Political Issues:War on Drugs and why it isn't working.

comparing the War on drugs to Slavery in the 18thh century.

In the past couple of years, dating back to my years in high school, I have become rather concerned with how the country is being ran.  There are many issues plaguing our nation.  The war in Afghanistan, helping out the failing economy, the national debt, whether or not same sex marriage should be nationally legal, there are many of them.  The one that I'm speaking about today is the War on Drugs, and why it is not effective.

The War on Drugs was a term that was made popular by President Richard Nixon in 1971, but the actual "War" has dated back to as early as 1914.  The most well known beginning was the 18th amendment, which prohibited the possession and consumption of alcohol on a national level, later repealed in 1932.  Other acts around that time period included setting up the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, passing the Marijuana Transfer Act, and creating the Drug Enforcement Administration to replace the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.  The goal of the War on Drugs is to offer military aid and other government aid to help reduce the selling and trade of drugs, narcotics, and other substances.  Since the War's inception, the United States has proposed Incarceration, Arrest, and military operations throughout the world to do what is in the best interest of the War.  Below is a link to a  clock of how much is being spent, how many arrests, how many arrests because of Marijuana, and total imprisonments.

 http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock


However, as stated in June of 2011, the War on Drugs, though still being fought, was considered, by the Global Commission of Drug Policy, "a critical failure,with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world" and with good reason to declare such a bold statement.  Since this "fight" has been around, problems have gotten worse.  Synthetic drugs are popping up, violence is errupting, incarcerations are on the rapid rise, even racial issues are being brought into the mix.

The popularity of Synthetic drugs has increased steadily, and has recently seen a gigantic boom since 2011.  Forget Marijuana, forget crack cocaine, these synthetics are now becoming the new trend, especially amongst teenagers.  The popularity of bath salts, "spice", and others are becoming the buzz, and with no regulations on what is being sold, and with most of these new drugs pending, it already has a crippling effect.  The number of calls about just bath salts(a replacement for crack cocaine) skyrocketed from only 302 calls in 2010 to a staggering 1800 this year.  In terms of Spice, better known as a synthetic version of Marijuana, the number of calls for spice within the last two years is well over 4500.  Despite the DEA's efforts to attempt to regulate these synthetics, the problem isn't getting any better.

Violence with drugs has always been a problem, but never on this big of a scale has violence and drugs become so big that it dominates the news besides hearing of oversea affairs.  Violence with drugs in the United States can trace back to as early as the days of prohibition, when gangs would control the organized crime scene with illegal alcohol and liquor, making quite a bit of profit off of it.  Al Capone, one of Americas finest mobsters, made a reported, and outrageous ammount of $100,000,000 off of organized crime involving illegal liquor.  Today, the violence can be traced around the world, with 35,000 people in Mexico alone dying because of drug trafficking.  In the United States, the famous gangs The Crips and The Bloods are not only killing each other for sake of pride in their gangs, but are also killing each other within their own gangs over not just money, but drugs as well.  Not only are gangs killing and committing violent acts to have drugs for themselves, they try to gain control of the drug trade, resulting in at least 35,000 total deaths, and that is just in Mexico alone.  The death toll around the world could possibly be six figures, and yet this War on Drugs is only making the problem worse.

Many blame the War on Drugs for increased Incarceration rates

Incarcerations are on the rapid rise in the United States for drug use and drug possession.  The United States has an incarceration rate of 754 to 100,000 as of 2009.  Many believe that since the War on Drugs was declared, it has been the reason incarceration rate has dramatically risen.  The graph shows that since 1980 the number of people in prison went from 500,000 to well over 2 million in 2006.  Where are most of those sentences coming from?  Drug possession and drug use.  Since the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed in 1986, the rate in which americans were imprisoned skyrocketed, along with much longer sentences being the reason the rate has climbed so high.  Does imprisonment help people stay away from drugs? By this information, no it isn't helping at all.  And since when did criminals even care? They will most likely just go out and do it again.  To further my point, as of 2008, 90.7% of criminals are in federal prison for non-violent offenses.  The offense?  DRUGS.  Does that mean the War on Drugs is helping? Absolutly not.

Racial issues are another problem in the War on Drugs.  The drug war has shown discrimination in many racial ethnicities.  Going back to incarceration, prisoners are 10 times more likely to be black then white.  Most of the drug war is being waged with international gangs, such as the Columbian Drug Cartel, and the itallian mafia.  The War on Drugs is using military operations and global ops to attempt to end the drug trade, but to no effect.

All of these issues are contributing to the reason why the War on Drugs has been unsuccessful.  The fact that the United States government believes it can still win is an embarressing statement. In 2008 Ron Paul stated

"the federal war on drugs has proven costly and ineffective, while creating terrible violent crime. But if you question policy, you are accused of being pro-drug. That is preposterous. As a physician, father, and grandfather, I abhor drugs. I just know that there is a better way — through local laws, communities, churches, and families — to combat the very serious problem of drug abuse than a massive federal-government bureaucracy"

Mr. Paul has the right idea.  Local law should be the ones involved, communties can get involved, churches can provide an outlet, and families can be more supportive in the intervention and better decision making of their loved ones.  With that in mind, that does not mean we back off entirely from the problem and make it any worse.  Do there still need to be some imprisonment? Yes, but nowhere near what the current sentences are, which are 5-10 years for a first time offense.  And spending all of this money on a War that is a failure? Please, our nation is already trillions of dollars in debt, lets not make it any worse.