Losing The War On Drugs Essays - Drug Control Law, War On Drugs

Losing The War On Drugs 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