The War on drugs has been ongoing in America for over 30 years, but it hasn’t been working out the way people thought it would be. I’m against the the “War” on drugs. The “War” on drugs is ineffective and needs to changed.
The “War” on drugs needs to be changed because it costs the government way too much money. According to Havard’s Jeffrey A. Miron an economist, and doctoral candidate Katherine Waldock, in the U.S alone legalizing drugs would save roughly 41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition (Bandow, 2011).
This means that the government could save a lot of money if they would just stop the “War” on drugs. Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs. According to Professor David Nutt of Britain’s Bristol University and colleagues, heroin, crack and crystal meth are deadliest to individual user, but when their wider social effects are taken into account, alcohol is the most damaging, followed by heroin and crack (Hunter, 2010).
This means that more people are using alcohol than heroin or crack because of that alcohol has cause more damage to people; the governments just being hypocrites about the “War”, they’re fighting something that are less dangerous than the things that already are legal. The current drug laws promote additional crime. According to The Cato Institute’s David Boaz and Timothy Lynch, addicts commit crimes to pay for a habit that would be easily affordable if it were legal (Bandow, 2011).
This mean that people are committing crimes to get the money so they can pay for the drugs at a high price in the black market. Overall the “War” on drugs hasn’t been helping people in the U.S at all.
Drug use may not be wise, and it could even cause death. However, the “War” on drugs has cause the U.S turn into a prison state, putting more Americans in prison each and everyday. According to Lisa Trei at Stanford University in 1980, about 2 million people in the United States were under some kind of criminal justice supervision. By 2000, the figure had jumped to about 6 million, the jump is largely attributed to the government’s ongoing war on drugs. The “War” is not stopping people from using drugs, just a program to watse money.
If I was able to in charge of a country I would try to make drug use legal. By having drugs legal the crime rate will drop because people can buy them legally for cheap money. I would also set an age limit on people that could use drug. This way kids will know when they grow up they will have a chance to try it, that will decrease youth drug use. Lastly, I would set a limit on how much people could buy. By setting this restriction drug use wont able to harm people as much as before. These laws could help out to country.