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/
