War On Drugs A Losing Battle Essay free essay sample

War On Drugs: A Losing Battle? Essay, Research Paper In 1968, when American soldiers came place from the Vietnam War addicted to heroin, President Richard Nixon initiated the War on Drugs. More than a decennary subsequently, President Ronald Reagan launches the South Florida Drug Task force, headed by so Vice-President George Bush, in response to the metropolis of Miami? s demand for aid. In 1981, Miami was the fiscal and import cardinal for cocaine and marihuana, and the occupants were fed up. Thankss to the undertaking force, drug apprehensions went up by 27 % , and drug ictuss went up by 50 % . With that, the demand for prosecuting officers and Judgess besides rose. Despite these increased apprehensions and ictuss, marihuanas and cocaine still poured into south Florida. At this phase, the root of the job, the Colombian Cartels, was non attacked. The DEA shortly realized that they needed to check down on the trusts. In 1982 the DEA went to Colombia to eliminate Fieldss of marihuana and coca workss. These Fieldss were located and burned. The difficult portion now, was happening the labs used to turn the coca leaves into cocaine. These labs were in really distant locations, to avoid surveillance. The DEA suspected that the cocaine labs were really big, but the Colombians kept evading them. Finally the DEA was able to track down the chemicals used in the processing of cocaine to one of the labs, and the DEA scored their first major flop. On March 10, 1984 12 dozenss of cocaine were seized from a really distant lab. The DEA thinks they made an impact, but surprisingly the cocaine handiness on American streets remained the same. The DEA is shocked, and realizes merely how large the drug job in the United States was. Because the Cartel leaders had money, they besides began to get power. The traders run for political office and win. Drug dollars poured into Colombia, edifice metropoliss. The United States respond to the rise in the drug Godheads? power by coercing Colombia to deliver narcotics sellers to the U.S. The Colombians, who want no Colombians in American Jails, oppose this. The drug traders both respected and feared extradition, and recognized the menace. When the Colombian Justice Minister openly supported extradition, he was assassinated. Still, the U.S. pressures the extradition issue. In 1985, anti-Government Guerillas, chiefly composed of the drug traders, attack the Colombian Supreme Court. The extradition petitions were destroyed, and eleven Supreme Court Justices were killed. In entire, over 200 people lost their lives. At this point, the drug Godheads are utilizing terrorist act to coerce the Colombian authorities to endorse off the extradition issue. During the 1980s, it appeared that Central America was awash in drugs, and drug money. The force continues today, through drug related pack force, to bodge drug foraies. Drug traders frequently carry arms, some illegal, to support themselves and their drugs. The drugs themselves do non do force ; it is the fact that they are illegal that causes the force. If two drug traders have a difference, they have no legal manner for it to be settled. The lone option for them is force. At this clip, the Parent? s Movement is concentrating its attendings on marihuana and kids. Nancy Reagan makes her celebrated Just say No! address and President Reagan makes marijuana a top precedence. Upon analyzing the relationship between marihuana usage and violent offense, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse concluded, Rather than bring oning violent or aggressive behaviour through its purported effects of take downing suppressions, weakening impulse control and rising aggressive inclinations, marijuana was normally found to suppress the look of aggressive urges by lenifying the user, interfering with muscular coordination, cut downing psychomotor activities and by and large bring forthing provinces of sleepiness lassitude, timidness and passiveness. When besides analyzing the medical affects of marihuana usage, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse concluded, A careful hunt of the literature and testimony of the state? s wellness functionaries has non revealed a individual human human death in the United States proven to hold resulted entirely from consumption of marijuana. Experiments with the drug in monkeys demonstrated that the dosage required for overdose decease was tremendous and for all practical intents unattainable by worlds smoking marijuana. This is in pronounced contrast to other substances in common usage, most notably intoxicant and barbiturate sleeping pills. The World Health Organization reached the same decision in 1995. The World Health Organization released a survey in March 1998 stating: there are good grounds for stating that [ the hazards from hemp ] would be improbable to earnestly [ comparison to ] the public wellness hazards of intoxicant and baccy even if every bit many people used hemp as now drink intoxicant or fume baccy. Marijuana was seen as a gateway to other drugs, giving birth to the Gateway Theory. Unfortunately, the Gateway Theory is flawed in many ways. In 1937 Harry Anslinger, so caput of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics testified before Congress, stating that there was no connexion between the usage of marihuana and the usage of harder drugs, and in fact, the users of different drugs typically did non tie in with one another. It besides does non look logical that the usage of one drug would do a craving for another drug, neer used earlier. Many drug users say that the first drugs they of all time used were the two socially sanctioned drugs, intoxicant and baccy. These drugs are both harmful and legal. In March 1999, the Institute of Medicine issued a study on assorted facets of marihuana, including the alleged, Gateway Theory ( the theory that utilizing marijuana leads people to utilize harder drugs like cocaine and diacetylmorphine ) . The IOM stated, There is no conclusive grounds that the drug effects of marihuanas are causally linked to