40 Years of Drug War Failure

Quote :

by James W. Harris

"After 40 years, the United States' War on Drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread. Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked."

So declares Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza in a blistering May 14 critique of the War on Drugs. The title sums it up: "US drug war has met none of its goals."

The entire article is well worth reading. The following is an excerpt:

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP [Associated Press] tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

* $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico -- and the violence along with it.

* $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

* $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

* $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

* $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse -- "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" -- cost the United States $215 billion a year.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.

"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."

The parts in bold and underlined were by me.

Lets be honest, the majority of drugs consumed within the united states are not produced here, IF we were serious about winning a war on drugs that money should have been spent on fences on the Mexican border.

Everyone bitches about genetic engineering, but if we could create Dogs with Bees in Their Mouths so When They Bark They Shoot Bees at You, we wouldn't need no stinking fence.

hyperduc wrote:

Everyone bitches about genetic engineering, but if we could create Dogs with Bees in Their Mouths so When They Bark They Shoot Bees at You, we wouldn't need no stinking fence.

Where do you come up with this stuff, I love it!!

shotgunwill wrote:

Where do you come up with this stuff, I love it!!

That was an ancient Simpsons quote, but I found it to be a reasonable and humane solution to the problem.