Does the “war on drugs” create more problems than it solves?

Question

Do you think the War on Drugs and the prohibition & criminalization of safer recreational drugs create a market for cheap and extremely dangerous drugs like Meth, Crack, Ketamine and Ecstasy?

avail_skillz- I think that's my argument too. The drug wars made cocaine so expensive that a cheaper alternative was needed. That's how we got Crack.

Schaufel- I read your WHOLE thing, very comprehensive. My question for you is: which is more important, decreasing drug use, or decreasing the problems associated with drug use? I think the latter is more important. I could care less about what someone wants to put in their body until violence and other crimes become an issue.
I think legalization is serious option to explore. Maybe if someone can get decent legal cocaine at a controlled dosage at a controlled place and time, maybe they wouldn't be tempted to mug me for 20 bucks to get an illegal crack fix.

here to help- I don't buy that, problems buying sinus medication. You get a certain amount, it's behind he counter instead of on the shelf. Just like cigarettes. If your sinuses are that bad, you need to see an ENT.

captaincollestor- you're dead on- since the price of cocaine has dropped and the quality has gone up, suddenly crack isn't as big an issue as it was in the 90's. In all honesty I'd rather my community was full of some coke users than crack users.

Answer 1

For a long time I was amongst the majority of Americans, and probably most people the world over who thought that drugs are evil. In my heart I held no compassion for those who used drugs, felt that those who pushed drugs were amongst the most despicable of all humanity, and truly believe that if only a real effort were made to eradicate drug use then life would be utopia. Alright, maybe I didn't think it would be utopia, but I thought the world would be much safer, and surely more prosperous.

And who can blame me for holding such a position. After all, look at the places where drugs are the most prevalent, the inner city ghettos. I believed that evil drug pushers were corrupting children and the poor by selling them drugs, which would make them unproductive members of society. I felt that drugs caused otherwise normal people to act irrationally, and drove people to commit crimes, to abuse children, and to have no respect for their communities. I saw the pictures on TV, and even lived for a while in the inner city, and thought that drugs truly were the root of all evil!

I believed that those who advocated legalizing drugs were selfish; after all, most of those who do are drug users themselves. They made unconvincing arguments, and outlandish claims, like "tobacco is evil because of the unnatural chemicals the tobacco companies put in cigarettes, but marijuana is fine because it is natural, and therefore better for you" and "there is a conspiracy to keep marijuana illegal because big alcohol companies are afraid that pot will create competition for them". These arguments were so stupid that I couldn't possibly take any argument they made seriously. They also advocated things like "medicinal-use" of marijuana, which I believed (and I still believe is true) was simply a way to back door in pot use.

What more, the decriminalization crowd held rallies, like "hash-bash", which I viewed as simply an excuse to get together and get high. I had no sympathy for them, and felt that stronger control measures were needed to stamp out both the supply and the demand for drugs.

The most contemptible argument in favor of legalizing drugs came from the left, that is that drugs are a natural outgrowth of poverty. This isn't so much an argument for legalization, but rather the revelation that drug use is simply an indicator of societal inequality. By their reasoning, if only further social programs were created to equalize the income inequality of society then drug use would abate naturally. In their view, drug use is used as an escape from the harsh reality of life for the poor, so rather than fight drugs, fight instead poverty.

This argument, however, is an example of extraordinarily lazy thinking on the part of the left. This argument does not take into account that drug use is an across the board problem, affecting people from all socio-economic levels. The poor are simply the most visible drug abusers. Anyway, anti-poverty programs tend to increase drug consumption, because those who receive government hand-outs often times simply parlay their welfare into feeding their drug habit. Given this situation, the only logical option I could come up with is to crush drug use. Destroy the producers, jail the users, fight them at every corner. Liberty be damned! What good is liberty when people choose to destroy society with pernicious, illicit substances.

But then I had an epiphany! I realized that no amount of drug control legislation would ever eliminate drug use, ever! It may reduce drug use minimally, but unless we become a totalitarian state, like North Korea, we can never keep all drugs out of America. Even then, it's likely that we could never stamp out drug use completely. After all, look at Saudi Arabia, if your caught using drugs there they'll kill you! If there ever was an incentive not to use drugs, this is a perfect one. But drug use continues.

But just because something cannot be brought under control does not mean that the battle should be abandoned. We may not be able to cure all disease, or stop all murder, but that is no reason to just give up.

