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The 6 Most Popular Crime Fighting Tactics (That Don't Work), por Robert Evans (Cracked.com):

Take Texas. The state currently has 22 dry counties, which you'd expect to have some of the lowest rates of alcohol-related traffic deaths in the state, what with there being no alcohol available.

 The explanation is simple, when you really think about it. Dry county or not, there are always people who just can't answer no to the question: "Would you like to get wasted?" And if they can't get the sweet stuff from their home county, they'll damn well get it from the neighboring one. People in dry counties don't drink less per se -- they just drive farther to get drunk. And then they drive back home, completely sauced, muttering under their breath about stupid laws and stupid sober people upholding stupid dry counties. In that state of mind, it's easy to forget the concept of braking and, for that matter, steering.

It's not just Texans, either. Journalists who studied 15 years of records in Kentucky found that their dry counties had far more DUI-related crashes than the "wet" ones. Arkansas, same story.

But hey, at least parents in those dry counties don't have to worry about their children drinking, right? Yeah, about that ... Turns out drug dealers don't have dry counties, and they're just happy that their product doesn't have to compete with alcohol. So, drug-related deaths and crime go up when alcohol is harder to get. It's almost like, we don't know, maybe kids are going to party regardless of what your stupid laws say.

[Via Jesse Walker]