences seem to have no deterring effect on the illicit drug trade. According to authorities, defendants in the case face more severe charges because the car dealership is within 1,000 feet of a school.
