FREE ESSAY ON DRUG PROHIBITION

DRUG PROHIBITION

Chris Searls
Public Policy
Drug Prohibition
Under the United States Constitution the federal government is charged with the
responsibilities to protect our individual, as well as collective, rights to life and
liberty. Often times this charge leads the various branches of the federal government to
create, implement, and enforce policy that is designed to protect society from itself.
Noble in it's ambition the result although not apparent initially, sometimes does more to
hinder the rights of the citizens it is attempting to protect, and/or the cost of doing
so becomes a higher price than that of the cost that is being avoided. In this case it is
necessary to re-evaluate the situation and explore any alternatives that may offer a more
fathomable solution concerning both protection of rights as well as the cost of so doing.

 Introduction
In the late 1980's the United States government made such policy and today the results
have done little to resolve the problem and have left the country closer to the danger it
sought to prevent. The policy is known as the " War on Drugs". Initially the drug
prohibition was, however idealistic, a valiant attempt to rid the country of this
terrible "enemy". The objectives were simple; to impose stiff penalties on those who use
drugs outlined to be illicit, quell all to trade and commerce of such substances, and
even to go as far to prevent countries with in our general border vicinity from producing
and exporting these substances. 
The illicit drug market, pre-drug war, is estimated to be a hundred billion dollar a year
business. The federal government, since the beginning the war of drug, spends
approximately ten billion dollars a year on drug enforcement agencies and programs, and
another estimated one hundred and ninety billion dollars a year on investigating drug
related crimes, prosecution of alleged drug activities, and enforcing punishments and/or
imprisonment. That adds up to be a staggering cost of two hundred billion dollars
($770.00 per person) to attempt to prevent one hundred billion dollars worth of illicit
drug use. (Evans and Berent) Another consequence of this questionable war lies in
Opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is defined as the cost of opportunity lost in pursuit
of another option. This cost analysis is relevant in the case of the drug prohibition
policy in that the resources use to implement the policy are limited, police and prisons.
The law enforcement used in this "war of drugs" has their time nearly monopolized by the
approximate thirty to forty million people yearly who purchase and use drugs. This
inherently leaving various law enforcement agencies with less ability to confront other
crimes. Then there is the problem of prisons. The space in the prisons is extremely
limited, and the cost of keeping a person in prison is astronomical in caparison to the
prevention being provided in reference to drug prohibition. The issue of limited prison
space gains significance greatly when you consider an estimated sixty-percent of prison
population is serving time on drug conviction. In 1994 some seven hundred and fifty
thousand people were arrested in drug related events. Of the seven hundred and fifty
thousand people arrested, six hundred thousand of them were charged with minor counts of
possession. (Wink) Other indicators that can be easily observed such as the rise in
illicit drug use by teens and children reported the Drug Enforcement Agency. In fact only
twenty-eight percent of teens used illicit drug compared to a whopping forty percent in
1996. (DEA/CDC) The misallocation of resources is totally exhausting and paralyzing the
entire legal system that could be better targeted on a more productive agenda. What does
the policy of drug prohibition actually encourage? The statistics show a rise in crimes
concerning personal property; drug abusers in hopes of supporting their drug habit
committed seventy-five percent of all property crimes such as burglary and robbery.
Studies have shown that out patient drug programs or programs that offered drugs for a
lower cost drastically reduced the amount of crimes committed. (Duke) As of 1992 an
estimated sixty million people have tried and or used marijuana and there has yet to be
one recorded death attributed to overdose. While it is estimated that ten thousand people
die from overdose of alcohol annually. This would lead one to acknowledge that maybe our
opinion drugs may be based in fear and social standard rather than in solid facts.
 The Goal
The optimal goal of any policy is to protect our rights while encouraging all the ideals
of the society. The problem occurs in the fact that is fairly impossible to regulate
individual contributions (positive or negative) to the nation in any broad legislative
sense. To more accurately explain the complexity of the issue of drug prohibition it is
pertinent to understand the difference of positive and negative liberty. Positive liberty
