War On Drugs: Is It Working?

The war on drugs that was implemented by Richard Nixon has had the entire United States looking for change in the drugs the come into our country. The war on drugs has spent over one trillion dollars to supposedly get rid of drugs in our country but has it really helped at all. The addiction rate in the United States has help steady at around one point three percent since 1970 and there really hasn’t been an change since they war began. This makes you wonder if we are really winning this “war” on drugs.

With minimum sentencing and other laws that have been implemented since this war began, we have tripled the population of nonviolent drug offenders in our correctional faculties. This mean the taxpayer are paying more to keep these offenders behind bars. It cost around thirty thousand dollars a year to house a inmate in a prison but the average cost to used to educate a school child each year is just over eleven thousand. Why are we spending more on a criminal and not the child? This is one of the many things that has arisen because of the failure of the war on drugs.

It is wrong what these people are doing but most can’t help it because addiction is hard to break and putting someone in jail doesn’t help them break the habit. We need to look more into programs and other alternatives to prison to help these people stay out of trouble. Places like rehabilitation facilities and invest the money we spend on the war on drugs on these facilities. Put it into healthcare to help these people stay off of drugs and this will keep them out of the criminal justice system. We need to take the money we spend on the war on drugs and put it somewhere where it would help and not hurt these people.

Prohibition didn’t help lower crime or stop the use of the alcohol but it made it worst. I’m not saying we should legalize all drugs but we need to take a look at the bigger picture and see where we can have reform on the war. How can we help these people and not punish them for their vices. We are losing this war and we need to take a stand on the reform that needs to be in place to help drug offenders get the help they need and not discriminate against them.