America Should End Its War On Drugs

In the past forty years, the United States has spent over $2.5 trillion dollars funding enforcement and prevention in the fight against drug use in America (Suddath). Despite the efforts made towards cracking down on drug smugglers, growers, and suppliers, statistics show that addiction rates have remained unchanged and the number of people using illegal drugs is increasing daily (Sledge). Regardless of attempts to stem the supply of drugs, the measure and quality of drugs goes up while the price goes down (Koebler). Now with the world’s highest incarceration rates and greatest illegal drug consumption (Sledge), the United States proves that the “war on drugs” is a war that is not being won.

Before we begin our tour of the drug war, it is worthwhile to get a couple of myths out of the way. The first is that the war is aimed at ridding the nation of drug "kingpins" or big-time dealers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of those arrested are not charged with serious offenses. In 2005, for example, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, and only one out of five was for sales. Moreover, most people in state prison for drug offenses have no history of violence or significant selling activity.5

Since 1971, the United States has been on a war against drugs. Yet four decades and one trillion dollars later, we are still fighting this war (Branson). All that we have to show for this war is drugs running rampant and tons of citizens incarcerated. Mandatory sentencing for minor drug offences should be overturned due to overflowing prisons, damaging families, and the scare tactic it was created to be has failed.

The War on Drugs is hugely and largely ineffective. In 2005, the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) seized a

More and more drugs are being made and used. More and more drugs labs have been found over the years because drugs aren’t as easy to get to anymore. However, people will go to any extent to get the drugs they want. If that means that they go out and buy supplies to make it, they will do it. The United States still hasn’t resolved this war with drugs.

The current policy in use by the United States concerning illegal drugs is both outdated and unfair. This so-called war on drugs is a deeply rooted campaign of prohibition and unfair sentencing that is very controversial and has been debated for many years. The war on drugs is designed so that it will never end. This current drug was has very little impact on the overall supply of prohibited drugs and its impact on demand seems non-existent. United States’ taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on this failure of policy. They are spending billions to incarcerate drug users instead offering drug treatment which could help lower demand. Legalizing illicit would lower abuse and deaths from use and could have a positive economic impact on the United States. Certain industries are making massive sums of money by capitalizing on the drug war.

The War on Drugs, like the war on Terrorism, is a war that America may not be able to afford to win. For over forty years the United States has been fighting the War on Drugs and there is no end in sight. It has turned into a war that is about politics and economics rather than about drugs and criminals. The victims of this war are numerous; but perhaps they are not as numerous as those who benefit from the war itself.

In the news a person can hear about the war on drugs that was started back in the1970’s by President Nixon and although it is a war on all illegal drugs the major one is marijuana. It is the drug that people get arrested the most for and it is the biggest illegal drug seller in the United States today. What is the war on drugs, it is an increase of the size of federal drug control agencies and increase in the presence of those agencies where illegal drug activity is at a high. A person may not see this in their everyday life but if you look for it you can see it. There on more police raids on houses in neighborhoods all over the United States. Which means it cost money to pay for the equipment to care out the raid, it cost money for the people that are arrested to be sent to jail, there is cost for the removal of the drugs to a secure place to be processed and destroyed, there is also a cost for the kids that get caught up in the middle of raid to be placed into foster care. The war on drugs cost a lot of money to carry out the needs to try and get the drugs out of the neighborhoods and off the streets. This money comes mostly from the tax

Many feel today we are loosing the war on drugs. People consider legalization unnecessary. They feel that it will increase the amount of drug use throughout the world. They state that

In the 20th century, the United States government led a major renewed surge in drug prohibition called the "War on Drugs", this started the US on a spiral that would harm us all. Since the war on drugs began under the administration of President Richard Nixon, the federal drug-fighting budget has increased from $100 million in 1970 to $15.1 billion in 2010, with a total cost estimated near 1 trillion dollars over 40 years (drug policy, 2015). The amount of money that the United States spends on drugs could be used in many better fields of government. A large argument against this is that this money has been used to help end drug use. If that statement is true, then the DEA is doing a poor job at ending drug use since drug use has gone up since the war has started. The financial cost of the drug war is not worth it due to progress not being made here in the United States.

The part of the government fighting the drug war could also focus on more important drugs like cocaine and heroin, instead of a drug that is proven to not be as harmful. In the 1930s, the American media spread numerous false stories that marijuana was an extremely dangerous drug and therefore marijuana and hemp were banned in 1938. It is clear that the ban on marijuana in the United States was unnecessary because most of the things we believe to be true about the drug were just scare tactics made up by the government at the time to get people to want to get rid of all drugs.

The war on drugs has been a failure. The war on drugs has failed because the government spends millions of dollars on trying to stop people from using drugs but the government has not stopped them from using them. The government has spent 1 trillion since Nixon declared war on drugs and 51 billion dollars each year from incarcerating people. A total of 2.3 million people are in prison for drug related crimes. This is more than anywhere else in the planet. Drug use and overdoses are still the same. Many people say that if drugs were to be legalized, drug use would increase dramatically. This was not the case in Portugal. Portugal decided to decriminalize all drugs in 2001. Many people feared that this would collapse the country, but in fact the opposite happened. Prisons were not overrun anymore. It is safer for the government to decriminalize all drugs because this way all the drugs are not in the hands of the drug dealers, they are in the hands of the government. This is safer and better because now the government knows who is buying the drugs and how much that individual is using. The consumer also knows what he or she is consuming. This is not the case with the drug dealers where an individual does not know what he or she is getting. Many people say it is not fair for people to go to jail for nonviolent crimes such as

The war on drugs is costing us over 100 billion dollars to fight each year, and we’re only fighting a monster which we are making bigger with each punch. It’s not drugs, but drug laws themselves that have created this monster.

The War on Drugs is a current conflict that has been going on for many decades. It is a movement organized by the United States Government in attempts to reduce the amount of illegal drug trafficking in the country. The War on Drugs enforced strict drug policies that are intended to reduce both the production, distribution, and consumption of illegal drugs. The term was first used by President Richard Nixon, during a press conference concerning the nationwide drug abuse issue, in which Nixon announces to the Congress that drug abuse was, “public enemy number one”. Illegal drugs are certainly dangerous; addiction and death are two but many factors as a result of drugs. However, even though the War on Drugs might sounds justifiable, in truth, it is actually making the drug issue worst in the country.

The “War on Drugs” is the name given to the battle of prohibition that the United States has been fighting for over forty years. And it has been America’s longest war. The “war” was officially declared by President Richard Nixon in the 1970’s due to the abuse of illegitimate drugs. Nixon claimed it as “public enemy number one” and enacted laws to fight the importation of narcotics. The United States’ War on Drugs began in response to cocaine trafficking in the late 1980’s. As the war continues to go on, winning it hardly seems feasible. As stated by NewsHour, the National Office of Drug Control Policy spends approximately nineteen billion dollars a year trying to stop the drug trade. The expenses shoot up, indirectly, through crime,