I really hope that the state of Oregon will do the right thing in its budget crisis: instead of abolishing funding for schools, why not abolish the OLCC? Why spend $90 million per year controlling people's ability to buy alcohol and bullying the owners of drinking establishments?

The OLCC's heavy hand of regulation is ultimately about the attempt to regulate the peaceful, honest and voluntary behavior of individuals. What else would one expect given the OLCC's roots are traceable to the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1919? This wholesale violation of individual liberty ruined many lives.

Nicholas Murray Butler gave an address against Prohibition before the Ohio State Bar Association in 1923. He noted that Prohibition could never be enforced because "it lays down rules of private conduct which are contrary to the intelligence and general morality of the community."