The real reason drugs should be decriminalized is because we cause far more harm by fighting this "War on Drugs" then we ever prevent by restricting the drug trade. I realized that there will always be demand for drugs... we can only prevent a very small amount of people from using drugs from fear of criminal prosecution. A certain percentage of the population will use drugs no matter what the law says. So, since drug demand remains mostly constant, the only thing our drug war does is to affect the supply of drugs. Because price is a reflection of supply and demand, the price for drugs skyrockets as restrictions are placed on the supply of the drugs, to a point where many drugs are now worth more per ounce than gold! This cost of drugs is where most of the problems come from. I'll explain...

First, most drug crime is simply people being arrested for possession and distribution of the drugs themselves. Most of these people are not being violent, or hurting others, they are just engaged in commerce, albeit black market commerce. These people are filling up our already overcrowded prisons for crimes that nobody was hurt from, except, perhaps, the drug user, who voluntarily hurt themselves! This seems to me to be a huge waste of taxpayer money, because it can cost on average $20,000 per year to keep somebody locked up!

Secondly, the violent crime associated with drugs is not usually caused by the user using the drug, but by the user committing crimes to get the money to pay the astronomical cost of the drugs. Many celebrities use drugs all the time, but you never see them knocking over 7-11's do you? It is because these substances cost so much because of the government's actions to restrict the flow of drugs that poor people must resort to criminal activities to feed their habit.

Third, drugs are destroying our inner cities, and now with the rise of crystal meth, our rural areas too! The only thing is, that it isn't the drugs, but the black market, and the gangs who are enabled by the high cost of the drugs that do this! It is because the drugs are so restricted that the price can be so high for drugs, and therefore people who could otherwise become productive members of society instead become members of criminal gangs, and go where the money is, in the black market for drugs.

These criminal gangs main business is in the drug trade, but because of the fact that what they are dealing in is illegal, they are not protected by the larger criminal justice system which protects legitimate businesses! So to protect their private property, and to fight to maintain their "turf", these gangs are compelled to arm themselves, and to dole out harsh "vigilante" justice against those who threaten them. This kind of activity leads to gang wars, and bloody battles against the police, who are usually unable to match the drug gangs in terms of firepower! Because they operate in the black market gangs often get caught up in other, more horrific, black market activities, such as murders for hire, human trafficking, and sex slavery. The criminal gangs of today make the mafia, and rumrunners of prohibition look like the "T-Birds" from Grease.

Furthermore, there is another component to drug prohibition, and that is that overdoses of illegal drugs that otherwise could be survivable end up being fatal! That is because people are afraid to take their friend who is overdosing on the drugs to the hospital for fear that they will be arrested for using the drugs. Instead they often simply throw the person into the garbage, or leave them to die in their home! Often times this comes from not knowing what is actually in the drugs you're taking, because, as an illegal substance, it is difficult to have any degree of quality control in the product you're buying. Many times what the user thinks is cocaine, or heroin, or whatever, actually ends up being part drug, part sugar, and part rat-poison! Many lives have been needlessly lost because of this.

Another reason for ending the war on drugs is because the high costs are having an impact on our efforts in the "War on Terror"! Many terrorist activities are funded in large part by funds earned through the illegal drug trade. Terrorists know that the high drug costs make it a very lucrative trade to be in, and then they funnel that money into purchasing weapons, and funding plans to create massive attacks against the United States, our allies, and our interests, like the 9/11 attacks! Furthermore, most of the illegal drugs come from places like Columbia and Afghanistan, from farmers who make much higher wages from growing cocaine and opium poppies, because of the artificially inflated price of the drugs caused by our restrictions, then they ever could from growing wheat and maize! Then, even as we try to recruit these peasants to our side in the War on Terror, and to try to throw out regimes like the Taliban, we bomb their fields with herbicides, destroying their livelihoods! Is it any wonder that it takes little convincing on the part of terrorists like Osama Bin Laden that the USA is the "great Satan"?

But what's the alternative? Legal drugs?

I know, that is a scary proposition. For a long time I certainly thought that even if drugs caused all this bad, the alternative was surely worse! I imagined planes crashing because of high pilots, companies with employees unable to accomplish any work, chaos in the streets, in short nothing short of hell on earth! But then I realized that when given the choice, most people would probably still choose not to use drugs! Cigarettes are legal for those over the age of 18 (19 in some states), yet on average only about 20% of the population smokes. If drugs were decriminalized, would there be an increase in drug use? I don't know... but I do know that the "drug-warriors" fears about the whole of the country being gripped by addiction and plagued by crime, would not occur! On the whole things would likely be much better, because all of the problems I mentioned earlier would disappear, and we could at least control where and when people could get high! Our resources could then be directed against crimes against third parties that actually hurt others, rather than vice crimes that hurt only the user.

