I wonder if, in 1934, bootleggers and Mafiaso types, flush with cash from the fourteen years of Prohibition, complained that the legalization of booze was a hardship for them?

How unfair it was to take a market share of bath tub gin and hidden speakeasy's and suddenly let the Capitalist Machine take over, making these criminal dens of iniquity gain legal prominence.  Suddenly, brewing companies and liquor consortiums were formed in the rush to make legal dimes in the space illegal pennies were garnered before.

The thought seems completely absurd.  These cats were criminals, making money selling illegal booze and resorting to thug-like tactics to corner their own piece of the underground capitalist apple pie.  Who are they to complain about the government taking away their ill-gotten gains and handing it to new law-abiding businessmen whom they used to threaten with violence lest they fail to "pay up"?

Likewise, the noise of gangbangers and weed dealers bitching about the unfairness of legalizing marijuana sales and cutting them out of the mix is ludicrous.  Dressing it up in the garb of racism is doubly asinine.

The image of the 1928 bootlegger as honestly just minding his business and resorting to none of the strong arm tactics used to sustain an illegal business model is not only fiction, it's dumb.  Likewise, the thought of a weed dealer, benign in every way without needing some muscle to ensure renumeration is a character from a 1990's sitcom, not reality.

The war on drugs has definitely targeted blacks and hippies as the fall guys of the legislation but to whine about not being included in the gains once it becomes legal is just goofy.

They all should stay underground and make money as freelance consultants.  That's where the real money is anyway.  Either that or baseball and sugar sales.