Drugs Prohibition Essays (1538 words) - Drug Control Law

Drugs Prohibition Under the United States Constitution the federal government is charged with the responsibilities to protect our individual, as well as collective, rights to life and liberty. Often times this charge leads the various branches of the federal government to create, implement, and enforce policy that is designed to protect society from itself. Noble in it's ambition the result although not apparent initially, sometimes does more to hinder the rights of the citizens it is attempting to protect, and/or the cost of doing so becomes a higher price than that of the cost that is being avoided. In this case it is necessary to re-evaluate the situation and explore any alternatives that may offer a more fathomable solution concerning both protection of rights as well as the cost of so doing. Introduction In the late 1980's the United States government made such policy and today the results have done little to resolve the problem and have left the country closer to the danger it sought to prevent. The policy is known as the " War on Drugs". Initially the drug prohibition was, however idealistic, a valiant attempt to rid the country of this terrible"enemy". The objectives were simple; to impose stiff penalties on those who use drugs outlined to be illicit, quell all to trade and commerce of such substances, and even to go as far to prevent countries with in our general border vicinity from producing and exporting these substances. The illicit drug market, pre-drug war, is estimated to be a hundred billion dollar a year business. The federal government, since the beginning the war of drug, spends approximately ten billion dollars a year on drug enforcement agencies and programs, and another estimated one hundred and ninety billion dollars a year on investigating drug related crimes, prosecution of alleged drug activities, and enforcing punishments and/or imprisonment. That adds up to be a staggering cost of two hundred billion dollars ($770.00 per person) to attempt to prevent one hundred billion dollars worth of illicit drug use. (Evans and Berent) Another consequence of this questionable war lies in Opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is defined as the cost of opportunity lost in pursuit of another option. This cost analysis is relevant in the case of the drug prohibition policy in that the resources use to implement the policy are limited, police and prisons. The law enforcement used in this "war of drugs" has their time nearly monopolized by the approximate thirty to forty million people yearly who purchase and use drugs. This inherently leaving various law enforcement agencies with less ability to confront other crimes. Then there is the problem of prisons. The space in the prisons is extremely limited, and the cost of keeping a person in prison is astronomical in caparison to the prevention being provided in reference to drug prohibition. The issue of limited prison space gains significance greatly when you consider an estimated sixty-percent of prison population is serving time on drug conviction. In 1994 some seven hundred and fifty thousand people were arrested in drug related events. Of the seven hundred and fifty thousand people arrested, six hundred thousand of them were charged with minor counts of possession. (Wink) Other indicators that can be easily observed such as the rise in illicit drug use by teens and children reported the Drug Enforcement Agency. In fact only twenty-eight percent of teens used illicit drug compared to a whopping forty percent in 1996. (DEA/CDC) The misallocation of resources is totally exhausting and paralyzing the entire legal system that could be better targeted on a more productive agenda. What does the policy of drug prohibition actually encourage? The statistics show a rise in crimes concerning personal property; drug abusers in hopes of supporting their drug habit committed seventy-five percent of all property crimes such as burglary and robbery. Studies have shown that out patient drug programs or programs that offered drugs for a lower cost drastically reduced the amount of crimes committed. (Duke) As of 1992 an estimated sixty million people have tried and or used marijuana and there has yet to be one recorded death attributed to overdose. While it is estimated that ten thousand people die from overdose of alcohol annually. This would lead one to acknowledge that maybe our opinion drugs may be based in fear and social standard rather than in solid facts. The Goal The optimal goal of any policy is to protect our rights while encouraging all the ideals of the society. The problem occurs in the fact that is fairly impossible