Many might be skeptical, after all, for the better part of a century now we've been told that illegal drugs are the scourge of civilized society! But people are so quick to forget that we do have a historical example of what happens when a drug is criminalized, and what happens when that drug is decriminalized! That drug is alcohol, and for all of you who have forgotten, between 1920 and 1933 it was an illegal drug, banned by the 18th Amendment!

Prohibition was brought about with the very best of intentions, but just like the vice laws of today, it created many more problems than it solved! Organizations like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union touted prohibition of alcohol as the way to cure all of society's ills, believing alcohol to be the root cause of such scourges as fighting, idleness, and domestic abuse! In practice, however, prohibition solved none of these problems, and created more! One must remember that alcohol prohibition caused the rise of the mafia, and all the seedy underground activities enabled by the criminalization of liquor!

At least we had the good sense in 1933 to pass the 21st Amendment, which completely repealed the 18th Amendment! Today alcohol is legal for all people over the age of 21, and I don't believe that we are too bad off because of it! Sure there are problems that go along with alcohol, including drunk and disorderly conduct, and drinking and driving, but at least people are now being held accountable for the actions they take, rather than the substances they put in their bodies! In fact, I would argue that alcohol consumption is a boon for many people! There are thousands of people who earn good money and contribute much to the economy through the selling and manufacture of alcohol! Whole cities, like Royal Oak, Michigan, are indebted to the fact that alcohol is legal, because the consumption of alcohol makes up a huge part of their economy! Legalization of alcohol didn't bring about the collapse of society, just the opposite, prohibition nearly destroyed society!

But back to the question of drugs. If drugs were legalized, I imagine that not all problems would disappear immediately, after all, the mafia was created in large part by alcohol prohibition, and still exists today! Probably immediately we would see a spike in the amount of drug use, simply because people are curious. But shortly after that, I'm sure we would see drug use stabilize. A certain percent of the population would use drugs, probably about the same amount that use illegal drugs today... but at least people could be assured of the quality of the drugs they are taking, criminal gangs would loose much of their power, and most importantly, people in the third world would not be driven to hate America, and take up arms against us, because of our insane drug control policies!

Does this mean as a society that we condone drug use. No, of course not. Just because we would no longer criminalize drug use does not mean that we support it. It would make sense to continue to educate people of the dangers of drug use, after all, alcohol and tobacco are legal, but programs like DARE teach children of the dangers of those substances, don't they?

This line of thinking necessarily must lead to the obvious question... should the government regulate any other activities? How about prostitution?

Many of the same arguments made against drugs, are also made against prostitution! Many people argue that prostitution endangers the family, because seductive prostitutes lure husbands (or wives, for that matter) away from their spouse, undercutting the trust in the family!

This argument, however, is bunk! If one seeks to have extra-marital sex, one doesn't need to pay a prostitute for it, as there are millions of people out there who gladly give it away for free. Its like Dr. Phil would say, if someone is looking elsewhere for love, they probably aren't finding it at home! If you're worried that prostitutes will destroy your marriage, then your marriage probably isn't on a good foundation to begin with!

Others argue that prostitution is degrading, and that we need laws to protect women from degrading activities. When women become prostitutes, men begin to look at them as nothing more than a "piece of meat".

This is a better argument, but it is also flawed! I would argue that prostitution may be degrading, but there are many professions that are degrading. Cleaning toilets is degrading, but we don't criminalize janitorial work. Anyway, who are we as society to criticize one profession and not another. Many people make money with their bodies all the time... basketball players make money using their bodies for show, so do boxers... so why make it illegal for a woman (or man) to have sex for money?

One of the most intelligent sounding arguments against prostitution is that prostitution spreads disease. There are dozens of sexually transmitted diseases out there, and by legalizing prostitution you are encouraging the spread of those diseases, not only to the "Johns" but also to their subsequent partners!

