Beating a Dead Horse: The War on Drugs

The war on drugs has always been a hot button issue in the United States. The problem is, one cannot fight a war on inanimate objects. One can only fight a war on people. The war on drugs isn't about drugs, it's a war on the addicts rather than the real issue, the manufactures and the dealers. William F. Buckley wrote a paper declaring the war on drugs dead, this paper will discuss his logic and options that might be viable if the war on drugs is indeed dead.

            In the 1970s, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. This wasn't a violent war in the traditional sense of the word, but a criminal war. He made federal drug control agencies larger and have more power in order to squash the rising drug using population (drugpolicy.org, 2015).  A year later, the very commission Nixon put in place recommended weed was made legal for personal use (drugpolicy.org, 2015). Nixon of course ignored this recommendation and chose to push forward banning all of what is now considered illegal drugs (drugpolicy.org, 2015). The view on personal use weed went back and forth like a pendulum until the 1980s (drugpolicy.org, 2015). By the 1980s and 1990s incarceration for drug charges went from 50,000 to over 400 thousand by 1997 (drugpolicy.org, 2015). This number is the equivalent of a small city’s worth of people serving time for some kind of nonviolent drug charge ranging from possession for personal use to manufacturing of the drugs themselves.

            William F. Buckley wrote a paper in the 1990 declaring the war on drugs dead. This author whole-heartedly agrees with him. Per Buckley’s paper, the US has wasted over 100 billion dollars a year in tax payer money to punish those who have the mental illness that is addiction and those who seek to use that illness against them.  Buckley cites money as a reason to legalize drugs, that if the state were to control the drugs and charge for them, it would put the US into the black as opposed to wasting so much money (Buckley). Buckley goes on further to talk about how crime rates have gone up over 400 percent since the grand war on drugs has started. The article further speaks of legalizing the sale of drugs, which this author disagrees with, citing that the country could make far more money that what it costs to prosecute and lock up those who are caught with only enough drugs to get themselves high (Buckley).

            Instead of keeping the possession of personal use levels illegal, the US should take a page from other first world countries and legalize possession for personal use amounts legal and instead offer options to treat the addiction which is the root of the problem. This would of course require other safety nets to be in place for those fresh from recovery. They would need jobs, housing, food, medical care, and of course steady mental and social support. Those who receive this support would be expected to pay the government back by participating in drug prevention programs and by paying their share of taxes based upon their tax brackets. The Portugal made possession of personal amounts of drugs legal in 2001 and instead started to treat the root of the problem, the addiction itself (Kain, 2011). For such a small country that equated roughly 100 thousand people nationwide (Kain, 2011). If the US were to do that same thing and get the same results that would mean an estimated 200 thousand people would become clean and sober over the course of ten years.

            The US has been fighting a losing war since 1971 thanks to the knee jerk reaction of the political sphere to people experimenting with drugs of various types. This has cost taxpayers more than t it would to treat the problem as a mental illness instead of a criminal one. While drug manufactures, distributors, and sellers should still face the fullest extent of the law, it does no one anyone good, but those who own for profit prisons, to keep those who are addicted to drugs going through the revolving door that is the current penal system. We should instead legalize possession of personal use amounts and offer to treat each person for their addiction and offer to help them get back onto their feet so that they might become productive members of society and pay back into the very system that helped to save their lives.

References

A Brief History of the Drug War. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war

Buckley, W. (n.d.). The War on Drugs is Lost. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://web.archive.org/web/20121116132827id_/http://old.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

Kain, E. (2011, July 5). Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal. Retrieved May 22, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/

Depressed

It's hard to see others succeed when you work so hard and see such little result for all the effort. I sit and watch those around me do very well and yet my life seems to sit stagnant and without change. I have struggled for so long in life and fought tooth and nail for all I have and yet all around me I see people who work half as hard and they get all they want in life and then some.

People constantly say life isn't fair, but how is it that hard work and effort can be so over looked while, bare minimum gets rewarded with grander and praise?

I have asked this of myself many times when I see those around me being rewarded greatly for little to no work and simply out of sympathy.

I have even attempted to count my blessings so to speak and it always makes me feel worse then when it all began.

Counting ones blessings only works if one has great blessings to count. Oh sure, there are the standard ones, living, breathing, having a home and a car. But those blessings are squashed when the person counting realizes that they only have a home to live in because someone is willing to rent a room to them and that the car they are supposedly blessed to have constantly needs work or has a leak that has to be watched. Life isn't worth living if one always has to solve problem after problem and wonder constantly when the rug is going to pulled out from under them.

Being told to count ones blessings by someone who has blessings in life they didn't have to work for is a slap in the face. It's like rubbing salt into a wound that can never ever close.


The LDS church is always out to convert the poor but appears to do very little to really lift the poor up. Having people who have money constantly remind others that they need to look and act a certain way to fit in doesn't help solve the problem. If a church is going to convert the poor and then expect them to magically be able to dress and act like them without help, then they are in the wrong business.

