We all know that the war on drugs is a complete failure. A quick recollection - despite more than $40 billion spent every year on the U.S. drug war and 500,000 people behind bars on drug related offenses, drugs are as available as ever. Actually every single domestic policy, which consists the word ''war'', from Nixon 's administration till now is as complete and embarrassing failure as the so called war on drugs. Criminalizing, only increases demand and abuse, DEA is simply useless and most of the people that go behind bars are all the wrong type of people. Imprisoning a local meth cook for 30 or 40 years, will not stop the drug trafficking. If the police hadn't caught him, his competition would. As Carlin once said, if you want to decrease the drug flow, execute every week a banker, who launders the drug money.
The war on drugs is nothing more, but a mindless slogan that ought to make people feel, as the government is actually doing something productive with their tax money. The war on drugs does not impact the drug related problems, it does not even address them properly. The only thing that the war on drugs does is law enforcement. If all those money (and drugs) that were spent on that war, were instead invested in education, prevention and treatment, trust me that war would've been a whole lot cheaper and effective.
And I can give you an example. Two actually.
Portugal celebrates 10 year anniversary of decriminalizing drugs. An idea, that most people connect with the most horrific scenarios out there: more addiction, more broken families and a crazy escalation of crime and violence. Bullshit! Portugal decriminalized all drugs 10 years ago and the results are in: decreased youth drug use, falling overdose and HIV/AIDS rates, less crime, reduced criminal justice expenditures, greater access to drug treatment, and safer and healthier communities.In 2001, the Portuguese government decriminalized the possession of small amounts of all illicit substances. Having small amounts of drugs is no longer a criminal offense, it's still against the rules, but it won't get you thrown in jail. The punishment for sales and trafficking of illicit substances are still treated as criminal offenses, but not possession of personal doses.
People caught in possession are ordered to appear at a “dissuasion commission,” - an administrative panel that operates outside of the criminal justice system. The panel, with two health practitioners and one legal practitioner, examines the individuals circumstances and determines whether to make treatment referrals, issue fines or impose other non-criminal penalties.
Decriminalization helped reduce the stigma around drug use and made drug use less politically difficult to talk about. It encouraged better collaboration between law enforcement and service providers, and allowed law enforcement to focus on large-scale traffickers, rather than drug users or addicts.
Let's talk about an alternative!
On the other hand, there is Switzerland. Europe's most conservative country. They did not decriminalized illegal drugs, but they found a way around the problems that heroin addiction was causing the society. Switzerland legalized 100% pure heroin for those addicted to opiates. You enroll in the program, that is governmentally funded (so you don't pay for your fix) and a group of doctors, determine your medical condition and the necessary dose. An addict goes to the pharmacy two times a day, gets his dose in a safe and clean medical environment and then walks out. Why paying for such thing? Well, few reasons actually. Getting pure and high quality heroin for free, will lead to massive decrease of illegal trade, drug related deaths (OD, mixed dope etc.), drug related crimes and hep C, HIV/AIDS. Also heroin assisted treatment, shows much better results in supporting patients physical health. So when an addict decides to get treatment, it would be much less physically demanding to get off heroin, rather than one of the other governmentally approved legal substances such as methadone or buprenorphines.
Do you still think the war on drugs is any good?