End The War On Drugs

The War on Drugs has been going on for almost the past half a century in the United States. The war has dominated our law enforcement and how we view our fellow Americans. Our inner cities have become prime targets with many low income communities turning to drug trade and crime. When these people are put in the line of fire for just trying to make ends meet, then something needs to change. Not only has it hurt the wallets of our citizens, but it has also weighed down our government’s. Addicts have no means of getting the medical help they need to treat their addictions. Their only path is to turn to crime for drug money and eventually get arrested. Ending the War on drugs would be beneficial to the American public with the failure to our …show more content…
The biggest financial burdens can be seen in public spending and numbers of prisoners. Gary S Becker, an economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, and Kevin M Murphy, a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business wrote an article on ending the War on Drugs. The War has caused massive spending on “the police, the court personnel used to try drug users and traffickers, and the guards and other resources spent on imprisoning and punishing those convicted of drug offenses” (Becker & Murphy). The fiscal costs have been difficult for the country to bear. These massive costs have not been worth it for the damage that has been caused. According to Becker and Murphy, “Total current spending is estimated at $40 billion a year.” The number of people incarcerated in the US has skyrocketed since the beginning of the War. “The total number of inmates in state and federal prisons in the United States has grown from 330,000 in 1980 to about 1.6 million today” (Becker & Murphy). That prison population growth is very problematic to manage. “About 50 percent of the inmates in federal prisons and 20 percent in state prisons have been convicted of either selling or using drugs. A huge amount of these offenders are not as violent like murderers or worse. Ending the War on drugs would slow the intake of these mass amounts of nonviolent offenders and …show more content…
Our impoverished inner cities and minorities with no other way to turn get involved in drugs with no way out except the back of a cop car. America should take a softer stance on drugs because addicts looking for medical help should not have to fear the law for medical treatment. If change does not come to our drug enforcement, even more violence may ensue. Our minorities will be further discriminated for drug use and addicts will turn to crime rather than openly seeking the help they so desperately