Can we please stop locking up people for using drugs? If people know they are bad for them and want to do them anyway, than who are we to try to stop them? It is completely idiotic to think that in this day and age we can legislate morality. British philosopher, and political theorist, John Stuart Mill said that, “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.” If people want to do drugs that have seriously disgusting and dangerous side effects than the threat of prison really isn’t an effective deterrent for them anyway. At the other end of the spectrum, some illegal drugs are much less harmful than many prescription medications. I find it increasingly suspect that marijuana users are thought of as stoners while Oxycontin abusers are thought of as well respected talking heads of the conservative party. When will we get real about the failed War on Drugs and what it is costing our nation?
America’s war on drugs has done nothing to curb drug use; has only increased the violence surrounding the drug trade and cost the American tax payers a fortune to police, prosecute, convict, and house offenders. The problems that President Nixon, and every administration since, has had with the war on drugs can be compared with the well-known failures of prohibition. When alcohol was made illegal, underground breweries and distilleries flourished, the price of alcohol skyrocketed, and mobs of gangsters killed each other in an effort to control this huge illegal market. In general, the use of alcohol did not go down, and eventually, Congress repealed the Prohibition law. How much longer until we see the current drug laws go the same route? Hopefully we see it sooner rather than later seeing as how states are going broke and the cost of housing inmates just keeps going up.
Now, to what brought me to this train of thought today; California is going to be releasing female offenders whose crimes were nonviolent, non-serious and not sexual. Most of those are women convicted of drug offenses. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, about 45% of the state's female inmates may be eligible to leave prison. California isn’t releasing these women out of the kindness of their hearts, although there is some mention of the inmate’s children being raised by family, and foster care in a related CNN article. California is releasing these women because it will save about $6 million a year. I am not a math whiz but I cannot help but wonder how much they could save if they released the male equivalents of these non-violent offenders also. Males are incarcerated at the rate of 1,309 inmates per 100,000 men, while females are incarcerated at a rate of 113 per 100,000 women, so roughly 11.5 men for every woman. Ergo letting the men out also would equal even more money!
It is past time that we reevaluate our drug policies. Many experts agree that until domestic demand in the United States for illicit drugs decreases, economics will govern and the money the United States spends on eradication and source control will simply be wasted. In a quote from Robert Stutman, a former DEA Agent he states that, "the average drug trafficking organization could afford to lose 90% of its profit and still be profitable. Now think of the analogy. GM builds a million Chevrolets a year. Doesn't sell 900,000 of them and still comes out profitable. That is a hell of a business, man. That is the dope business." According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy our federal government spent over 15 billion dollars last year on the drug war, with state and local governments spending even more. That is a rate of about $500 per second. Drug legalization though, would reduce government expenditure by about $41.3 billion annually, according to the Cato Group. The same organization states that legalization would also generate tax revenue of roughly $46.7 billion annually if drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. In financial times like these with our state and local governments barely scrapping by and our federal government living on borrowed money, I don’t see how we can afford to keep up the “War on Drugs.”
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