THE WAR ON DRUGS

Group: Squadra Vita
Due: Oct.21, 2013
The War On Drugs In 2010 the United States spent over $15 million dollars on the “war on drugs”. Do you think all this money should be spent on a growing problem such as these issues? The war on drugs consists of the campaigns aimed to reduce illegal drug trades. Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971, Close to $500 dollars is estimated to be spent every second! It has an extremely high cost: your hard-earned tax dollars pay for this. Billions of dollars each year are spent on self-destructive government policies. Since December 31, 1995 the average amount of inmates incarcerated for drug offences is about 25 percent. The United States imprisons more people than any other nation because of its misguided drug laws and mandatory sentencing requirements. There are DARE programs, which are to educate children on the dangers of drugs, and prohibition period in the past. Some of the pros on the “war on drugs” include Programs such as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) inform children the dangers of drugs and to report to any authority figure such as the police if they witness any drug related activity. “As of 2009, the program had trained over 50,000 police officers to teach its program every year to 36 million K-12 students worldwide - 26 million in the US alone.” The police must undergo 80 hours of specialized training in child development, classroom management, etc. This program enables childern to interact with police officers learning that its okay to talk to officers on a safe calm manner. Starting in 5th grade, elementary students are introduced to the dangers of drugs, peer pressure and how they have the choice to say no to these harmful drugs.
It’s time to end the war on drugs. It is defined as a trillion-dollars failure. Why is it a failure? The answer is that since 1914, when a continuation of drug prohibition policies in the U.S started, this war is wasting money without having any good result. I completely agree with Art Carden: “For the sake of the argument, let’s go ahead and assume that everything you’ve heard about the dangers of drugs is completely true. That probably means that using drugs is a terrible idea. It doesn’t mean, however, that the drug war is a good idea.” As he state in an article for the Forbes. In fact United States are fighting against drugs without focusing on the real problem. First of all we could have posed some questions. Does everyone know about drugs? Why do people use drugs? Instead of putting a person who sells illegal substances in jail, we should focus on the people who buy these drugs. In fact, we should teach them what doing drugs does and what the consequences are when they are young.
Instead of influencing a young child to become a potential drug user, we should help their families in need. Fighting is useless. This is a war that cannot be won.
The pros about the war on Drugs are that it strengthens the economy and helps provides more jobs. TSA, DEA, Alcohol and Tobacco enforcements are all examples of jobs. A step they have taken was recreational marijuana. Some states have passed this law, Example are Washington and Colorado. The key behind legalization is an idea to lower crime rates, controlling the potency of powerful drugs, and eliminate trades with other countries. The War on drugs