The War On Drugs - We Can’t Afford It Anymore
Monday, April 21st, 2008The cost of the war on drugs has reached a level that can’t be sustained.
by Richard Houston
In this time of world record setting deficits we can no longer afford the costs of the war on drugs. We can’t afford the costs of building all the necessary prisons needed to lock up the ever increasing number of drug offenders. We can’t afford the staggering costs of feeding and housing all the millions of people currently locked up for drug offenses. We can’t afford the skyrocketing costs of prosecuting all the drugs cases in the various courts across America. We can no longer afford to divert law enforcement and first responder funding to a war that can’t be won.
Because of the war on drugs America has the largest percentage of its population in prison than any other country on earth. This continues to rise each and every year. There is a limit to the number of people the American tax payer can afford to lock up. Somewhere along the way there comes a point when cost vs. benefit comes into play. I believe we have reached the point where the costs of the war on drugs greatly out weight any benefits to American society.
When many of the Republican lawmakers in office right now were kids they could walk into any pharmacy and buy heroin, cocaine, marijuana and many other drugs that are prohibited today. During that period of time there was no prohibition on drugs. There also wasn’t any noticeable adverse effect to society. The war on drugs wasn’t started because the drugs were harmful to society, rather it was started for completely different reasons.
In the Christian community of the time before prohibition it was believed that drug uses among blacks and Mexicans gave them the desire to have sex with white women. At that time when white supremacy and Christianity went hand in hand the thought of blacks and Mexicans having sex with white women was too much for them to handle so they began the movement to criminalize drug use. It was however a little hard during this time to parade around America solely crusading on the “sex with white women” platform so they had to augment their approach with dramatic stories that were complete fabrication.
Many of us have seen the movie Refer Madness. Now days it is viewed as a comedy but at the time it was presented as a documentary of what happens when people use drugs. Nothing in the move was true and at there was never any evidence to back it up. There were reports of drug crazed negroes going on violent rampages. There were reports of people jumping out of windows. There were all kind of tragic dramatic stories about drug uses but they were all untrue.
The fascists of the time saw drugs as a threat to their corporations. The wood and paper industry felt threatened by the hemp industry. The pharmaceutical industry felt threatened by any drug that couldn’t be patented. There were many industries of the time that felt that unregulated recreational drugs were eating into their profit margins so they joined forces with the Christians and started the war on drugs.
Now decades later its still going on with no end in sight. The way I look at it the only way to win the war on drugs is to give up. We need to decimalize all drugs and add rational regulation and taxation. This would put an end to the billions and billions of dollars spent on waging the war on drugs and creates possibly billions of desperately needed tax revenue. Just a modest tax on marijuana could put an end to Social Security funding issues for ever.
