On March 15, 2000, Patrick Dorismond, a 26-year-old security guard, a father of two young girls who had himself hoped to become a cop, was shot to death in a confrontation with plainclothes police involved in a controversial anti-drug crackdown. Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Middle East is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. Effort to eliminate drug production and use has undeniably failed leaving in its wake social unrest and political chaos. The war on drugs is proven to hurt our society rather than benefiting it. How many more deaths of innocent men like Dorismond will it take to prove that
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A war, which we have little to show for. According to Drug Policy Alliance, we spend over $50 billion annually. DEA estimates we capture less than 10 percent of all illicit drugs. Does a 90% failure rate justify the cost of $50 billion a year? I believe many will agree that the answer is no. We live in a democratic society that is supposed to value free speech and individual rights. With the highest incarnation rate in the world citizen's civil rights are rapidly dissolving in favor of the drug war. Due to this war we have seen the prison population increase exponentially. We have imprisoned over 2.2 million people in 2014. Of which 1.6 million were arrested for Drug Offences. Of those 1.6 million prisoners, eighty-three percent were non-violent and were jailed for possession only. The figures also justify that the policy approach given to war on drugs has economic consequences especially in relation to those who are incarcerated. For instance, treatment of drug victims in the community rates at $20,000 less than incarceration per person in a year. This indicates that a huge amount of money is spent in incarceration and this imposes a huge burden on the tax payers which is the American
A war, which we have little to show for. According to Drug Policy Alliance, we spend over $50 billion annually. DEA estimates we capture less than 10 percent of all illicit drugs. Does a 90% failure rate justify the cost of $50 billion a year? I believe many will agree that the answer is no. We live in a democratic society that is supposed to value free speech and individual rights. With the highest incarnation rate in the world citizen's civil rights are rapidly dissolving in favor of the drug war. Due to this war we have seen the prison population increase exponentially. We have imprisoned over 2.2 million people in 2014. Of which 1.6 million were arrested for Drug Offences. Of those 1.6 million prisoners, eighty-three percent were non-violent and were jailed for possession only. The figures also justify that the policy approach given to war on drugs has economic consequences especially in relation to those who are incarcerated. For instance, treatment of drug victims in the community rates at $20,000 less than incarceration per person in a year. This indicates that a huge amount of money is spent in incarceration and this imposes a huge burden on the tax payers which is the American