War on drugs: George W. Bush - Essay Example

War on drugs: George W. Bush Introduction America’s war against recreational drugs is an example of good intentions gone terribly wrong. While this country squanders over billions of dollars annually on the efforts to stop illegal drugs, trafficking and use continue. It has been said that trying to stop drugs is like trying to stop the rain, still, the ‘war’ continues and was a prominent issue for President Bush in his 2000 campaign. Soon after his election, Bush created a ‘drug czar’ and promised to end illegal drug trafficking. Of course this was an exercise in futility as it had been for previous presidents and became just one in a long list of Bush’s failures. Failing to stop drug trafficking was not his fault, however, because it cannot be done and, as this discussion will argue, should not be attempted. History With the number of Vietnam vets returning from war addicted to narcotics, President Nixon officially declared the opening of the War on Drugs in 1971, primarily directed against heroin addiction. The positive effects that were seen coming out of this early stage in the anti-drug movement has been attributed to the fact that a larger proportion of the funding available for this struggle was directed toward treatment, rather than law enforcement. Following Nixon’s resignation, the anti-drug effort gained a new focus, that of enforcing anti-drug laws and collecting the associated fines. This movement gained strength and direction under President Reagan in 1981 after the drug cartels in Colombia had violently made their presence known in Miami. The focus was finally turned to marijuana smugglers because of their connection to cocaine trafficking in the mid-80s (“Thirty Years” 2006). ­­­ Studies have repeatedly suggested that the prohibition of these drugs in the United States has not proven to be efficient or effective. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, “U.S. federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America ‘drug-free.’ Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer and easier to get than ever before” (“England.” 2006). Social Significance Over half of the prisoners in jail are there for drug ‘crimes.’ This causes overcrowding which results in the early release of dangerous, violent criminals. This creates more of a public safety problem than does drug use. It is illogical from a societal view and inhumane to individuals who are marked as a criminal for life for activity that causes no harm to others. Those who are addicted receive little or no therapeutic help in prison. Instead of imprisoning people that need help, rehabilitation programs are a much more effective method to treat the problem but a rehabilitation system will not succeed if drugs continue to be illegal.  Drug abusers will hardly seek help from the same government that tosses them in jail for the same thing. While those that harm others certainly deserve the label ‘ex-convict,’ a student who shares a joint with their roommate in the privacy of the dorm room certainly does not. The hypocrisy of the drug war is apparent. All illegal drugs combined account for about 4,500 deaths in this country per year while tobacco is responsible for the deaths of 400,000 people annually and alcohol ends 80,000 people’s lives every year (Fu, 2006). Legislators will not ban smoking because they indicate regulation regarding what adults do in privacy including what they can put into their bodies is clearly unconstitutional and an infringement on personal liberties.  Everyone can differentiate the distinction between a person that takes in an occasional alcoholic beverage and one who commits crimes while drunk.  Why can’t this simplistic reasoning be applied to drug users? Our code of law is founded upon a principle of presumptive rationality.  Rational adults should be allowed to make personal choices as long as those actions cause no harm to others.  The U.S. government is unequivocally unjustified in choosing this particular personal freedom to ignore at such colossal cost to society (Fu, 2006). The results of the King/Mauer study indicated that at least half of the drug-related arrests taking place in the United States, at least half of them are made for marijuana possession by predominantly low-level users whose cases rarely result in felony conviction. Clearly, threat of imprisonment is not sufficient to keep citizens from partaking in the drug, nor is it effective in ensuring the drug is not available on the street. This complete lack of any kind of tolerance for the casual marijuana user and its effects on funding, relations with the populace and inability to accomplish its objective in the United States can be contrasted with the more relaxed legal structure adopted in other countries such as England and Holland. While marijuana remains illegal in the UK, it is no longer mandatory that casual users of the drug must be arrested when caught. Instead, arrest can be detained until exacerbating circumstances arise, such as the use of the drug in the presence of minors. This move was made, according to Home Secretary David Blunkett, “to free up police resources to fight hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine” (King & Mauer, 2005). The costs of prohibition go far beyond the mere funding of legal authorities and transportation for search and seizures. Economists who are actively involved in the drug policy in some way found three key issues upon which a very general consensus could be found. “First, most economists found the current policy to be somewhat ineffective, very ineffective, or harmful. Second, most economists agree that the current policy should be changed. Third, most economists agree that the policy should be changed in the general direction of liberalization. Disagreement is generally based on the direction and degree of liberalization” (Thornton, 2002). Other costs include additional ‘drug-related’ crime that is the result of users attempting to gain enough money to fulfill their demand in response to artificially high prices thanks to the lack of supply. “Public health problems like HIV and Hepatitis C are all exacerbated by zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean needles” (Drug Policy Alliance, 2006). People who are at most casual users of drugs are arrested and incarcerated for mere possession charges, actions that do not take more drugs off the streets or encourage more people to stop using the drugs. At the same time, arresting possessors of drugs creates an encumbrance on society as tax dollars go to support these people no longer free to hold a job outside prison walls and bringing more children into the welfare system, contributing to their subsequent failure and dependence on society (“England.” 