"The effects of marijuana prohibition in the United States today are similar to the effects of alcohol prohibition in the United States from 1920 to 1933. Prohibition sought to achieve forced abstinence from alcohol through legal means and constitutionally banned its manufacture, sale and transport throughout the United States.
A number of social problems resulted from the Prohibition era. A profitable and violent black market for alcohol flourished. Powerful gangs corrupted law enforcement agencies, and stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle. Enforcing prohibition had an enormous price tag, and the absence of almost $500 million annual nationwide tax revenues on alcohol affected the government's financial resources. When repeal of prohibition occurred in 1933, organized crime lost nearly all of its black market alcohol profits in most states because of competition with low-priced alcohol sales at legal liquor stores.
At the end of prohibition some of the initial supporters openly admitted its failure. A quote from a letter, written in 1932 by wealthy industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., states:
When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.”
However, when it came to marijuana and hemp prohibition, Rockefeller took a different stance. He was a known supporter of hemp prohibition along with Harry J. Anslinger, the United States First "drug czar" and William Randolph Hearst, well known media mogul. As to be expected, Hearst sympathized with the drug czar in his war against marijuana. Hearst's paper empire, which included hundreds of acres of timber forests, was threatened by the renewable resource of hemp that could be re-grown yearly, unlike Hearst's timber. In his newspapers, Hearst published many of Anslinger’s fabricated stories, aiding the anti-marijuana movement that eventually led to its prohibition in the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act (Wikipedia). Rockefeller had his interests in oil, and after founding Standard Oil in 1870, soared to become the first U.S. dollar billionaire, and Standard Oil was even convicted of monopolistic practices and broken up in 1911. There seems no way that hemp could have had a chance when the media, the government, and the oil industry were swiftly making little room for hemp to survive."
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http://www.sustainablehemp.net/prohibition.phpand yes, the US holds sway over lots of countries in that we won't assist them if they don't mirror our laws. Not to mention the fact we have becoome such a petroleum-based planet, we almost don't know HOW to make stuff any other way...paper, plastic, etc...all is tied into profits.
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