I found this in the church library today: "The Value of Law Observance: A Factual Monograph." It's a 1930 publication of the Bureau of Prohibition, and though the data don't show what it purports to show, it closes with this brilliant exercise in statecraft:

"In last analysis, critics of prohibition laws and their enforcement are criticizing and indicting the communities, officials, and citizens to whom they refer. It is no just criticism of the laws against homicide to point out that America produces more homicides than any civilized country. It is equally unfair to lay at the doors of the prohibition laws the lawlessness and unbridled selfishness of a too large portion of our citizens who should show strength of character enough not to commit themselves to the theory that they are above the law and will choose only such laws to observe as suit their own convenience and taste."

Translation: when our laws have demonstrable negative unintended consequences, it is the fault of the unworthies who won't play along. Here are two relevant quotes from Steven Landsburg's excellent "Fair Play:"

On Authority and Drug Use:
"Hillary Clinton believes that it takes a village--and by extension, a great federal bureaucracy--to raise a child. Republicans scoff, emphasizing that it takes not a village but a traditional family--while at the same time criticizing the Clinton administration for doing too little to keep kids off drugs; apparently those Republicans believe that it takes not a village but a police state. In the traditional family as I remember it, drug education was supplied by parents, not the government. At any rate, I wish they'd all lay off my daughter. Education about risks is one thing; telling kids that there's a single 'right' response to those risks is something different and more sinister." (p. 30)

(pause to finish off this cup of coffee, my drug of choice)

On the State and the Law
"Beware of those who pontificate about 'the majesty of the law.'
"We live in New York State, where they've outlawed those little clicky things on the gas pumps--the ones you use to keep the gas flowing while you walk around to check your oil. At some moment in the past, some New York State legislator must have gathered some colleagues around him and said 'We've got to do something about those little clicky things,' and they all nodded sagely. That's the majesty of the law." (p. 213)