Should We Really Be Waging A ‘War’ On Drugs?

(This was my final English Assignment so the grammer's actually good :P)

It seems the Federal Government has declared war on just about everything: The War on Poverty, the War on Terror, the War on Bulging Waistlines (well not really but at our growing rate of obesity it’s coming), and the War on Drugs. I will focus on the Drug ‘War’ in this paper and explore the consequences of this public policy and its whether or not it actually works. I will try to show how making what should be a personal and moral choice into a criminal act does not solve any problems but actually causes more.

Government restrictions on substance usage began with alcohol and we can study the effects of this case to understand our current situations. From 1919 to 1933, the United States prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages—the reasons mainly being driven by religious groups who wished to rid society of the ills of alcohol consumption. However, unlike the current laws against drug use, a Constitutional Amendment had to be passed for this law to take effect. This means that first two-thirds of the Congress must approve of the bill and then it sent to the states for voting. From there it requires three-fourths of the states approval for the bill to pass—neither a short nor easy process. Once the amendment passed in 1919, its damaging effects became evident quickly.

Before Prohibition, Mafias limited themselves to gambling and petty thievery. Once the new law took effect, new business opportunities presented themselves to the groups and organized crime became a national problem. Crime lords such as Al Capone controlled entire cities using the vast profits from illegal sales of alcohol to control both political leaders and the police. High rates of violence plagued cities these crime lords ruled and most citizens participated in the illegal practice of drinking at speakeasies. This mirrors exactly the situation we see now in countries such as Mexico and Columbia where the drug cartels control entire regions of the countries. They use the enormous profits from the drug trade to buy large amounts of weapons and also to control the local government agencies. These large profits come directly from the illegality of the drugs.

By making a substance illegal you immediately create a black market for the good. Since participants have to deal outside of the rule of law there exist no regulation in these black markets. Dealers start producing higher potency drugs so that smaller portions can be used since they conceal easier. During Prohibition the popularity of stronger potency drinks increased dramatically. Spirits such as "White Mule Whiskey" and “Moonshine” allowed drinkers to become inebriated much quicker and cheaper than regular alcoholic beverages such as beer or wine. Today, dealers sell these extremely potent forms of drugs since buyers do not have to buy as much and dealers can carry less. Users then risk the hazard of overdose and greater addiction from these higher, more dangerous doses.

Legalizing drugs would produce immediate differences. Instead of back-alley dealers and violent cartels controlling the supply of drugs, private business would begin to enter the industry and provide competition. This competition would drive the prices of drugs down and eliminate the monopoly profits the drug cartels enjoy now and also eliminate most of the violence associated with the drug trade. People would then have a choice to continue buying from the violent, unsafe dealers or from local businesses in actual stores. These legal companies would provide “safer” types of drugs in terms of potency and quality to users as compared to the current forms of drugs available. Since drugs would be legal, people would have the full protection of the law when they dealt with companies and outside agencies could review them to ensure they provide “safer” drugs to users. The current illegality of drugs makes these types of market securities impossible since all drug providers have to work outside legal markets and laws.

However, many will argue such a policy (or more correctly, lack of policy) does not address the issue of actual drug use and government intervention must be used. Using history and empirical evidence, the case for drug laws seems impressively weak when compared to non-government involvement. Take the example of cigarette smoking over the past century. Before any medical studies dealt with the effects of smoking, a majority of American’s smoked. Since then however, studies done revealed the damaging long-term effects of smoking and educated the public. The smoking rate decreased from over 50% to roughly around 25% today. This dramatic decrease happened without the intervention of government, but rather due to the increase in public knowledge and allowing individuals to make personal choices about their living habits.

By not letting an individual choose how they treat their body you eliminate the only truly effective method of changing a person’s habit—their own free choice. Instead of spending money enforcing laws against personal choice, we should use those billions for educational programs that will allow a person to possess full knowledge of their actions and make a personal choice about their habits. People will always resist force aimed against preventing them from making personal choices and we should recognize that the Drug ‘War’ will not change minds but only further keep people from changing their lives for the better. It takes the moral issue of drug use and places on it the excessive burden of illegality.

The country of Portugal provides a perfect case study into the changing views on the ‘War’ on drugs since they decided in 2001 to decriminalize all drugs. To clarify, “decriminalize” does not mean “legalize”, drugs are still illegal to use and traffic but instead of jail time for use, drug users only face administrative fines. The drug usage in Portugal grew steady worse so that in 1998 the government hired a committee of experts to find the most effective way to deal with the problem. The committee concluded the best option would be to remove the criminal aspect of taking drugs and reduce the penalties to mere fines. In a report done about this policy change, it states that “Since decriminalization, life-time prevalence rates (which measure how many people have consumed a particular drug or drugs over the course of their lifetime) in Portugal have decreased for various age groups.” Contrary to fears that Portugal would become a drug haven for users the world over, 95% of the drug takers fined are Portuguese, showing no change from before the policy. Many other countries such as Spain and Germany have incorporated aspects of drug decimalization within their laws to help deal with their own drug problems.

Removing the stigma of being convicted of a criminal offense is a major reason for the effectiveness of this policy. Those who have drug problems no longer fear the penalty of jail and can seek medical help without fear. As the report states, “Portuguese decriminalization was never seen as a concession to the inevitability of drug abuse. To the contrary, it was, and is, seen as the most effective government policy for reducing addiction and its accompanying harms.” The government policy of criminalization prevented people from receiving help—a problem that went away once the harsh penalties disappeared. These real results, evident in the example of Portugal, can be achieved when we treat drug use not as a criminal act, but as a personal choice that should be addressed as a moral issue.

The current Drug ‘War’ waged by the American government needs to be majorly reanalyzed and rethought. According to recent studies by Harvard, the total cost of the ‘War’ ranges around $77 Billion and grows each year. By criminalizing drugs the government only creates violence in the forms of gangs and cartels, extremely high enforcement costs, and does nothing to address the moral issues of such choices. Countries such as Portugal should serve as leading examples of the beneficial effects decriminalizing has on actually reducing drug use. However, I feel the government thinks it can actually regulate personal behavior effectively and to cannot abandon their ‘War’ do to the government’s apparent inability to shrink. The Drug ‘War’ allows the government to expand its military presence and increase its ever-growing control over our lives. It uses what seem to be “self-evident” laws to infringe on personal liberties and try to further control our lives. Regardless of all that, the government policies do not even work to effectively reduce drug use or violence but rather cause more. I believe it is time we look to other, proven options to deal with drug use and try to end this failing ‘War’.