Should Recreational Drugs Be Legalized In The United States

The amount of people in prison is usually proportional to the amount of crime being committed. In the case of America however, non-drug related crime has remained constant, or even decreased since 1971 when the war began. There has been an increase of prisoners though, as forty years ago, thirty-eight thousand people were imprisoned for breaking drug-related laws while today, that number is over two million (Swanson). The cause of this influx of prisoners are unjustly harsh drug possession laws, some of which can land people in jail for very long periods of time. One such law is California’s three-strikes law. This law states that any felon that has committed three crimes that required a state level imprisonment shall be sentenced to a minimum of twenty-five years in jail, with a maximum of life. This law might be a great idea to keep murderers and rapists in jail, but it was found that more twenty-five-to-life sentences were meted out for possession of marijuana than for murder, rape, and kidnapping combined (Patten). Our prisons have become so overpopulated, the U.S. has more people in prison for drug-related crimes than the entire E.U. (European Union) has prisoners. This is despite the fact that the population of the U.S. is forty percent smaller than that of the E.U. (Patten). One solution to keep prison populations low would to be to issue a fine

The United States have imprisoned many people in the country than any other due to drug wars. In the year 2014 more than 1.5 million people were arrested for drugs. Drug offenses by itself caused these

All the drug related charges are forcing the prison population into overwhelming numbers. Were drug usage decriminalized this could relieve some of the stress on the penal system. Baird states in her piece that the prison population would diminish greatly with legalization and all the money saved can then be used for many more beneficial things “…like treatment for addiction, health, and prevention.” Walter, standing on the

According to the prison policy Institute there are currently 2.4 million Americans incarcerated in the United States with nearly 40% of that number being drug related offenses. Further the United states only makes up five percent of the worlds population, but we make up 25% of the worlds prison population and if you factor in the 40% of that 25% being drug offenders you can see that nearly a tenth of the worlds incarcerated are attributed to American drug offenders. These statistics can be seen in these two slides.

Growing up everyone is always told “drugs are bad for you” over and over. As children, we have no perspective and do not fully understand the use of drugs. Drugs are always around us, especially marijuana. It is the most commonly used drug in the world. As much as we are told not to use this substance or be around it, many have encountered it in some way before. Marijuana being illegal in most states does not stop people from using the substance. Since this illegal drug is still used no matter the situation why not benefit from it and legalize it throughout the United States? Marijuana could have a positive effect on America in relation to health and the economy.

Today, the United States has more people incarcerated than ever before. More than 2 million people in the United States alone are in prison, three times the amount than before there were sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums (Bernick and Larkin). “The Federal Bureau of Prisons is overcrowded, operating at nearly 40 percent over capacity and housing a large population of non-violent drug offenders, at a significant cost to taxpayer” (Bernick and Larkin). Every year taxpayers are paying to keep inmates incarcerated. The average cost to keep one inmate in prison for a year is around $29,000. In state prisons alone, taxpayers spend over $50 billion dollars

I do not believe that the Federal Government should continue to regulate –and outlaw- marijuana. I believe that the issue should be a concern of the states and not the federal government. According to the Controlled Substance Act, (CSA) (21 U.S.C. § 811), there is no federally recognized difference between medical and recreational marijuana. Importantly no matter what the use is, marijuana is illegal in the United States as far as the federal government is concerned.

I am certain in my belief that most students who have attended any university in the US have in one way or another been around drugs. However, whether or not they partook in them is debatable. They have more than likely made a decision: to do the drug, or not to do the drug. If they are like me, they did not do the drug, but continued to socialize with those that did partake. If they are not like me, they may have taken the drug and continued to socialize with those they are around. Drugs have become a large part of college culture, and more ultimately, human culture. The reasons vary as much as the reasons why people personally choose to partake in the drug of their choice. Peter De Marneffe states in his article “Decriminalize, Don’t Legalize”, that “people use drugs because they enjoy them; they find them fun and relaxing. If it is easier, safer, and less expensive to do something fun and relaxing, more people will do it and do it more often” (De Marneffe, 200). Currently, the US is dealing with drug prohibition (War on Drugs) which has become a topic of hefty discussion. As David Boaz states in his article “Drug-Free America or Free America?”, political entities have attempted to stop the use of various drugs since drugs were first used. He goes on to say the most familiar example to the American people is the prohibition of alcohol (Boaz, 194). In this position paper, I will do the following: I will define

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones” (Nelson Mandela, 1994). The United States of America has more people behind bars than any other country on the planet. The prisons are at over double capacity. It cost a lot of money to house prisoners each year. A large number of the prisoners are there because of drug related offenses. There are prisoners who have been sent to prison for life for marijuana related drug offenses. Many prisoners have been exonerated after spending many years behind bars due to the corruption in our legal system. 32 States in United States of

Even the U.S. is considering loosening up on drugs right now, over half of americans support marijuana for its recreational and medicinal purposes, it’s already been legalized in two states so far, setting up legalization for more states in the future (Huey). Huey also claims- “Drug reformers nationwide continue to argue that legalization will free up more resources to fight harder drugs, deny traffickers billions of dollars in profit, and generate tax revenues for prevention and treatment through state-controlled marijuana sales” (Huey). If there are more resources to fight harder drugs than funds used only to punish minor drug felons, there would be a lot less problems with the prison system and inmate

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

The so called war on drugs potentially causes the American Taxpayer a loss of more than 20-50 billion annually and there are very little results that can be said satisfactory. This does not include the massive amounts of money that United States pays to a number of countries in South America in order to facilitate the curbing of drugs. Furthermore, an alarming number of inmates held in our prisons happen to be drug abuse offenders. Currently the 55% people incarcerated in the federal prisons happen to be drug offenders while the ratio of same people in the state prisons is 25% (Roffman, 7). Such a huge number of drug inmates have the potential of putting a great amount of stress on the system and has serious implications for the economic growth of the whole country. In such circumstances it is quite obvious that the American “war on drugs” has failed to yield the desired objective and more or less can be considered a failure. Decriminalization and treatment have emerged as very powerful alternatives in the recent years to win the war against the

Drug Policy and the incarceration of low-level drug offenders is the primary cause of mass

Drugs are a major influential force in our country today. The problem has gotten so out of hand that many people are even considering legalization of one of the most used drugs, marijuana. The legalization of marijuana is a controversial issue that has been fought for and against for several decades. Marijuana is defined as a preparation made from the dried flower clusters and leaves of the cannabis plant, which is usually smoked or eaten to induce euphoria and to heal and soothe. (dictionalr.com)

The drug war has dramatically affected the number of imprisoned Americans, as well as its prisons. According to DrugSense.Org, 1,576,339 people have been arrested for drug law offenses this year alone. And out of those, 9,261 have been incarcerated. As for marijuana offenses, 747,183 people have been detained. In fact, most of the non-violent offenders sitting in state, local and federal prisons