Has the War on Drugs done any good at all?

Well, it's been about thirty-five years, give or take a little, since the War on Drugs was launched. In that time, it has been an abysmal failure. Have we rounded up lots of drug dealers? Yes. Have we caught some drug traffickers? Yes. Have we caught a lot of people using drugs? Resoundingly, yes. So it might be time to ask, is all of this doing any good?

Well, people still use drugs...that hasn't gone away. The rates of drug use are roughly the same as in the 1970s, accounting for population increases, etc., even though we are locking up lots more people. The DARE program has been eliminated in lots of places because it actually made kids more likely to use drugs. According to the statistics, we lock up about 750,000 people a year since 2004 for possesssion of marijuana. Note that I'm just talking about simple possession, not dealing, trafficking, or cultivation. This figure of course leaves out the numbers of people convicted for other drugs...meth is really popular lately, especially where I live, and crack isn't going away. Add to that heroin, plain old cocaine, etc. etc., and you begin to wonder if the War on Drugs is doing any good at all. The United States spends billions of dollars a year trying to pretend that we can stop drugs from existing in this country when people just want them...and it's just like flushing money down the toilet.

I do not either condone nor condemn drug use by adults. I do not feel it is appropriate for young people to use them, but if we as adults can vote, drink alcohol, go to war, and otherwise exercise our rights, I think that people who choose to use drugs responsibly maybe shouldn't have to go to prison. It's worth mentioning that the majority of those convicted in the 750,000 statistic I mentioned earlier were not people with long criminal records; they didn't do anything else wrong besides choose a different method to relax than going to a bar. The continued prohibition of drugs in this country is doing us more harm than good. Maybe we really could win the War on Drugs...but it'd be a pyrrhic victory, and that's worthless when there might be another way.

So here's my idea. I know I'm not the first by any means to say this, but maybe eventually if enough of us say it someone will listen.

Legalize them. All of them. Tax and regulate them.

Some people reading this are probably going to say, "Oh my god, rampant drug use will abound...it'll sink the country!" Well, they said that about alcohol just before prohibition too. Yes, I agree, there will probably be a temporary spike in drug usage as it's a new thing, but by and large, the people who use drugs now will continue to do so...they will just make the numbers seem bigger because they're not afraid of getting caught anymore. Some people will try new things and like them, and some will try new things and they won't. Some people won't care either way, because they're just not interested in drugs. All of these are great choices for some people.

A legally taxed and regulated market has a number of distinct advantages.
First, it gets them off the streets. Drug dealers will sell to anyone who can pay, whether it's you, someone older than you, or the third-grader down the street. Now some dealers, I'm sure, do operate under some ethical code about not selling to kids...but not all of them by any means. A regulated market means having to show ID and prove you're an adult before you can get your hands on it. Do kids get alcohol when they're not supposed to? Sure they do. But it's a lot harder than if it was illegal, when someone looking to make a few bucks would sell to anyone interested. I fully agree, drugs are not for kids. But selling them behind a counter by someone who has to be licensed to sell would make them an awful lot harder for kids to get than the way things are now.

Second, taxation in a market produces local and state money. We tax alcohol and tobacco. Why not cocaine or marijuana? Instead of locking up peaceful, responsible people who only are guilty of possession, we could make money off of them by selling them a service.

Third, laws can be easier to enforce on legal substances. Make new laws about public conduct to encompass these drugs. If you shouldn't drink and drive, you shouldn't smoke and drive, etc.; drinking from an open bottle in public, except for certain specially designated areas, is illegal, so make it that way for other things. Properly created and enforced laws will keep all of these things either in bars (or you can read specially designated areas) or at home and off the streets.

Fourth, there are an awful lot of dangerous and life-threatening things we can do to ourselves that could possibly have negative consequences, but no one would think twice about telling us not to do them- "It's our right." The information out there on most drugs is pretty accurate. Someone choosing to do drugs has a wealth of information available about his/her drug of choice. If any of you have seen one of those Faces of Meth displays, you know that anyone who does something dangerous like that deserves what they get.

Finally, the Law of Supply and Demand says that if people want it, someone will supply it. Let's spend the money on treatment programs for people who develop drug problems, or more police to go deal with rapes, murders, robberies and real crimes. Most people who get arrested for drugs aren't doing anything wrong other than having something they're not supposed to. Did you know that you can get a life sentence just for possession of drugs in certain quantities? Not selling them to anyone or smuggling them (although that's what the law says you're doing with a large quantity, probably a safe assumption in most cases), but just having them. I don't think that drug use is necessarily drug abuse. I believe that for those who choose to do so, responsible use is possible, and that if we are truly a leader in the world, we should take a page from many other countries and re-evaluate our stance on drugs. I like to drink beer sometimes. Does that make me an alcoholic? No, but that's exactly the kind of statement that we're making to anyone who uses drugs. "You use them, so you have a problem."

Let's review the definition of addiction. Dictionary.com says:

1.Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance

2.The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

Any addiction can be harmful, whether it's to money, cars, sex, alcohol, video games, drugs, the internet or anything else; it's something that interferes with your normal life functions and makes it harder to deal with the real world. I know loads of people who go out and drink themselves stupid on weekends and then drive themselves home (and sometimes they, their passengers or other motorists/pedestrians don't make it). Given the choice, I'd much rather hang out with some people who got slightly stoned and stayed home safely.