This is intelligent on the surface, but in actuality is pretty lazy thinking! Just like drugs, prostitution cannot be stamped out completely. If prostitution is illegal then there is absolutely no way it can be regulated, at all. If it is legal, however, there could be some standards the prostitutes must live up to, such as making sure they practice safe sex, and having regular check up to make sure they are clean. In that way we can reduce the danger inherent in the sex trade. Furthermore we could regulate where and when it can take place, and thereby make sure the activity is kept in certain "red-light" districts, rather than along "Main Street”. Anyway, the chances of getting an STD is far more likely from "not for profit" sex, than from sex workers, because prostitutes are very conscious about the dangers of their profession, and will seek to insure the profitability of their "equipment". Nobody is going to want to have sex with a woman with genital warts after all, so it is in their best interest to stay as clean as possible.

Vice laws are ways for society to enforce morality... but by its nature morality is a subjective thing. In the past swearing was a criminal offense, now we have come to the realization that this is probably not something that the government should be involved in policing! The government has an obligation to protect us from others, but not from ourselves. If we continue to attempt to pursue this course of action, what can the government not attempt to police us from?!

If you come to the conclusion that it is the role of government to protect us from ourselves, then there is no limit to what the government can prohibit in the name of protecting us! What's next, exercise police? Much more harm is done to our health by idleness than by recreational use of illegal drugs. Should we all be forced to perform government mandated exercise regiments? Or how about policing ideology? Much more harm comes from bad ideology than from having sex for money. Why not make it illegal to hold views that do not conform to the standards of society?

As you can see, legislating morality is a slippery slope. Once you criminalize one thing, it only makes sense to give up all our liberty in the name of protection. If we continue down this line of thinking, however, we end up in an "Orwellian dystopia" reminiscent of "Oceania" from 1984. I say that it is far worse to suffer the tyranny of too much government intervention, than to deal with the problems of vice!

Answer 2

Absolutely, brother!

Anyone who really KNOWS anything about the drug situation realizes that you can move a kilo of coke easier than you can a kilo of cannabis.

Back in the late 60s and early 70s, good weed was plentiful and affordable. Then the drug wars began to ramp-up, and it just became easier to move more potent chemical substances, plus it became easier to create a makeshift lab than tend an acre of pot.

Weed was NEVER, EVER as much a societal problem like alcohol or coke. It's just not the same thing.

To illustrate that fact, there are people who will tell you they PREFER alcohol or crack over weed, because the effect is way more intense.

The truth be told, there are millions of people in this country from students to CEOs that enjoy the righteous herb, and they're not hurting anybody. They do their jobs, they take care of their families like anybody else.

The "war on drugs" is a total farce and a failure.

Answer 3

BbRiggs doesn't know much about dope, quality is up prices are down, heck look in the 80's coke went for about 1200 an ounce now every major city reports ounces giong for 750 to 800 and they also report the coke is higher quality, Drugs laws promote unjustice sentencing, a prison industrial complex and hyndreds of thousands of non violent offenders being incarcerated with the worst criminals we produce, yeah the drug war is a joke

Answer 4

yes, it creates more problems than it solves, but not by creating a market of cheap drugs.
The drug war drives up drug values, and along with them the income and power of criminals.
-Drugdealers make more money than people with college degrees, no wonder they choose to do so.

-when you are barring people who have a previous drug bust from going to college, by taking away their financial aid, you are locking them into the lifestyles that you are trying to prevent.

-when someone wants to experiment with pot, who do they have to go to, to get it? the same guy that makes more money off of meth, and would rather see them using it.

-how is it benefitting society to give criminals such a great avenue to make huge incomes, where they can afford to pay police an entire year's wage, to deliver the stuff for them?

-if you look at what is going on in places like columbia, people who end up having their crops sprayed with herbacide end up joining militias that support the stuff, and kill government officials for supporting the drug wars.

Answer 5

Not only the illegal drugs, but More Importantly it has opened the door for drug companies to make a fortune on their legal drugs. In my mind that is the bigger 'wrong'.

Answer 6

I think the "war on drugs" has been an astonishing failure. It costs the taxpayers a fortune, and has done nothing to stop drug abuse.

Legalize it, regulate it, and tax the **** out of it. I'd rather know who's doing heroin than not.

Answer 7

Yes, yes and yes. The war on drugs is the way the prison industry keeps going.

Answer 8

it creates problems for law aiding citizens trying to buy sinus pills. it creates bigger government. it creates more profit for drug dealers. it takes away drug manufacturing jobs for americans and sends the jobs to Mexico.

Answer 9

With the incompetent leadership we have on that war...yes.

Answer 10

no. prohibition and criminlization makes the drugs more expensive and the quality cheaper.