Losing The War On Drugs Essay
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Losing the War on Drugs
America is spending millions of dollars to run ad campaigns with teenage
waifs smashing up the kitchen with frying pans, brain fried egg commercials, and
other inaccurate and misleading ads put fear into our nations youth and adults alike.
One such ad showed a flat line brain scan purportedly hooked up to a drug user. It
was later proven that it was hooked up to nothing and most of our nations kids now
know it. Seeing the "Land of the Free" turn into a nation that imprisons more of its
citizens than any other industrialized nation on earth is neither effective or a good
message to send our children. We are building 9 new prisons for every one new
university( ). Which do you want built for your children?
In this country, we are locked in war we simply cannot win. We strive to
protect over 10,000 miles of border, against enemies who are driven by the lure of
an obscene really resulted from this war is the overcrowding of prisons, the
expansion of law and distrust. If its not obvious already, I am referring to the war
on drugs. As time goes on, it becomes more and more evident that the war on drugs
is as useless as officials, who use the war as a reelection tool. To study this
problem, I visited government web pages for statistics and facts dealing with the
war, and was surprised what I found.
To most people the fiscal reasons for ending the war are the most convincing.
For example, it costs over $30,000 per year to house a prisoner - this does not
include processing and legal fees, only the actual prison costs - food, water,
electricity and guards ( ). There are over 1.5 million non-violent drug law offenders
in prison right now, and this number is increasing daily( ). That means we are
spending a minimum of $45 billion per year keeping former tax-paying citizens,
most of whom had jobs and were contributing to the economy in some way, locked
up with murderers and rapists. When these people get out of jail, they will have
criminal records, which will make it nearly impossible to get a decent job, and a
grudge against the government and society in general.
In addition, we spend $37 billion per year funding the police efforts and
interdiction, and recent evidence suggests the CIA has been involved in
drug-trafficking to fund its own private wars ().Currently there is over $150 billion
worth of drug traffic that remains untaxed ( ).If you figure a tax rate of 15%, that is
a total of $22.5 billion of taxes that America doesn't see. The bottom line? The US
Treasury estimates America wastes a minimum of $104.5 billion per year fighting a
war that can not be won ( ), while crime rates continue to rise (because of the huge
profits made possible by the risks involved in the drug trade as drugs remain
illegal), and the quality of education, medical care and environmental protection
falls due to lack of money in the budget.
There are also moral dilemmas in declaring war on drugs and their users.
Firstly, drug use or abuse is a medical and social problem not a criminal problem,
yet we think we're solving the problem by throwing people in jail. The logic seems
to be, maybe if we just take their life away, confiscate all of their personal
property, ruin their reputation and self-respect, put them in jail with the worst
elements of society - murderers, thieves and rapists, where they will most likely be
beaten and/or raped repeatedly they will see the error of their ways. Not a very
enlightened sentiment.
Also bear in mind, nicotine, caffeine and alcohol are all drugs. Nicotine is
one of the most addictive drugs known to man, behind substances like heroin.
Cigarettes kill over 300,000 people every year. Alcohol kills over 120,000 people
every year ( ).Alcohol has been linked to men beating their wives and children. In
contrast, marijuana has a recorded history that dates back over 4000 years, and has
never killed anyone in the direct way alcohol does ( ). The DEA's own
Administrative Law Judge, after reviewing the evidence, called marijuana "...one
of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man..." ( ).
It's been said that the first casualty in any war is truth. That
sentiment is seen nowhere as clearly as in the war on drugs. The
government and special interests have been running this war for over 50
years now. The government “spews propaganda as truth, to cover their collective
backsides, which creates distrust and unrest, and breeds
contempt and disrespect in our children” ( ). An example - We have uniformed
police officers coming into our classrooms telling kids that marijuana
is more dangerous than alcohol and at least if not more dangerous than
crack cocaine or heroin. History and scientific evidence prove that it is not. So if
the officer wasn't being honest about marijuana, what else is the government lying
about?
Worse yet, if marijuana is not that bad, maybe crack and heroin aren't either.
Their are also some logical problems with supporting such a war. This is a free
country with over 10,000 miles of border and over 247 million inhabitants( ).There
is simply no way you can watch all of the people all of the time if we are to
continue with the freedoms we have. A large percentage of the drugs brought into
the country are brought in by people swallowing small balloons filled with pure
cocaine or heroin.
This is nearly impossible to prevent. There is no way you will ever be
able to eradicate drugs from this country without declaring martial
law, doing house-to-house searches and increasing border security
dramatically. Clearly, America would not submit to draconian polices.
The problem with drugs is not their effect, it is the corruption that
is tied to the huge profits that doing illegal business commands. Statistics show that
illegal drugs kill far less people than obesity - that is, an addiction to food ( ). So
why doesn’t America make Twinkies illegal? Increasing penalties for drug crimes
will just increase the prices and thereby the profits for people willing to take the
risk. Along with these profits will come increasing war in our neighborhoods as
gangs and dealers fight and kill for the enormous profits. Americans will never see
any of this money because, being illegal, it is not taxed. Supply is driven by
demand. As long as there are people that want to adjust their state of mind, there
will be someone to help them do it, and adjusting our state of mind is part of
human nature. There are many ways to regulate use of marijuana without simply
legalizing it. Our country must make a drastic change to model our laws after those
of other countries who are...
Marks, Alexandra. “US is losing the War on Drugs.” The Christian Science Monitor 5Jan 2000: 1-2.
“Going Dutch?.” The Economist (US). 15 Jan 2000, 55-57.
Massing, Michael. “Beyond Legalization.” The Nation 20 Sept 1999: 19-21
MacCoun, Robert J., Reuter, Peter. “Does Europe Do It Better?.” The Nation 20 Sept
1999: 28-31.
“Drug Policy and Crime Statistics.” Dutch Embassy. 6 Aug 1998.
(http://www.netherlands-embassy.org/drug-inf.htm).
“The Netherlands: Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than US.” Media Awareness Project.
16 Apr 1998. (http://www.mapinc.org/).
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