Two Dozen Reasons to End Drug War

Society suffers from America’s War on Drugs!

If the underground economy which supports the illicit drug trade were eliminated and problem drug users were treated from a medical perspective, rather than a criminal perspective, we could cure so many of society’s major ills.

Considerations:

1) Anyone who wants drugs today gets them, whether legal or not, and the demand for drugs will never decrease under current policy.

2) We can’t keep drugs out of prisons. How can we keep them out of free society?

3) We endanger our police due to forcing them to enforce what’s unenforceable. It’s an impossible objective proven only to fail.

4) Profits resulting from marketing illicit drugs enriches only the mob and thus has created an obscenely large underground economy.

5) Because of enormous profits from drugs, corruption impacts enforcement, the courts and policy makers.

6) Many of the deaths which result from illicit drugs are a consequence of a ‘cut’ placed into the drug in order to increase its quantity for sales. Street chemists who place this ‘cut’ into the drug are under no quality control and this is what your teenage children are consuming.

7) Drug smuggling routes are also used as weapons smuggling routes.

8) The impact on third world nations is debilitating. For example, the Nicaraguan Contras sold drugs in exchange for weapons, and terrorists today make money from the drug trade to support terror.

9) The drug war has caused overcrowding in prisons. America now imprisons more people than any other nation on earth. Unacceptable for a nation that prides itself on freedom!

10) Our courts systems are clogged with drug cases and this limits the quality of time which can be applied to more important cases before the courts.

11) The ‘druggies’ who end up in jail only end up making better drug connections from their time spent in jail and their activities are likely to widen when released.

12) Career hardened criminals have an easier time in jail due to access to illicit drugs. Why help to enhance prison stays that should be difficult — makes no sense! Keep druggies out of prison!

13) The cost of waging the Drug War is staggering and drains money that could be better spent elsewhere.

14) Gang warfare has been spawned from the Drug War. Images of hatred against mainstream society becomes amplified.

15) Property crime, incidents of rape, robberies and car thefts would markedly decrease. Our streets and our homes would be safer. An addict will do anything to get money for drugs!

16) Drug forfeiture laws have become oppressive and draconian as police hold an incentive to make arrests and confiscate property which beefs up respective police departments and helps to guarantee their positions and salaries on the force.

17) The politician will always play the popular card and pretend they are genuinely concerned about drug problems, so they enact stiffer measures and penalties which only make the politician look good but does absolutely nothing to solve drug problems.

18) Drug testing has become a for-profit industry where insiders rake in obscene amounts of money. Probation departments in some states have become privatized. These private companies are usually connected to politicians. It’s like payola!

19) Many of America’s prisons have become for-profit prisons. They trade publicly on the stock market, thus a conflict of interest.

20) It’s best to have drug people above ground, not underground, participating within a public health system. This would have a positive impact by helping to slow the spread of diseases like AIDS and hepatitis.

21) The Drug War, more than anything, has contributed to serious erosion of civil liberties and a degradation of our constitutional rights.

22) Think of all the obscene amount of money, untaxed and laundered offshore out of the American economy.

23) The illegality of drugs becomes a tremendous lure to young people as some of them use their connections and access to money impress members within their peer groups.

24) A juvenile, if arrested and convicted, gets no public arresst record. This creates an incentive for 18–25 year-olds to get their younger brothers, sisters or cousins to sell drugs since, because if the younger one is caught little to nothing will happen. This creates a stronger ‘push’ to get younger people involved in drugs when they are most vulnerable and their lives could become ruined forever.

Originally published at www.facebook.com.