Essay On War On Drugs

We the United States of America are at war. A war on drugs that we are losing, and have been battling for over a century. Violent crimes and neglected children are only the start of where our our courts, hospitals, and prisons are filled. Our government has spent billions of dollars trying to eradicate the drug supply. In all reality the war on drugs has expelled a terrible downturn, economically, socially, with prisons, and fighting the war in general.
Currently war on drugs has had terrible effects on today's society, not only economically but socially. This war has been fought for 50 years, without decreasing the drug supply and use. The war on drugs is giving the developing opportunity to the world's largest illegal commodities market.
Almost one in five inmates in state prisons and half of those in federal prisons are serving time for drug offenses. In 2010, 1.64 million people were arrested for drug violations. Four out of five arrests were for possession. Nearly half were for possession of often-tiny amounts of marijuana (“The War on Drugs”). Harry Levine, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York, said “Processing each of the roughly 85,000 arrests for drug misdemeanors in New York City last year cost the city $1,500 to $2,000.” That is just the cost to the budget. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, mostly black and poor, are unable to get a job, a credit card or even an apartment to rent because of the lasting stigma of a criminal record for carrying an ounce of marijuana (“The Economics Behind”). Cracking down hard on drug users may sound great on the stump, but in reality it isn’t that easy. This is a predictable result for economists and business people. Shortening the supply of products for which there is a high demand for increases their price. This creates a profit motive for the bad guy to show up in the trade. The prices get inflated and reflect both risky suppliers and general profits (“The Rule of