The War on Drugs
The War on Drugs
Drug prohibition is expensive, does not work, and causes more harms than the behavior it is intended to suppress, therefore the war on drugs should end and the legalization should begin. In 1999 alone, the government issued a whopping $17.1 billion towards the war on drugs. That’s roughly $600 per second. According to the United Nations, profits in illegal drugs are so inflated, that three-quarters of all drug shipments would have to be intercepted to seriously reduce the profitability of the business. Current efforts only intercept 13% of heroin shipments and 28%-40% of cocaine shipments. Obviously international drug businesses aren’t getting very hurt by our $17.1 billion war on drugs project, so why even waste the money? That money must have been obtained from our tax dollars considering that 60 percent of all U.S. inmates are drug offenders. Obviously the $17.1 billion didn’t help very much, because the percent of imprisoned drug offenders still remains steady. In federal court today, low-level crack dealers and first-time offenders sentenced for trafficking of crack cocaine receive an average sentence of 10 years and six months. This is only 18% less than the average prison sentence received by those who committed murder or manslaughter, 59% longer than the average prison sentence received by rapists, 38% longer than the average prison sentence received by those guilty of weapons offenses. A person is arrested every 20 seconds for drug violations in America. The number of female inmates has tripled since last year, and the majority of them are low-level drug offenders. 80 percent of all female prisoners are mothers, and 70 percent are single parents and drug offender. I wonder why so many children are neglected?
All this can change if we are willing to experiment and break away from an orthodox style of thinking and governing. Obviously the war on drugs isn’t working, so it’s now time for a new solution, but first we must be willing to agree as a society to accept the fact that drugs do exist, and that they will continue to exist until the end of time. Drugs that are currently legal and socially accepted in our society such as tobacco and alcohol are the leading causes of all deaths in America. Annually tobacco kills 430,700, alcohol 110,640, adverse reactions to prescription drugs...