Broken Drug Policy

For many years, drugs have been the center of crime and the criminal justice system in the United States. Due to this widespread epidemic, President Richard Nixon declared the “War on Drugs” in 1971 with a campaign that promoted the prohibition of illicit substances and implemented policies to discourage the overall production, distribution, and consumption. The War on Drugs and the U.S. drug policy has experienced the most significant and complex challenges between criminal law and the values of today’s society. With implemented drug polices becoming much harsher over the years in order to reduce the overall misuse and abuse of drugs and a expanded federal budget, it has sparked a nation wide debate whether or not they have created more harm than good. When looking at the negative consequences of these policies not only has billions of dollars gone to waste, but the United States has also seen public health issues, mass incarceration, and violent drug related crime within the black market in which feeds our global demands and economy. With this failed approach for drug prohibition, there continues to be an increase in the overall production of illicit substances, high rate of violence, and an unfavorable impact to our nation.

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.

Western countries struggle with the control of drug abuse. America, for example, has been failing with eliminating or reducing the chronic issues of drug abuse and crimes associated with drugs. America’s goal around these problems consistently has been complete

Through my research I have found our involvement in the drug world follows the same theme that seems to recur with our government and their policies. We talk a good game that formulates a structure and a well-worded policy that appears to be in the best interest of American citizens and foreigners alike. However we also aid these countries. The problem doesn’t lie within our policies or the simple compassion from our government that drugs hurt our society. The problems occur with those that implement and enforce these policies. Cocaine and its market cannot be eradicated. The efforts of many of our political leaders have been futile because of the supply and demand of the product. In 1989, President Bush had a plan that he called, “The cheapest and safest way to eradicate narcotics” (Menzel pg.43). The result was the following,

Drugs have been a problem in the country for a long time. Issues with drugs even existed in ancient times. However, through the War on Drugs, the media created a panic about the issue, making citizens believe drug abuse was an exponentially growing new epidemic in the United States. Although the War on Drugs was declared in 1982 and was intended to reduce the rates of drug abuse in the US, America’s drug problem increased dramatically over the next years (Bagley, 1988).

Today in the United States a land that claims to be the freest nation on the face of the Earth more people will wake up inside of a federal/state prison or a county jail cell than in any other country on the planet. As of 2012 this figure was a staggering 2,228,400 (jail 744,500; prison 1,483,900) add in to this the additional sum of just over 5 million people on parole (851,200) and probation (3,942,800) giving us a grand total of over 7 million citizens under some level of Federal or State supervision (Glaze and Herberman). This is up from only 1,840,421 in 1980 a percentage increase of 281.56% (Glaze and Herberman). As of 2012 over half of the inmates in the federal prison system (50.6%) were incarcerated for drug charges (Caron and Golinelli) while according to 2011 statistics just under 17% of state prisoners were locked away for offenses related to illegal substances (Carson and Sabol). The cost of maintaining this level of incarceration is in all honesty a tremendous burden upon both our justice system and our tax base. If you were to go to the website www.drugsense.org you would see their drug war clock which increases by $500 every second based upon the National Drug Control Policy’s 2010 statistics (Drugsense.org). The country needs to make serious changes in order to alleviate this Promethean like burden that has been placed on our tax payers and our infrastructure. Our system desperately needs reform in order to rescue society from these metaphorical

To be more specific, incarceration for crimes relating to drug or drug-use currently, “account[s] for more than half of all the charges levied against prisoners” (Dual Diagnosis). It is obvious that the punishment of mandatory sentencing does nothing to benefit drug users or the society they re-enter into as this statistic proves to be re-occurring every year. Instead, the goal of the criminal justice system and federal prisons should be mandatory supervised rehabilitation and treatment of individuals with their drug addiction, a required vocational based treatment program that goes along with their jail sentence time, and after sentence programs and checkups. All which would be mandated by a drug court system

As a major policy issue in the United States, the War on Drugs has been one of the most monumental failures on modern record. At a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars, thousands of lives lost and many thousands of others ruined by untreated addiction or incarceration, America's policy orientation concerning drug laws is due for reconsideration. Indeed, the very philosophical orientation of the War on Drugs and of the current drug policy in the United States has been one of prosecution and imprisonment rather than one of decriminalization, treatment and rehabilitation. As our medical and scientific communities characterize addiction as a disease, the United States government continues to characterize this disease as a crime. And in doing so, it has created an unnecessary criminal class in the United States. The research, supplemental political cartoons and proposed research will set out to prove that stiffer drug laws will only have the impact of criminalizing countless drug addicts who might otherwise benefit substantially from rehabilitation and other treatment-based strategies. With a specific focus on the prohibition of marijuana even for medical use, and using the Toulmin model for putting forth and completing the argument, the research will set out to demonstrate the irrational

America’s war on drugs has failed. After millions of dollars and untold man hours spent enforcing the prohibition of illegal drugs, there is little, if any, success to show for it. Illicit drugs are still available on most American street corners, drug usage rates have not decreased, and the scourge of drug related violence continues to spread like wildfire. Sadly, the war on drugs has also resulted in the incarceration of millions of Americans for petty possession offenses and has created a black market for illicit drugs upon which criminal organizations, such as the Mexican cartels and even the Taliban, thrive. Decriminalization of drugs is the only way America will ever be able to eradicate its drug problem. Imagine a country where drug users were treated instead of imprisoned, where drug usage rates perennially fell, and where diseases such as AIDS and Hepatitis C were in decline. This isn’t a fantasy, drug decriminalization policies have been proven to work and they’re America’s only answer to the drug epidemic.

