Should Drug Laws Remain Restrictive?

Drug laws are a big factor when it comes to the daily lives of citizens. As Bill Rounds puts it, “Laws of prohibition always affect the level of privacy citizens have if they are used as a pretext to invade privacy.” The government has certain laws on what they can and cannot do. So, if there are more strict laws on drugs, it gives the government the right to invade your privacy to enforce these laws. Drug laws are not the only issue that affects the people.

To begin with , eliminating drug restrictions will massively reduce crime. This is because most of the crime in the world is caused by people having drugs. Recent research shows that nearly half of all 15-16 year olds have used an illegal drug. Many people see illegal drug

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,

Drug Policy in the United States began under the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon, who launched the “War on Drugs” and oversaw the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The sole purpose of both initiatives was to combat the copious amounts of drugs flowing out of our borders. Then First Lady Nancy Reagan, who will go down in history as the greatest First Lady of All Time, launched “Just Say No”. A campaign aimed towards the youth to refuse the vices of drug and alcohol abuse. These policies were perpetuated in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration who passed their own tough on crime initiatives as well. The upside, the implementation of these policies has caused the drug use rates to equal where they were 25 years ago. On the downside, the United States imprisons more people than any other industrialized nation in the world because of the drug offenses.

Stated Reason: because legalization would greatly increase the number of drug addicts, because are hard to control.

Drug policy has never been truly essentialists and very frequently is just used as a scapegoat for other social issues. This all started with the temperance movement. Temperance according to the Judeo-Christian bible meant moderation, but policy makers turned temperance into the idea of abstinence. With the popularization of distilled liquors, there began to become an awareness of alcohol dependence and abuse. During the industrial revolution large populations of immigrants began moving into cities. High alcohol content, and a growing population lead to more visible alcohol problems. Along with that there was a growing movement towards Nativism. Propaganda was used to help demonize alcohol in the eyes of general society. Post WWI alcohol was viewed, as a way for the German’s to ruin our pure family

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, drug use became a major concern for most Americans. As the War on Drugs and “Just Say No” campaign were being thrust into the spotlight by the government and media, the public became more aware of the scope of drug use and abuse in this country. The federal and states’ governments quickly responded by creating and implementing more harsh and punitive punishments for drug offenses. Most of these laws have either remained unchanged or become stricter in the years since then.

Drug policy in America has not changed much over the past two decades, but according to Sacco (2014) “over the last decade, the United States has shifted its stated drug control policy toward a comprehensive approach; one that focuses on prevention, treatment and enforcement (p.1). One approach to this is allotting billions of dollars to the Federal Drug Control Budget. As of 2014, the majority of funding for this budget went into supply reduction (59.9%), demand reduction (40.1%), and domestic law enforcement (36.8%). Only 35 percent of the funding was provided for treatment of drug abuse, and 5.1 percent for drug abuse prevention (Sacco, 2014, p.16). These numbers have not changed since 2005, when they were within a 5 percent difference

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

In order to find an alternative to the United States current drug policy, it is helpful to look at the current options. Governments typically take three broad approaches toward drugs. The first is legalization, in which possession and sale are lawful but still subject to regulation and taxation. The second is criminalization, which consists of the banning of possession and sale with criminal punishment (i.e incarceration). Lastly, there is the combination of the two—where sale and possession are prohibited, yet possession is punishable only by sanctions, such as fines or abuse treatment but not jail time.

Drugs and illegal activity are two things that go together like peanut butter and jelly. “FACT: 80% of offenders abuse alcohol or other drugs. FACT: 50% of jail and prison inmates are clinically addicted. FACT: 60% of individuals arrested for most types of crimes test positive for illicit drugs at arrest.” (Drugs and). It is ridiculous how many people that are getting arrested and put into jail/prison have some type of addiction. Seeing these numbers, more people should want to take action against this. If the number of drugs decreased on the streets, fewer people would be committing crimes.

The war on drugs in the United States is becoming a major problem for everyone involved. As more people are arrested for drug crimes, the more police are spending resources in order to arrest them. It's shown that non violent drugs offense have risen over the years, but violent and property offenses have gone down. While this doesn't suggest that police are solely focus on just arresting non violent drug offenders, one has to wonder why there are so many of them in jail. The government believes that locking up these offenders will reduce drug related crimes and lower demand for drugs, but I don't see that happening. During the late 20's and early 30's, the U.S had a prohibition on alcohol and it caused an uproar with the public. The prohibition

Drug laws are a big part of society and are constantly evolving within the government. There is a constant debate about whether drug laws should be more restrictive or less restrictive. More restrictive drug laws can create more dangerous roles in society because of the government standards. While less restrictive drug laws can also create danger within society due to government standards and show how restrictive laws do not work. Drug laws should remain less restrictive because the courts would reduce the amount of people in prisons, take profits away from drug cartels, and restrict research.

It might seem like the United States has become more lenient on drug enforcement and addiction. Considering that municipalities removed penalties for bringing in someone overdoing on drugs into the emergency room and have lowered the minimum amount of time someone spends in prison for drug possession.

In the article “Drugs” by Gore Vidal the author claims that if the United States wants to stop most drug addiction, crimes, value of the product. Then they should simply make all drugs available and sell them at cost. The first strategy the authors addresses is that if drugs were to be available to everybody then it will stop most drug addiction. The author claims that if drugs were to be sold there would be regulations towards having this allowed. For example, the people who are mentally ill will not be able to consume the product, because it will attract an addiction towards them and that is what they are trying to avoid. For those who are not mentally ill will be able to use the product. The author claims that their will always be drug addicts, but at least their will be not as many as there were before. The second strategies the author addresses are that if drugs were to be allowed by consumers then crimes towards drugs will decrease, because it being allowed to use. The mafia and drugs dealers will not have any penalty towards them for having or selling drugs for it being not an issue to use hear in the United States. I agree with the author claims upon crimes not being an issue no more if drugs were to be allowed to use here in the United States. I think over the years there has been a numerous amount of people in jail for having and selling drugs and having them in jail is costing the American people allot of money. I believe the real criminals here are