I live in an area that is quiet and peaceful, just north of Jacksonville, Florida. My county has great schools, a high graduation rate, and a relatively low crime rate. I am content with my area and the great colleges and hospitals we have access to in Jacksonville. My county, Nassau, boasts about its beaches and excellent school system. Although I am happy with living in my community and my country, both share a common issue: drugs. Drug abuse is rising and affecting various people, including students in high school. This issue affects us all as it leads to drug addiction, overdoses, and users being arrested. As a fellow American, I hope you share the same concerns about this epidemic and how our country is handling it. President Nixon coined
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This grand idea has taken a different path altogether, in a sense wasting our resources, including tax money, on an ineffective noble cause by punishing people involved with drugs rather than fixing the issue or helping them. According to the Office of National Drug Control policy, created by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, $15 Billion was spent in 2010 (Drug War Clock, 2015). This is an insane amount of money that funds enforcement, prevention, and treatment of drug related issues. The main problem with the war on drugs is that it prioritizes punishment for drug users further wasting more tax money as they are in prison and leading to the overcrowding of prisons when there are much more serious crimes being committed. In April of 2018, a staggering 46% (79,190 people) of people arrested was for drug related issues, the number one reason people were arrested (Offenses, 2018). It is almost as if we are against our own citizens with 400,000 paramilitary-style raids usually against non-violent drug offenses during the George W. Bush administration and 700,000 arrests per year for marijuana offenses (A Brief History of the Drug War, 2018). Much like Prohibition, which banned alcohol, people have found ways to get what they want, increasing arrests and encouraging crime as people have to do …show more content…
The results have proven ineffective as drug abuse and overdoses are on the rise and our government continues to invest billions of tax dollars to stop drugs and house criminals arrested on drug offenses. Instead of arresting people for these minor offenses, probation and treatment plans should be put in place so prisons won’t be overcrowded and less money will be spent on prisons. Regulation of certain drugs like Marijuana would be useful as it is the number reason people are arrested for drugs. Regulating Marijuana is a tricky subject but if our government can find a way to reasonably manage it the war on drugs could focus on the more serious drugs and issues. We need to focus on prevention rather than punishment; funding to keep major drugs out of the country needs more attention that minor non-violent offenses. With some drug decriminalization, treatment for abusers, and prevention and education of the effects of drugs we can save money and focus on the more criminal aspects of the drug trade. Of course, this isn’t an easy fix, evident in that the war on drugs has been going on for over half a century, but if we focus on the fact that we are wasting tax money and resources that could be used more effectively and that we are dealing with human lives this war may come closer to its end. Overall, the policies surrounding the war on drugs seek
This grand idea has taken a different path altogether, in a sense wasting our resources, including tax money, on an ineffective noble cause by punishing people involved with drugs rather than fixing the issue or helping them. According to the Office of National Drug Control policy, created by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, $15 Billion was spent in 2010 (Drug War Clock, 2015). This is an insane amount of money that funds enforcement, prevention, and treatment of drug related issues. The main problem with the war on drugs is that it prioritizes punishment for drug users further wasting more tax money as they are in prison and leading to the overcrowding of prisons when there are much more serious crimes being committed. In April of 2018, a staggering 46% (79,190 people) of people arrested was for drug related issues, the number one reason people were arrested (Offenses, 2018). It is almost as if we are against our own citizens with 400,000 paramilitary-style raids usually against non-violent drug offenses during the George W. Bush administration and 700,000 arrests per year for marijuana offenses (A Brief History of the Drug War, 2018). Much like Prohibition, which banned alcohol, people have found ways to get what they want, increasing arrests and encouraging crime as people have to do …show more content…
The results have proven ineffective as drug abuse and overdoses are on the rise and our government continues to invest billions of tax dollars to stop drugs and house criminals arrested on drug offenses. Instead of arresting people for these minor offenses, probation and treatment plans should be put in place so prisons won’t be overcrowded and less money will be spent on prisons. Regulation of certain drugs like Marijuana would be useful as it is the number reason people are arrested for drugs. Regulating Marijuana is a tricky subject but if our government can find a way to reasonably manage it the war on drugs could focus on the more serious drugs and issues. We need to focus on prevention rather than punishment; funding to keep major drugs out of the country needs more attention that minor non-violent offenses. With some drug decriminalization, treatment for abusers, and prevention and education of the effects of drugs we can save money and focus on the more criminal aspects of the drug trade. Of course, this isn’t an easy fix, evident in that the war on drugs has been going on for over half a century, but if we focus on the fact that we are wasting tax money and resources that could be used more effectively and that we are dealing with human lives this war may come closer to its end. Overall, the policies surrounding the war on drugs seek