The war on drugs is a war based on the theory that attacking the consumption, distribution, and production of drugs will decrease the overall usage and sales of drugs. However, in over forty years of pushing hard on the drug war, it has not stopped people from using drugs, nor has it decreased the usage of them, and in return, gives more power to dangerous criminals and the black market. The war on drugs creates much more harm than good, and in return, legalization seems like a better alternative than prohibition.
One example often used to contrast why prohibition does not work is the prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933. In that period when alcohol was prohibited and an uncontrolled substance, the prohibition of alcohol did not actually lower the usage of alcohol at all during that period, and people continued to drink alcohol regardless of the laws. What prohibition led to was the rise of criminals such as the infamous Al Capone. Prohibition caused people like Al Capone to gain a lot of power and a lot of money. It caused crimes such as murder to escalate, and gave a rise to gangs that dealt with the distribution of alcohol. The reverse affect of prohibition in that time would have been legalization, as we know it today with the age limit of twenty-one. Legalization puts the sale and distribution of alcohol in the hands of the government and completely takes away power from criminals. Legalization lowers crime rates, destroys the productivity of gangs who distributed alcohol, and most importantly, stops the police force from putting ordinary people in jail for simple possessions. The government profits from the sale of alcohol and it keeps people who want alcohol out of trouble, out of jail, and out of harms way from being potentially hurt from gang members, criminals, and drug dealers.
Much like the prohibition did not actually lower the usage of alcohol from 1920 to 1933; the war on drugs today does not have an impact on lowering the usage of illegal drugs. In fact, “A British Crime Survey shows that when cannabis was decriminalized from Class A to Class C, the use of cannabis from ages sixteen to twenty-four dropped from 28% to 21%.” (Travis) Is it not ironic how being less harsh on drug laws actually proves through evidence and research to lower drug use even among teenagers? Also, interestingly a “University of Illinois study tracked hundreds of school children who took the DARE course in the fifth grade. The study found that the program generally had no effect on later drugs use, except in certain instances. Surprisingly, suburban students who took the DARE course were more likely to use drugs than their counterparts who didn't.” (Greer) As the above survey proved, the prohibition of drugs does not actually cause drug use to lower. Ask any high school kid, and nine out of ten of them can probably obtain cannabis without a problem, what does this show about our drug laws? It shows that they don’t work. Another reason that prohibition does not work is because a fifteen year old doesn’t have to look old, that person doesn’t need identification, a drug dealer doesn’t care about that person or their age, a drug dealer just wants their money, making it easy even for a young child to obtain illegal drugs. However, if you look at controlled substances such as alcohol, even a twenty-five year old still has to walk into a store, where even they will have to have identification of age and will definitely be checked for buying alcohol or even tobacco; this process makes it extremely harder for underage people to obtain legal substances.
Prohibitionists and people who support the drug war also state the drug war is meant to protect our children, and that if we legalize drugs we will be sending the wrong message to the youth. However, this also ties into the study above the proves that prohibition does not lower drug use and decriminalization actually does lower drug use, imagine how much more controlled we could keep drug use out of children’s hands if we were to completely legalize drugs, the government would have complete control of drugs much like alcohol and tobacco, making it harder for the youth to obtain drugs. Also, how are we protecting our youth by letting them deal with gangs and drug dealers? Are we protecting our children by putting them in jail for a long period of time, ripping them away from their families, losing scholarships, being kicked out of college, and losing their jobs for small possessions? That sounds more like destroying our youth to me, not protecting them. People are sometimes killed in undercover raids by police, and people are even given an option of dealing undercover with bigger drug dealers and more serious drugs to avoid a heavy jail sentence, and are sometimes killed in result. This is just another fact that shows it is in many cases not the actual drug use that destroys lives, but the prohibition of drugs and drug war that ruin lives.