2006). “In the United States, drug use is illegal and the police hunt down drug users to throw them in prison. Four thousand people died from illegal drugs in the US last year and we now have more than 600,000 people in prison on drug charges” (Schaffer, 2006). By comparison, Liverpool’s heroin and cocaine addicts suffer few medical problems, are gainfully employed taxpayers who cause little additional crime and manage to raise healthy, well-adjusted children. Initial conceptions of the drug-crime relationship were drawn from studies of criminality that involved alcoholics and those addicted to narcotics. These studies substantiated the perception that violent crimes are associated more so with alcohol use, whereas other drug use is associated with crimes involving property in order to secure money for drugs (Nurco et al., 1984). Many studies that include drug related crime do not give weight to the fact that “a substantial proportion of inmates convicted of property crimes were under the influence of alcohol (in addition to another drug) at the time of the offense” (White/Gorman, 2000). These and other issues demonstrate the lack of complete and uniform definitions regarding drug-related crime. Future Success The entire basis behind drug prohibitions in the war on drugs is in limiting the supply. The premise holds that by limiting the supply so as to make it virtually impossible to acquire, the demand for such products will automatically dissolve. Prohibition strategies that focus on blocking the supply lines have proven to be ineffective. However, the efforts that have been expended have made bringing these substances into the country high risk ventures. The high risk enables distributors to charge more for their products based on the risk involved in delivery, which makes it an attractive proposition for organised crime. Those interested in working in the drug trade take risks not only in terms of running against the law, but also in terms of running against other criminally minded distributors, who are not regulated or controlled by any governing body and therefore have only themselves to answer to. The strategies involved by these individuals do not follow along the typical rules of conducting business. Instead, they rely on violence and corruption. Thanks to the laws restricting the flow of these substances, they also have access to practically unlimited funds that make it possible for them to purchase their way through the legal system. The most recent and most successful campaigns interestingly combine alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana as opposed to other types of drugs and tend to focus on a new slogan – “Be Under Your Own Influence” rather than the old “Just Say No” program of the 80s. “Strong fear appeals regarding alcohol and marijuana, we’ve learned over the years, are typically not effective with teens” (Slater, 2006). Decriminalisation is the answer but this term implies different meanings to different people. To some it means simply legalisation which takes the profit, thus the crime, out of the drug trade. When speaking of the decriminalization of drugs, prohibition policies should be examined to determine their costs in relation to benefits, and then compared with other options. Many citizens believe that the best combination of costs and benefit may look much the same as legalisation. Varying degrees of decriminalisation is often confused with total legalisation. Alcohol is legal, for example, but it is not legal to operate a car under its influence or to sell it to those less than 21 years of age. Conversely, people speak of cocaine and the opiates as illegal, but doctors prescribe these drugs every day (Nadelmann, 1990). Conclusion Although the issue of what to do about dangerous, possibly addicting drugs such as heroin and cocaine have long been issues within many countries, the approaches taken to stem the tide have had widely varying results. Particularly, the prohibition approach taken by countries such as the United States have led to an astronomical increase in the rates of crime and numbers of incarcerated individuals as a result while having little to no impact upon the actual availability and usage rates within the country’s borders. The statistics regarding the numbers of individuals currently using drugs at least as a recreational activity remain stable even as drug busts and numbers of people incarcerated for drug possession continue to rise, indicating greater quantities of drugs being smuggled into the country and greater degrees of organization within the crime syndicates that accomplish this. Rather than dissolving the demand for these substances, the attempted block on supplies not only fails to adequately block trafficking, but it leads to greater degrees of violence and corruption by ensuring this industry remains in the hands of criminals. References Drug Policy Alliance. (2006). “England.” Drug Policy Around the World. Retrieved September 26, 2007 from Fu, Edward. (March 8, 2006). “Should Drugs be Legalized?” Drug Policy News. Drug Policy Alliance. Retrieved September 26, 2007 from King, Ryan S. & Mauer, Marc. (May 2005). The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s. Washington D.C.: The Sentencing Project. Nadelmann, Ethan. (1990). “Should Some Illegal Drugs be Legalized?” Science and Technology. Vol. 6, pp. 43-46. Nurco, David N.; Shaffer, John C.; Ball, John C.; & Kinlock, Timothy W. (1984). “Trends in the Commission of Crime Among Narcotic Addicts Over Successive Periods of Addiction.” American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Vol. 10, pp. 481–89. Schaffer, Clifford A. (n.d.). “Basic Facts About the War on Drugs.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. Retrieved September 26, 2007 from Slater, Michael. (5 March 2006). “New Anti-Drug Program Shows ‘Phenomenal’ Success by Focusing on Positives.” Medical News Today. Sussex: MediLexicon International. “Thirty Years of America’s Drug War: A Chronology.” (2006). Frontline. New York: PBS. Retrieved September 26, 2007 from Thornton, Mark. (November 2002). “Prohibition vs. Legalization: Do Economists Reach a Conclusion on Drug Policy?” Paper presented to Southern Economic Association Convention. New Orleans, LA. White, Helene Raskin & Gorman, D.M. (2000). “Dynamics of the Drug-Crime Relationship.” The Nature of Crime: Continuity and Change. Washington D.C.: National Criminal Justice Reference Service, p. 196. Read More