The War on Drugs, Really?
The War on Drugs is a clear example of one of America's worst handled polices. According to drugsense.org the U.S. government, "spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $500 per second." Now to me this seems like an outrageous amount of money for a failing policy. The war on drugs is no doubt failing. If the purpose of the war is to completely eradicate the presence of drugs in America, then it is most definitely failing. There have already been 416,408 people arrested for drug law offenses this year alone and 214,874 people have been arrested for cannabis law offenses this year. This means that roughly half of all drug arrest this year were for a virtually harmless drug. Lets be honest people, weed is not a dangerous drug. In fact there has never been a recorded death due to an overdose of marijuana. But thousands of people die yearly from alcohol overdoses. Yet alcohol is legally available at almost every corner-store.
If the government had the people's best interest at heart they would rehabilitate drug offenders who are users and not just incarcerate them. There is a revolving door for drug offenders in America's current criminal system. By this I mean that people who are arrested for drug offenses are very likely to end up in jail again for the same offenses. The problem is that these people are addicted to drugs and locking them up is not a means to help them kick their habits. Addicts need to be rehabilitated in order to have any chance of recovering from their addiction. Also when people are convicted of drug offenses their permanent record is negatively effected. Thus making it harder for those individuals to find a decent job that can help them be a productive member of society. This may force them into a life of crime and eventually behind bars yet again.
GreenWellness blog post best describes the War on Drugs when stating,
I think we can all say that the “War on Drugs” seems to be some what of a disaster. Millions of citizens are irresponsible put through the court system, Billions of dollars are pumped into the fighting Marijuana’s “dangers” from reaching our neighborhoods, but still crack, heroin, and disease run ramped in most slums around the the country, not to include the huge increase in our youth getting hooked on pharmaceutical drugs.
I agree, our government has no idea what they are doing when it comes to the war on drugs. The original post points out the amount of money that is wasted on this so called war. For example, recently a home was raided with a warrant based off of helicopter photos of some “shrubs” that were believed to be marijuana plants. The time, money, and effort that the narcotics team used to bust this “grow house” where there was not actually any marijuana testifies to the case that the government is miserably failing at the war on drugs. When looked at logically first of all how would a judge agree to a warrant based off of images that are not clearly marijuana plants? Second, why are these drug squads worried about marijuana of all drugs? Finally, the drug cops true intentions could be questioned since it is not uncommon for them to be corrupt and rob them while they bust them. The simple fact that 16 states have decriminalized marijuana and made it possible to purchase purely for medical purposes, while on the national level it is still considered just as bad as heroine or cocaine, should be enough to discredit our government’s policy on drugs.
ReplyDeleteThat is one small issue concerning marijuana when we have way worse substances flooding the nation. If you were to research other foreign drug policies, mainly European ones, it is easy to see the difference immediately. Some of these differences are lower crime rates and overall less harm to the society since the government is regulating the drugs and ensuring clean equipment and environments for the drug users among their communities. Our policy as the original post points out is to incarcerate them until they are rehabilitated which generally does not work as seen since it is a viscous cycle in which the government really does no such rehabilitation or the cycle would not exist. The $15 billion dollars spent incarcerating drug offenders and raiding innocent people’s homes should be used to actually rehabilitate the true drug addicts who need help not John Doe who has had 8 surgeries and wants to smoke a joint over taking terrible pharmaceuticals.