Furthermore, lying to our youth about the dangers of drugs causes several problems. For one, it is often a tactic by “drug educators” to tell kids that cannabis is just as dangerous as harder drugs. When these children grow to their early teen years and begin using cannabis (as most do, about one out of every three), many of them realize that they have been misguided with information, and sometimes think that if cannabis is not bad, why not try something else? Sadly, a person not being well informed about hard drugs, especially a young teenager, can often lead to addiction when abused. If we are going to educate children about drugs, we need to truly educate them about drugs, talk to them like adults, and not lie to them. Lying only leads to them not taking the use of drugs seriously, and often they will not trust authority figures in result of propaganda.
When people say we are sending the wrong message to our children if we legalize drugs, then what kind of message are we sending to our children with the legalization of alcohol and tobacco? Both of which are widely commercialized. Tobacco and alcohol kill more people yearly than all illegal drugs combined, they are the most dangerous drugs, yet they are the ones that are legal. Where is the logic in saying that drugs should be illegal because they are harmful with that kind of information? “Tobacco is the top killer at 435,000 deaths, poor diet and physical inactivity at 365,000 deaths, alcohol at 85,000 deaths, prescription drugs at 32,000 deaths, Aspirin at 7,600 deaths, and cannabis at zero deaths.” (Heron) If an argument is really that drugs should stay illegal because they are unhealthy and potentially dangerous, then it should proposed that all fast food and processed food should be banned, we should start taking better care of our water and soil, we should start making it mandatory to exercise and grow fresh organic farm raised foods, failure to do the following should result in a jail sentence, considering that diet and lack of exercise is the second biggest killer. Of course, that is crazy, because it is not anyone’s job to decide the health consequences of another person (however this is exactly what our government is currently doing with the drug war), which is entirely up to that particular individual.
Most likely the biggest fault that the war on drugs has is the effect on every day citizens. “872,721 Americans were arrested for cannabis in 2007, and of those arrests, 89% or 775,138 were arrests for simple possession - not buying, selling, trafficking, or manufacture (growing).” (Belville) That was just for cannabis alone, not for all illegal drugs, all other illegal drugs combined totaled to over one-million arrests. Cannabis counts for a big majority of those arrests, and that research was taken from two years ago, every year the arrests increase, and last year in 2008, it increased to nearly 900,000 arrests for cannabis alone, not counting all other illegal drugs. Take all those people into consideration, most of them not drug addicts, not distributors, just ordinary people caught for a small possession. Those lives can be potentially ruined, not just from loosing their job, being kicked out of school, having their kids taken away, not just simply because they peed dirty in a drug test, but also because they can be killed or raped in jail. It takes away valuable police resources, time, and money that we could use on real potential criminals, not occasional drug users, but rapists and murderers, criminals who harm people in a physical way; these are the true people who deserve to be in jail, non-violent drug users do not deserve to be in jail.
Finally, when you arrest someone based on the principle that it is wrong, you are stating that something should be illegal because it disagrees with your personal morality. Imagine if everyone in America wanted to make laws based on their own personal morality, America would be in total chaos, much like the current war on drugs is in total chaos. People should have the right to try an illegal drug just as much as they have to try a legal drug, without fear of being imprisoned for putting something in their body. Laws should be based on the productiveness of a country as a whole, personal freedom, and keeping the citizens from potential harm. The drug war does the complete opposite of all of this.
Works Cited Page:
Travis, Alan (2007-10-26). Cannabis Use down since Legal Change, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/oct/26/drugsandalcohol.homeaffairs
Greer, Mark, What the Prohibitionists Say - And the Answers, http://www.mapinc.org/soundbites.htm
Heron, Melonie P., PhD, Smith, Betty L., BsED, Division of Vital Statistics, "Deaths: Leading Causes for 2003," National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 55, No. 10 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, March 15, 2007), p. 10, Table E, and p. 12, Table F. http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30
Belville, Russ, September 15th, 2008, 872,721
Marijuana Arrests in 2007, up 5.2% from 2006. http://blog.norml.org/2008/09/15/872721-marijuana-arrests-in-2007-up-52-from-2006/
No comments:
Post a Comment