is a liberty that forces the government to provide a service to its' citizens such as
maintaining a military or a national treasury. A negative liberty is the type of liberty
we most often refer, such as our first amendment rights. Negative liberties prevent the
federal government from interfering with certain rights for example freedom of speech and
freedom of press. Drug Prohibition is most closely classified as a positive liberty
because it forces the government to provide services to create and enforce a drug free
America. The difference between the two types of liberties is significant. Positive
liberty calls for the federal government to fulfill a more substantial role in individual
lives thus it is believed for that reason the federal government should not give itself
too many liberties of this type. (Peterson) Finally one must step back and objectively
ask, "should we retain our current policy stance concerning illicit drugs, or is the
current drug prohibition policy ineffective and counter productive?" United States Judge
William W. Schwarzer once said, "...ending drug use is useless if in the process we lose
our soul".
 Evaluation 
The first step in changing a policy is to evaluate it effects both positive and negative.
To begin to evaluate a policy, one must be able to define the parameters of the policy
being examined. The parameters of the drug prohibition policy that will be investigated
are the Untied States prohibition of drugs christened the war on drugs of 1989. This will
include examining the effects this policy has had on society, on personal rights, the
cost of implementation (monetarily and other wise), and of course the success and/or
failure of drug prohibition policy. 
 The Policy
United States President George Bush officially began his war on drugs in September 5,
1989. President Bush gave the first prime time address of his presidency, on which he
delineated the federal government's scheme for eradicating drug use. This plan would call
for a nearly eight billion dollar budget from Congress, which added over two billion
dollars to over the previous year's budget. Of the nearly eight billion that Bush asked
Congress to allocate, the plan outlined that seventy percent would go to law enforcement,
which also included a billion and a half for jails. However, his proposal only allocated
thirty percent to prevention, education, and treatment. The Bush administration sought to
focus the brunt of his anti- drug campaign in the United States, which, to Bush, meant
attacking and arresting the drug user, rather than focusing on prevention, education and
treatment, or interdiction. Since the federal government has very limited police
resources, it would have to enlist the combined cooperation of the states to achieve
success. States that did not comply with the Bush plan would be penalized with a
reduction in funding from the federal government. (Treaster)
 Effects on Society
The effects on society are not miniscule like the government would have you believe.
Crime has risen exponentially since the 1989 when the "war of drugs" was first
introduced. In the early 1900's before the prohibition of so called illicit drugs heroin
and aspirin both were sold at about the same price. In contrast today the price of heroin
has sky rocketed to a price of fifty dollars per gram compared to a mere twenty cents per
gram, the cost of aspirin. (Cundruff) This type of surge in price of illicit drugs have
not reduced the need of users to consume various illicit drugs, but has in turn encourage
them to rob, steal, and kill for them. Today there is approximately 1.7 million people
imprisoned and our murder rate is close to twelve per one hundred thousand people. That
is highest rate of imprisonment and one of the highest murder rates in the world. These
are significant numbers considering that sixty percent of the prison population has been
jailed due to drug violations. In the 1980's casual drug use was mainly in the middle and
upper-classes. Around 1985 that rate dropped a staggering twenty-two percent among the
two classes, but rose exponentially in the poorer class. The invention of drugs such as
crack cocaine, a cheaper version, began to race through the streets of the poor
neighborhoods. The sudden influx of cheaper drugs led to creation of drug cartels, a rise
of the number of gangs, and a contributed greatly to the general further destruction of
inter- city sub divisions. The rise in gangs and drug-lords, that recruit people from as
early as childhood, tempt them into the high yield world of drug sales, promising them a
high level of living. These circumstances then encourage children and teenagers in these
poor neighborhoods to neglect or totally drop out of school, which leaves a mass group of
people uneducated, unskilled, and committing crime. All of these factors only precede
poorer communities 
 Personal Rights
Prohibition at its' root is an assault on the rights of the citizens on which it is
inflicted. The 'war on drugs' is no exception. At the most basic of these rights are our
inalienable rights to life and liberty.