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I think this reasoning fails to get off the ground, for reasons that may be coincident with what FC is getting at. "Prohibition of X" is different for different values of X. What is the nature of X? How does it come to be? Where? By who? What is its size? Use? Alternatives? Etc. That is, people have prohibited alcohol, drugs, prescription drugs, small guns, large guns, of course you can throw in F-16s and nuclear weapons, or even just Chinese drywall. The list goes on. People have also tried prohibiting things that are less than tangible, like encryption or killing babies, or all sorts of stuff. I see almost no reason why there should be a single schema that dictates how every possible prohibition of every possible X will (not) work. Different things are different. Some may be extremely difficult to prohibit; others may be relatively easier. It is likely impossible to do any with 100% success everywhere, because 100% success is just not a thing in law/public policy (I guess there's probably some guy out there who is just really determined to bring over some Chinese drywall... and for Sagan's sake, we can't even get to zero killed babies), so we usually have to use some other metrics for success.
I accept that you are 95% right about the big picture. The huge difference between coffee and fentanyl is the only thing that really matters.
Notice though, that I zoomed in on the specific issue of timing. Who dares to doubt an intervention that works well for the first year? I dare.
Looking at my reasoning, we see that it is mostly about social dynamics. Friends put out feelers to friends. The black market slowly becomes monetized and professionalized. Since it is illegal to offer bribes to policemen, there are several years of nudges and winks before police corruption takes hold. The social dynamics set a slow time scale that is not obviously related to specifics of what has been prohibited.
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