# Multimedia 

Multimedia 

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Cato Weekly Podcast • December 4, 2025 

# Repeal Day: Alcohol Prohibition and the Hypocrisy of the Drug War 

The Cato Institute’s Jeff Singer and Michael Fox mark Repeal Day by examining how alcohol prohibition and the modern drug war share the same destructive logic: criminalizing peaceful people, fueling black markets, corrupting law enforcement incentives, and empowering violent traffickers. Drawing on real-world examples of overdose deaths, civil forfeiture, and policing excesses, they argue for a consistent, liberty-based framework that treats drug users with the same legal respect afforded to alcohol consumers.

#### Show Notes 

[![Doctor showing prescription drug to patient](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/content_teaser/public/2022-11/202211_doctor_drugs.jpg?itok=d8K0uBF9)](https://www.cato.org/white-paper/cops-practicing-medicine) 

Study 

### [Cops Practicing Medicine](/white-paper/cops-practicing-medicine) 

By [Jeffrey A. Singer](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer) and [Trevor Burrus](https://www.cato.org/people/trevor-burrus) 

Government and law enforcement increasingly surveil and influence the way doctors treat pain, psychoactive substance use, and substance use disorder.

[![A bottle of prescription oxycodone, open on a table with an American flag in the background](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/content_teaser/public/2021-01/GettyImages-900309188.jpg?itok=QfqxhdAl)](https://www.cato.org/commentary/real-opioid-crisis-isnt-prescriptions-its-prohibition) 

Commentary 

### [The Real Opioid Crisis Isn’t Prescriptions–It’s Prohibition](/commentary/real-opioid-crisis-isnt-prescriptions-its-prohibition) 

By [Jeffrey A. Singer](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer) and Josh Bloom 

West Virginia’s overdose data prove it: Officials misunderstood the problem, and patients paid the price.

[![Round white pills spill out of an orange pill bottle on a blue background](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/content_teaser/public/2020-09/202009_prescription_medication_pills.jpg?itok=k6pAE_Ei)](https://www.cato.org/commentary/these-new-synthetic-opioids-could-make-fentanyl-crisis-look-good-old-days) 

Commentary 

### [These New Synthetic Opioids Could Make the Fentanyl Crisis Look like ‘The Good Old Days’](/commentary/these-new-synthetic-opioids-could-make-fentanyl-crisis-look-good-old-days) 

By [Jeffrey A. Singer](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer) and Josh Bloom 

When the nitazene crisis debuts, will they finally place the blame on drug prohibition, where it has always belonged?

[![Fentanyl cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/content_teaser/public/2025-02/fentanyl%20Cropped.jpg?itok=n6YRMMNs)](https://www.cato.org/commentary/halt-fentanyl-act-delusional-or-just-performance-art) 

Commentary 

### [Is the HALT Fentanyl Act Delusional or Just Performance Art?](/commentary/halt-fentanyl-act-delusional-or-just-performance-art) 

By [Jeffrey A. Singer](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-singer) 

The bill would permanently reschedule fentanyl as a Schedule I drug—and impede therapeutic research.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

[![Mike Fox - cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2024-11/mikefox-cropped.jpg?itok=Dn0jiRsb)](/people/mike-fox) 

##### [Mike Fox](/people/mike-fox)

Legal Fellow, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/foxmike90) 

[![jeff-singer-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2024-05/jeff-singer-cropped.jpg?itok=G_0nEnx7)](/people/jeffrey-singer) 

##### [Jeffrey A. Singer](/people/jeffrey-singer)

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

[ 

](https://x.com/dr4liberty) [ 

](mailto:jsinger@cato.org)