In regards to the “drug menace”, the main goal to evaluate is whether or not the use of drugs in America has been significantly lowered. According to an article published by Reuters in 2008, the World Health Organization did a study on drug use within 17 countries including the United States; the study found that the “United States leads the world in rates of experimenting with marijuana and cocaine despite strict drug laws” (Fox). Furthermore, nearly four times as many people in the United States stated that they had used cocaine at some point compared to individuals from New Zealand which rated second in terms of cocaine use in the study (Fox). This shows that the U.S. not only leads the world in this category, but that it leads it in a drastic fashion. Although the United States only led by a 1% margin when it came to marijuana, it was still found that 42% of the Americans polled had used marijuana at some point in their lives (Fox). These numbers are important, as they provide a way to compare the effectiveness of the U.S. drug policy against the rest of the developed world. By gaining this international perspective, it becomes clear that the drug policies enacted have been unsuccessful in their goal of decreasing the use of drugs. Furthermore, the United States has been largely unable to reduce rates domestically as well. Statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse from this June provide a perspective on how drug use has changed over time in the United States. According to their data, “Illicit drug use in the United States has been increasing” (DrugFacts: Nationwide Trends). In respect to marijuana, the amount of people who use the drug has gone up from 14.5 million in 2007 to 19.8 million in 2013 (DrugFacts: Nationwide Trends). This shows a massive increase in marijuana use of over 35% in 6 years. It must also be noted that according

The government of United States spends nearly 15 billion annually on the “War on Drugs”. This translates to spending about five hundred dollars per second to combat the menace of drugs. According to group Law Enforcement against Prohibition, about 82% of the drug arrests are only for possession of banned substances. The War on Drugs has forced our law enforcement agencies to focus on nonviolent drug offenders instead of expending their energies and resources in capturing violent criminals. Our correctional facilities are overflowing with “small time drug offenders” which has created a number of social and economic problems for the country.

The war on drugs has cost our government a vast amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere. In fiscal year 2013 alone, the United States government spent $25.6 billion in an effort to prevent drug use and its consequences. This was $415.3 million (1.6%) increase from the previous year. [1] This indicates that our government has no intentions of backing off of their drug stance any time soon. Overall, the national drug control budget costs the government more than the state, commerce, and interior departments combined. In addition, large number of drug-related trials clog our nation’s criminal justice courts, and often times the result of these cases is imprisonment for the accused. Since the start of the war on drugs, the country’s incarcerated population has increased sevenfold, and over one percent of the population now resides in a prison. [3] There are currently more people behind bars for drug charges today than there were people behind bars for any reason in 1980. [2] Keeping all of these prisoners incarcerated costs

Each year, the President of the United States releases an updated version of the National Drug Control Strategy. The latest edition, from July of 2014, introduces a number of changes from previous years. The most important aspects of President Obama’s drug policy includes accepting those who do drugs as individuals who need help, and are the victim of a disease, rather than as criminals who are intentionally being menaces to society. This approach is very progressive, as there is a tradition in America to penalize those who have drug charges as though they are criminals, all while many people agree that money should be saved in this area. The idea that drug use is a victimless crime (of course, with the exception of violent drug-related crimes,

It is widely recognize that drug addiction is a disease, one that we have to try to illuminate through prevention, interventions, and comprehensive treatment. The criminalization of drugs is not just their to punish people who use drugs. The criminalization is there to serve as a deterrent and a reason for those who use illegal drugs to see the use as a problem. Without the punishments threatened and fines collected, users would just continue using like there is no issue with their behavior. The argument is made that with decriminalization more people would get help for their addictions, but in reality police and justice system intervention accounts for one third of all referrals to rehabilitation/treatment

According to The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, in 2005 21% of inmates in the United States suffered from serious mental illness. (Incarceration and Mental Health, n.d.) From 1980 to 2013, the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses grew from 41,000 to nearly 500,000; most of the arrests were for possession. This leaves the criminal justice system to deal with substance abuse and addiction. (Incarceration, Substance Abuse, and Addiction, n.d.) Additionally, The Center for Prisoner Health and Human rights states “The War on Drugs may account for up to two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison population and one-half of the increase in the state prison populations between 1985 and 2000.” (Incarceration and Mental Health, n.d.) This means that despite the decrease in violent crime, prison populations continue to grow. Prisons are not the best solution to deal with the United States growing drug abuse and addiction problem. When the mental health system is unable to provide care in an appropriate setting to combat addiction, the rates for recidivism are high and do nothing to affect the War on Drugs. In an effort to end The War on Drugs the United States should refocus its $40 billion annual cost of enforcement and imprisonment towards mental health and rehabilitation.