The cost in cocaine-addicted newborns and cocaine-ravaged families, in broken homes and abused children, in traffic deaths and absenteeism, in spontaneous violence and random street crime would be immense. Whatever else it was, the prohibition of alcohol was a public health success; the incidence of cirrhosis and alcoholic psychosis declined dramatically during Prohibition. In fact, it took until 1971 for alcohol consumption to resume pre-Prohibition levels. The "legalizers" are right in arguing that the current policy of drug prohibition has not eliminated drug abuse and its attendant problems, but it is perverse to suggest that because criminalizing crack has not prevented abandoned children, the answer is to legalize crack, a sure prescription for more abandoned children. Although the current drug situation is intolerable, it could get infinitely worse; if drugs are legalized, it will.