Did you know that multibillion-dollar American policies set in place to protect against and discourage drug use have actually done nothing, if not the contrary for the population? Our current policies have only raised drug purity, revenue for drug lords and traffickers, and quadrupled the amount of people incarcerated in the United States with no positive effect besides making taxpayers pay even more per prisoner. The racial divide has grown even bigger as a result of Nixon’s War On Drugs as well. This war has been proven to be ineffective and only really serves to hurt Americans as a whole. Methods in use to try and get rid of drug production have actually ballooned them. An example of this is when the American government enhanced border
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Regardless, black americans are still incarcerated for drug crimes at ten times the rate of white americans. What these facts show us is that black communities continue to be targeted and profiled either consciously or subconsciously by officers and that the stereotypes society tells us are long dead still silently thrive. The war enforces these stereotypes and it will never get the chance to change as long as our policies don’t …show more content…
If we shift drug use from being a public enemy to a public health issue and emphasizing treatment rather than punishment, drugs will be destigmatized leading to users being much more inclined to seek treatment, drugs will become less taboo and exciting to possible users, profits from the drug industry will decrease, incarceration rates will decrease, and racial disparity will be reduced all at a much lesser cost than the current plan. Many countries have done this and they have succeeded, like Portugal, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. Drug use and overdoses have gone down greatly in those countries. Not only is decriminalization proven to be more effective than the policies currently in place,the billions we waste on this ineffective system will finally get put to good use and go to tried-and-true methods. All the evidence points to decriminalization being the answer- in order to bring justice to black americans, improve the nation’s public health, and actually reduce drug abuse and crime for good, we need to reform our approach for a better
Regardless, black americans are still incarcerated for drug crimes at ten times the rate of white americans. What these facts show us is that black communities continue to be targeted and profiled either consciously or subconsciously by officers and that the stereotypes society tells us are long dead still silently thrive. The war enforces these stereotypes and it will never get the chance to change as long as our policies don’t …show more content…
If we shift drug use from being a public enemy to a public health issue and emphasizing treatment rather than punishment, drugs will be destigmatized leading to users being much more inclined to seek treatment, drugs will become less taboo and exciting to possible users, profits from the drug industry will decrease, incarceration rates will decrease, and racial disparity will be reduced all at a much lesser cost than the current plan. Many countries have done this and they have succeeded, like Portugal, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. Drug use and overdoses have gone down greatly in those countries. Not only is decriminalization proven to be more effective than the policies currently in place,the billions we waste on this ineffective system will finally get put to good use and go to tried-and-true methods. All the evidence points to decriminalization being the answer- in order to bring justice to black americans, improve the nation’s public health, and actually reduce drug abuse and crime for good, we need to reform our approach for a better