Whatever perspective one takes on drugs in the US, it is clear that the situation is worse. It is undeniable that drug usage is increasing throughout the nation. The United States of America has a drug issue that must get handled. Anyone who consumes narcotics is currently considered a felony; anybody who sells small or big quantities is sentenced to federal prison for a considerable period. The strategy is that if individuals are afraid of going to prison, they will not use or sell narcotics. Since Nixon declared the “war on drugs,” it has been the strategy. I’m confident this is a fair notion that prevents millions of Americans from using and selling drugs. Labeling drug addicts and comparatively tiny traffickers as users with an illness of dependence would be a diverse strategy. Rather than criminalizing, remediate. Every side has a valid point of view, but we must do more to reduce drug usage. If it means harsher criminal penalties or more treatment, America must address its drug issue.
The first argument I will explore is how Nixon’s drug policies have benefited the nation by labeling drug users felons (Yates et all). Drug offenses, for example, will diminish since they are not readily accessible to the general people. We would have more users thieving to afford substances if drugs were available. Additionally, more individuals would commit insane things when on drugs, such as rape, murder, etc. If anybody could take whatever drug they chose, America would become a drug-addicted nation. Profits and job creation are two significant benefits of the “war on drugs.” Drug tickets and penalties are the primary sources of revenue for local police departments. This supports ventures of paying our cops and, as a result, makes our communities safer. We’re also offering extra employment to attorneys, judges, and jail officers due to all the drug charges.
Another rationale for the drug war is to avoid family disintegration. We would have children living with drug addicts if drugs were allowed. There would also be more children thrown into the system. Drugs wreak havoc on the lives of both the user and those around them. Because they are prohibited, both parents and children will avoid using narcotics.
On the other hand, many others see the war on drugs as a failure. They think that those who want to take drugs will do so regardless since they are widely accessible, even though prohibited. They also feel that incarcerating addicts is not the best method to treat their sickness. Instead, they feel that we should endeavor to rehabilitate them and get them ready to start a new life. Another point of view is that why do we allow gangs and cartels to benefit from narcotics when our government could tax and control them?
New drug policies seem to be more popular among Democrats and libertarians. Republicans, on the other hand, seem to be adamant about keeping the drug war going. Even when it comes to a primary substance like marijuana, which is neither physically hazardous nor fatal, republicans believe it should get legalized. I support a more liberal drug policy. Unfortunately, I can only address a few of the issues that have arisen due to the drug war. One of the numerous issues we confront is the money spent on the drug war. It has been forty years since Richard Nixon proclaimed war on drugs in 1971, and $1 trillion has been spent ever since (Branson). Consider how many starving children we could have fed with that money. Although the government has prohibited various narcotics, the medications are nevertheless accessible to the general populace. The money spent isn’t simply for the DEA’s (Drug Enforcement Agency) salary and police officers’ overtime hours. In addition, the government must pay judges and attorneys to work on these cases. Due to many cases, our court system has become clogged, slowing down the procedure for all cases. Another cost is the amount we spend on prisoners. Pew Research estimates that incarcerating an offender costs the United States $30,000 per year, yet the country spends just $11,665 per public school pupil (Branson). Our government spends more money per prisoner than public school students, which is ludicrous.
Drug offenses account for about half of the federal prison population (Lehman et al. 2018). It’s no surprise that jails are overcrowded. The United States has to develop a better way to deal with nonviolent drug arrests. Like the mobs of the 1920s, the cartel and street gangs make the majority of their money from illicit narcotics. This promotes street violence and makes our communities dangerous. This also provides them with the cash to purchase illegal firearms, resulting in the killings of Americans and Central and South Americans. Since late 2006, the Mexican government has intensified its fight against drug cartels and traffickers. More than 60,000 people have been slain since then. Aside from the human misery and loss, it is believed that Mexican drug gangs earn between $19 and $20 billion each year from drug sales in the United States” (Devereaux). That translates to a total annual medication expenditure of $90 billion in the United States. The US government can’t prevent all these medications from entering the country. So, if we can’t keep them out, why are we spending billions of dollars every year to attempt to keep them out? Don’t get me wrong: I wish our government had the power to outlaw all drug usage. However, as history has shown, the number of users grows year after year, giving cartels and street gangs more and more influence.
Finally, these drug regulations have resulted in racial profiling arrests. “According to Human Rights Watch, black individuals were arrested on drug charges at more than three times the rate of whites in 2009 and were sent to state prisons at ten times the rate of whites with drug convictions. All of this even though, according to the Washington Post, “whites and blacks consume drugs at similar rates, and white persons are more likely to sell narcotics.” Minorities, I feel, are distrustful of police personnel due to this. How can equality be when minorities are disproportionately targeted, even though white people utilize the same amount of resources? The mistrust might also contribute to a lack of willingness of the minority to contact the cops when they are needed. As a result, citizens are unprotected. Let’s pretend there’s a vehicle with four white guys in suits speeding at five miles per hour above the limit.
In comparison to four black men driving a trashed automobile, many officers may turn a blind eye. They are now guilty of the same crime and are treated equally by the law. Which one, though, is most likely to be stopped?
Our nation has suffered more from the drug war than it has benefited. Prohibition, as we witnessed in the 1920s, does not work. So why do we continue to believe it will work? We are merely promoting the waste of taxpayer resources, cartels and street gangs, and racial prejudice arrests by waging this battle. We need to develop a new strategy to deal with drugs in our nation because our existing policies are causing more harm than good.
Works Cited
Branson, Richard. “War on Drugs a Trillion-dollar Failure.” War on Drugs a Trillion-dollar Failure. CNN, 7 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 July 2015.
Dexereaux, Ryan. “Mexico’s Most Brutal Drug Lord Has Been Captured, But That Won’t Change Anything.” RollingStone. N.p., 24 July 2013. Web. 14 July 2015.
Lehman, Cheryl R., Theresa Hammond, and Gloria Agyemang. “Accounting for crime in the US: Race, class and the spectacle of fear.” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 56 (2018): 63-75.
Tauchnitz, Evelyne. “The deadly protection trap: the ‘instrumentalisation’of fundamental human right norms by
Yates, Jeff, Todd A. Collins, and Gabriel J. Chin. “A War on Drugs or a War on Immigrants-Expanding the Definition of Drug Trafficking in Determining Aggravated Felon Status for Noncitizens.” Md. L. Rev. 64 (2005): 875. state actors in the Mexican Drug War.” Critical Military Studies (2022): 1-23.
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