Narcotic Criminalization

The world of narcotics and addiction is an ever-growing expanse of war and death. With the Vietnam war starting a wide spread shock wave of addiction. The most commonly used drugs during this time were morphine, heroin, and marijuana. Danielle Allen, a journalist for the Washington Post, recalls how the United States dealt with tobacco,”By 1971, cigarette ads had been banned from radio and television, the surgeon general had called for regulation of tobacco, and cigarette smoking had begun its long decline.” It was an attempt that could have been applied to other harder drugs, but instead the United States took a different path. In 1973 the Rockefeller Drug Laws were passed by New York legislature starting a snowball effect of narcotic criminalization(We
already know how to win the war on drugs). The CDC states that, 8,200 people were killed by heroin overdoses in 2013 alone (Bennett and Walters).
This is just a start to a greater problem in other states. Bennett and Walters, journalists for the Boston Globe, state, “Heroin and other drugs in New Hampshire now kill more people than traffic accidents.” To solve this problem we have to look at both sides of the situation. On one hand using medication to help small groups of people is less effective than treating the source of the problem, yet on the other side giving addicts a safe and nurturing way towards a sober life could equate to a happier populous. Now with the unofficial end of the war on drugs here are the numbers. Allen states that, “the daily use of marijuana by 12th-graders was at 6 percent in 1975; In 2014, it was 5.8 percent(We already know how to win the war on drugs).” The numbers for heroin have shown the same trend with 1 percent of high school seniors using it in the year of 1975 that number then rose to 1.5 in 2000(We already know how to win the war on drugs). Allen then tells that, “In 2014 it was down to 0.6 percent, but it may be climbing again(We already know how to win the war on
drugs).” Along side the stagnant numbers of teen drug use came increased crime rates. These said crimes include Homicides, and possession of illegal substances. Here in lies the problem of non violent offenders making up the majority of the prison population for a majority of the united states. This leads to overcrowding causing prison staff being outnumbered more than they should. This makes it harder for criminals that have committed other crimes such as homicide to have their cases cleared giving them more time to run free on the street(How Drug Laws Spur Violence). Another problem is with a large influx of court cases causes prosecutors to only want open-and-shut cases(How Drug Laws Spur Violence). With that comes racial profiling. The NAACP states that, “African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population(Criminal Justice Fact Sheet).” So, the question keeps getting asked, if the war on drugs is so ineffective for the amount of money being used what can be changed.
This is where the decriminalization and harm reduction come into play. In Switzerland drugs ran rampant and street crime as well as the HIV virus prospered(Nebehay). But the Swiss took a different approach instead of putting addicts behind bars they gave them a safe haven(Nebehay). To slash the HIV rates the safe areas gave out the purest form of the drug an addict was addicted to also giving them clean needles. Doing this along with giving out paths to jobs and normal successful lives to the addicts caused drug related crimes to plummet along with the HIV death rates. The problem is that many countries such as the US and Russia are very reluctant to change their policies. With Stephanie Nebehay, a writer for reuters.com, quoting ”Dr. Michel Kazatchkine, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria...[tells]’Russia is totally closed to the idea, it is impossible to open a
dialogue.’” This information shows that the path taken by the US was not successful by any definition of the term. Also, data shows that if Nixon took the quite unpopular route of harm reduction the world might have looked very different today. If the US were to put harm reduction into practice other countries would need to follow, but that seems unlikely given how invested countries are in the drug laws that are in place.