>>72072
This is true. There's this weird fallacy that the government can will things to happen. It declares that drugs are illegal, and so drugs stop existing. What they forget is that these laws have to be executed, which can often go wrong, and that even when they are executed in good faith, they can miss their mark totally and have an effect other than the one intended.
It's completely obvious that the government can't do magic, and most people would admit so if you pointed it out (besides trained economists, they will stay adamant that the government can create wealth by printing bills). But still, people tend to think along these lines. That this is conductive to autocracy goes without saying.