Growing up poor in the church, especially in ones teens is a cruel thing. You see the teens around you in nice clothes, aways able to have the nice things, parents buying them cars, parents getting them jobs and letting them live with them through college rent free. This creates a selfish culture that doesn't help the poorer members want to stay. When a poor child grows up watching the "better" children get all the things that they want with very little nay-say, it creates a feeling of being something "less" and that feeling gets further reenforced when the "Better" children grow and get everything for free as well.

Being a poor young adult in the church isn't any better. It's a stark reminder of how "less" a poor convert is when the "better" born in members talk about how cool it is they get to live at home while going to college and always talking about trips while the "Lesser" poor member has to work through college and pay all their own bills and constantly get left out because of such duties. The "better" members have connected parents who can get them the good jobs easily and this leaves the "lesser" poor members to flounder and be excluded.

When you grow up like this photo above, always wondering if you have enough to cover everything necessary while struggling so hard for the basics to live, it hurts to have to see the photos below week after week after week. 

The church does nothing to help the least of it's members with out requiring something in exchange, even if it interferes with their current job. The church doesn't actually help the member in need to find a better job through networking, they just set up a standard job hunting website like everyone else.

A confession

So I have a confession to make. It's something that has been bothering me for a while now. Actually, my whole life. Consider it an OCD if you will. And it's one I wish people wouldn't take so lightly. This also counts as a phobia.

I have a fear/phobia/ocd about running out of money. When I consider my bills and the money I have in hand, if it doesn't add up to something in my pocket as emergency money, I panic. I don't just mean a few seconds of "Well, crap! Now what do I do?" I mean HOURS to DAYS of my mind spiraling down into the depths of my own personal hell of what could happen if I were to spend this money in my hand. AND IT NEVER EVER GOES AWAY.

I wake up freaked about the money I have and how to make it last and I fall asleep wondering how long I can make the money stretch. The worst part is, I am paid weekly and yet I can bring myself to spend every dime I have. I count my money, look at what I need to spend and promptly curl into a ball and cry about how close I am to being broke.

I've seen therapists and they have never been able to help me...EVER. Each tries a different tactic, from budget help to making me spend money thinking it will alleviate the fear. It only makes it worse.

People don't understand what this does to the mind. I can never relax about money, and I don't mean greed. I am not a greedy person, I don't want more money then I need to live comfortably and make sure all my bills are paid while still being able to have fun and go out occasionally. I mean the fear, the fear that spending money will mean I won't have it in the event of an emergency. I FEAR not being able to know I can cover an emergency like my car breaking down, or a get hurt, or I need something from the store for some reason.

People try to help, but saying that things will be ok, not to stress, that I'll get paid again, that money isn't everything, that I shouldn't worry about emergencies, this doesn't help. It only makes it worse. It reminds me I'm not normal, that people don't understand what I'm going through. People say they are there for me, that I won't go through things alone, but I am. No one can be there for me when they don't know what living in this personal hell is like. No one CAN EVER understand or be there for me unless they can actually BE in my head.

Earning more money doesn't help at all, it only makes it worse, because then I have to figure out how much needs to be saved and how much I can spend. Having someone else handle my finances only makes the melt downs more frequent as I suddenly have no idea what the hell is going on with my own money. Letting someone take care of me makes it worse because then I am no better then a leech on someone else's life.

NOTHING CAN EVER MAKE THIS BETTER! I WISH PEOPLE COULD UNDERSTAND THAT AND STOP TRYING TO SOLVE THE ISSUE!

I am so tired of always going with out, of always being in fear, of always feeling like I am being the responsible one, of always standing back while everyone else goes out and has fun. I am tired of being trapped alone in this hell that is my head. I am tired of everyone not getting it. I am tired of everyone acting like it's not a big deal. I am tired of being invisible. I am just tired of it all.

Rant Time

So how is that a college graduate with a decent GPA and awesome letters of recommendations can't get a job?!

Particularly when the posting says very few people have applied for said position. Most of these companies cannot even give people the courtesy of sending a letter saying that someone else was chosen.

People end up wondering what it was they did wrong or what was wrong with their resume.

What ever happened to courtesy in the job hunting world!?

No one truly understands

I live everyday in constant pain. Every inch of me hurts from sun up to sun down. People think they can understand but they don't. Sure they have aches and pains but those go away. Mine never does. I'm sick, I have an illness that can never be cured. Yes, it can be treated but the benefits of the meds don't out weigh their negatives. I'd rather live in pain everyday of my life then live in a drugged haze like most doctors would want me to.

But no one likes to hear that I'm ill. It's about their lives and their aches and pains. It's about their desire to pretend that there is nothing wrong with anyone else. No one likes to hear that someone they care about is sick, especially when they don't appear to be ill. Not all illnesses give off an outward symptom. I was born with Fibromyalgia. I will die with it as well. My nerves are fried and can never turn off. People don't want to have to acknowledge that a person who can smile, laugh, pull 32 hour work weeks, and go to school full time, could possible be ill and not receive treatment.

I tried getting treatment. I've had the disease for so long my body can't handle the meds. I was on them, I spent one year on them and most of the time was a zombie. Because of my illness my memory is shot, I have to write a lot of things down most people would be able to remember with one try.

This illness makes me depressed, it comes and it goes and for once I wish someone would truly understand.... but no one truly understands