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Any time there is high demand for a good or service, there is a profit-making opportunity in delivering that good or service. Prohibition creates new types of risks for the prohibited enterprise, and black market entrepreneurs plan accordingly.

In a legal market, competitors may compete for market share, but they typically do not do so through direct violence against each other. They compete based on price, quality, and other factors focusing on appealing to consumers. If an employee or contractor embezzles from the firm, that wrong is addressed in a legal proceeding in the courts.

In a prohibited market, manufacturers, distributors, and vendors all face the constant danger of government violence, confiscation of business and personal assets, and the arrest and imprisonment of their workers. This means that only individuals with a large appetite for risk-taking are likely to participate. It also means that when these individuals have disputes over market share or fulfillment of a contract, there is no legal means available for dispute resolution. This incentivizes violent reprisals instead of peaceful, civilized modes of addressing these conflicts.

Gangs typically develop as a response to a collective defense problem. Rather than fall prey to competing black market actors who want to acquire market share or low-cost inventory quickly through violence, people who are familiar to each other due to previous friendly acquaintance, family connection, or simple physical proximity may band together to provide for their common defense. People who perceive that they are in danger will often do dangerous things. And once accustomed to lawless living, these people are more likely to participate in other forms of unlawful but profitable victimization, like human trafficking, utilizing the smuggling and protection infrastructure that they have already established.

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In the print edition of Faith Seeking Freedom, this question is titled “Why do libertarians oppose prohibition, including the War on Drugs? Are you saying all drugs should be legal?”

There are two primary reasons why libertarians oppose prohibition laws. The first reason is that enforcement of such laws violate people’s property rights. The second is that these laws tend to do more harm than good and fail to address the root problem of substance abuse.

When laws are adopted that impose punishments on people for selling, possessing, or using drugs, the enforcement of these laws requires the use of violence to stop people from doing what they want with their own money and their own bodies. It is inappropriate to use violence to prevent a person from doing something merely because some third party believes that thing is harmful or immoral. Such rules are “simply human commands and teachings” (Col 2:22) and “have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence” (Col 2:23). Instead of this sort of legalism, Christians recognize that we are under a directive to exercise self-control. We are called to wisely abstain from things that, while within the realm of our possible choices, are not edifying, or even worse, may enslave us or cause another to stumble (1 Cor 6:12, 10:23).

Apart from this moral and philosophical analysis, there is also the question of whether prohibition works. It does not. In fact, drug prohibition tends to result in more concentrated, dangerous drugs, greater associated criminality, more overdoses, and less legal accountability for faulty or adulterated products. And the progress of both alcohol prohibition and the drug war have been accompanied by the abuse of civil liberties through expanded use of warrantless seizures, civil asset forfeiture, broader surveillance by police, and infringements on the right to keep and bear arms such as the National Firearms Act of 1934, the passage of which was made possible by rhetoric about prohibition-related gang violence.