Drugs and Their Impact on Poverty

 A person in an impoverished situation may abuse drugs or alcohol as a way to cope with the dangerous environment he or she may live in, a way to deal with her financial stresses or a way to cope with physical or emotional abuse. Many times,

Many different states have begun sending nonviolent drug offenders to various kinds of drug treatment program the state offers. By doing this, it has significantly reduced the problems with overcrowding. If an individual is arrested and charged with simple possession of a drug and no other crime is being commented, then this person is doing no harm to anyone else. They should be given the opportunity to try and make a change in their life and beat the addiction. Instead, if this person is thrown into jail, they are still going to be an addict with a criminal record now and will not be able to be a contributing member of society. (Everett 1 ).

The drug war and racial profiling is a huge cause to mass incarceration. Vanita Gupta from the New York times wrote, “in 2003 I represented dozens of African-American residents in Tulia, Tex., who had been convicted after a botched drug sting. Jason Jerome Williams, a 22-year-old with no prior criminal record, had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for four sales of an eighth of an ounce of cocaine…, Others accepted plea deals to try to avoid such lengthy prison terms.” I do not think that drugs are okay to have, be sold, or to be under the influence of. But I do think that all of these sentences are way to long for these people. These are the sentences’ of those that commit way worse crimes like maybe killing someone or endangering some one else’s’ life.

In 1996, Federal Legislation was put in place that banned former prisoners with drug convictions from using food stamps and allowed public housing authorities to ban drug convicts from staying in public housing (Race and the War on Drugs). This negatively impacts the former drug offenders because it provides another setback on top of the plethora of challenges that they already face when leaving prison, like finding a job where the employer accepts former criminals. Having all of these difficulties in readjusting to “regular” society, restrictions set in place by the government now make it harder for these drug users or sellers to remain out of prison. The issue with punishing drug use is that it does not attempt to end the problem permanently and turns to quick fixes instead of long term solutions like rehabilitation and in- prison drug therapy. The lack of desire to help these prisoners is evident in the dropping of in-prison drug therapy since 1991 “despite the fact that almost one in five people in state prisons on drug charges cite the need to pay for their drug habit as the reason for their offense,” (Race and the War on Drugs). The War on Drugs attempts to punish drug

There are too many people in prison in our country and any people in prison today are non-violent drug offenders. The American war on drugs has targeted people in poverty and minorities, who are more likely to be involved in drug use. This has created a pattern of crime and incarceration and “...[a] connection between increased prison rates and lower crime is tenuous and small.” (Wyler). The prison system in our country today focuses on punishment for the inmates rather than rehabilitation for life after their release.

I believe the War on Drugs continues to be a major issue for this country for a while, but that doesn’t mean we should be seeing the same people in and out of prison. I believe we need to create programs within the criminal justice system to help individuals become successful and get drugs far away from them. Group therapy may be a start for some of these individuals. They can talk about why they became

The fact that the United States treats drug use as a terrible crime instead of treating it as a physical problem or illness, and the drug problem is still not going away, shows that the United States is going about drug abuse all wrong. The United States has over 25% of the world's incarcerated population and over half of those are in prison for drug abuse/distribution. Other countries have decriminalized drugs and have seen an extremely positive difference in the drug abuse problem. Therapeutic drug treatments can be offered as an option to drug abusers so they feel safe and not afraid or angry of what is happening. The United States needs to find a new policy on drug abuse because the current policy has failed.

How an individual utilizes drugs is partially up to their culture, family, friends, peers, doctors, race, job, position in society, social class, and most importantly themselves. Drugs can be positive or negative, it depends on a person's demographics in society and personal views. It is true that illegal drugs are related to several negative components of society’s family problems, high prison populations, violence, health problems, deaths, homelessness and many other. To some people drugs are the only way, the only way to survive a life killing disease, mental health problems, physical health problems, depression, stress, and anxiety. It is true that drugs impact social problems, but if people changed their perspective on less harmful drugs and how they can help, there may be fewer problems that our society would have to worry about. Before 2010, sentencings for possession of crack, which is cheaper and mostly used by the poor and African Americans,  were much higher than the possession of cocaine which is predominantly used by the middle class and whites. “Drug laws criminalize the poor, especially people of color, who now fill U.S. prisons in disproportionate numbers” (Macionis, 248). Court fines and legal council are expensive and the average lower middle class family can not afford to pay these let alone the lower class. Poor Americans are almost certain to fall back into a life of drugs and crime when they are released from jail because there are few programs in place to help inmates successfully integrate back into society. Finding a job as a convicted felon is near impossible so many turn to selling illegal items to support themselves and their family. Enhanced policing and tracking in poor communities makes it easier for law enforcement to arrest new and repeat offenders (Macionis,

In our current model, penalties for drug possession and use are so severe that once a young person is penalized it is difficult, near impossible for them to recover and be a productive member of the society. Decriminalization, on the other hand would encourage users to honestly discuss their drug use with health experts who will act as advisers and not adversaries. In Portugal, for example treatments are recommended for those who have drug problems; repeated offenders are accorded non criminal punishments like suspension of their driver's license or banned from specific neighborhoods known for drug use (Hart, 2013, p. 325). This is a far cry from how drug offences are dealt with here in the United States. It is not uncommon for fines for drug possession to range from anywhere from $100 to $100,000 or more in this country. This is an immense amount of money when taken in light of sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh's documentations that most dealers make the same amount of money if they had taken employment at McDonald's (Hart, 2013, p. 187). Jail sentences range widely depending on the crime charged, the type of drugs involved, and the state's laws, can range from a few days or weeks to 10 years or more in prison. This leads to former inmates exiting from prisons as hardened criminals who

The United States is not immune to the worldwide drug addiction epidemic. Drugs pour in from Mexico daily, then distributed to throughout the country. The economic crisis in America is creating an excuse for drug use (e.g., depression, hopelessness). This chemical fix not only creates problems for the addict, but the family and community as well. Every addict has an enabler, a person who makes the addiction possible through various venues of support (e.g., financial, denial). Addicts are only concerned with their next fix and will resort to any means to obtain it (e.g., theft, prostitution, pan-handling). Some have even resorted to extremely desperate measures; for example, murder for inheritance or life insurance proceeds.

There are many reasons, in America, that these perceptions about the poor continue to exist, however, researcher have little ability to gather valid data on poverty and its direct relationship to drug abuse.

Those incarcerated today are not given the chance to change their behavior patterns, especially when it is in regard to drug addiction. The criminal justice system in general does not consider drug abuse as anything but a crime and does not think about treating the disease of addiction in order to reduce or eliminate the crimes that come as a

As soon as they set their foot right back out into the real world, the addicts just return to their old ways. They were most likely able to obtain some drugs in jail because of the loop holes in our jail systems. Rod Wright, an Assemblyman from Los Angeles, said it best with the following quote about the whole drug abuse situation:

Developed countries- In developed countries the technology and doctors are good enough to produce and prescribe drugs to the right people and are able to treat everyone affected, weheras in LED countries some people will be treated whilst others won't due to there not being enough resource to treat everyone.

Drug abuse is a major public health issue that impacts society both directly and indirectly; every person, every community is somehow affected by drug abuse and addiction and this economic burden is not exclusive to those who use substance, it inevitably impacts those who don 't. Drugs impact our society in various ways including but not limited to lost earnings, health care expenditures, costs associated with crime, accidents, and deaths. The use of licit or illicit drugs long term, causes millions of deaths and costs billions for medical care and substance abuse rehabilitation and the effects of drug abuse extend beyond users, spilling over into the society at large, imposing increasing