the subsequent maltreatment of other illicit drugs. The Institute of Medicine? s 1999 study on marihuanas explained that marihuana has been mistaken for a gateway drug in the yesteryear because Patterns in patterned advance of drug usage from adolescence to maturity are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marihuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marihuanas foremost. In fact, most drug users begin with intoxicant and nicotine before marihuanas, normally before they are of legal age. The 1999 federal National Household Survey of Drug Abuse provides an estimation of the age of first usage of drugs. Harmonizing to the Household Survey, the average age of first usage of marihuana in the US in 1997 was 17.2 old ages. The average age of first usage of intoxicant in that twelvemonth, on the other manus, was 16.1 old ages, and the average age of first usage of coffin nails was 15.4 old ages old. The same study studies, The rate of past month illicit drug usage among young persons was higher among those that were presently utilizing coffin nails or intoxicant, compared with young persons non utilizing coffin nails or intoxicant. In 1999, 5.6 per centum of young person nonsmokers used illicit drugs, while among young persons who used coffin nails, the rate of past month illicit drug usage was 41.1 per centum. The rate of illicit drug usage was besides associated with the degree of intoxicant usage. Among young persons that were heavy drinkers in 1999, 66.7 per centum were besides current illicit drug users. Among abstainers, merely 5.5 per centum were current illicit drug users. Over 72 million Americans have used marihuana, yet for every 120 people who have of all time tried marihuana, there is merely one active, regular user of cocaine. Marijuana is besides thought by many people to hold medicative belongingss, and people do utilize it for medical specialty. However, marijuana is illegal, turning the people who use it as medical specialty into felons. In malice of the established medical value of marihuana, physicians are soon permitted to order cocaine and morphia # 8211 ; but non marihuanas. In the 1970s, hemp was re-discovered as a medical substance. Controlled surveies have revealed its curative public-service corporation in the intervention of malignant neoplastic disease chemotherapy side effects, glaucoma, and spasticity complaints. Federal ordinances continue to do research with the drug really hard, nevertheless, and many assuring countries of curative application have received small or no attending. These include: asthma, AIDS, epilepsy, analgetic action, tumour deceleration, nervous upsets, glaucoma and mental unwellness. The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, intended to forbid marihuanas? s societal usage, was most effectual in forbiding medical usage of the drug. Rigorous ordinances regulating cultivation of the works made its production impractical. New man-made drugs caught the illusion of doctors and marihuana was used less often, Finally, in 1942, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics convinced the U. S. Pharmacopeia to take the drug from its listing. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 established five classs, or agendas, into which illicit and prescription drugs were placed. Marijuana was placed in Schedule I, which defines the substance as holding a high potency for maltreatment, no presently accepted medical usage in the United States, and a deficiency of recognized safety for usage under medical supervising. To contrast, over 90 published studies and surveies have shown marihuana has medical efficaciousness. The DEA? s Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young concluded: In rigorous medical footings marihuana is far safer than many nutrients we normally consume. For illustration, eating 10 natural murphies can ensue in a toxic response. By comparing, it is physically impossible to eat adequate marihuana to bring on decease. Marijuana in its natural signifier is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to adult male. By any step of rational analysis, marihuana can be safely used within the supervised modus operandi of medical attention. The most profound militant for marihuana? s usage as a medical specialty is Dr. Lester Grinspoon, writer of Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine. Harmonizing to Grinspoon, The lone well-confirmed negative consequence of marihuana is caused by the fume, which contains three times more pitchs and five times more C monoxide than baccy. Nevertheless, even the heaviest marihuana tobacco users seldom use every bit much as an mean baccy tobacco user. And, of class, many prefer to eat it. His book includes personal histories of how prescribed marihuana alleviated epilepsy, weight loss of AIDSs, sickness of chemotherapy, catamenial strivings, and the terrible effects of multiple induration. The unwellness with the most certification and harmoniousness among physicians which marijuana has successfully treated is MS. Grinspoon believes for MS sick persons, Cannabis is the drug of necessity. One patient of his, 51 twelvemonth old Elizabeth MacRory, says It has wholly changed my life # 8230 ; It has helped with musculus cramps, allowed me to kip decently, and helped command my vesica. Marijuana besides proved to be effectual in the intervention of glaucoma because its usage lowers force per unit area on the oculus. Glaucoma is an oculus disease that afflicts more than four million Americans and is the taking cause of sightlessness in the United States. Harmonizing to the National Society for Prevention of Blindness, there are 178,000 new instances of glaucoma diagnosed each twelvemonth. Glaucoma can strike people of all ages but is most frequently found among those over 65. The most common signifier of glaucoma is chronic or open-angle glaucoma. It is characterized by increased force per unit area within the oculus ( intraocular force per unit area or IOP ) which can do harm to the ocular nervus if non controlled efficaciously. Other types of glaucoma include narrow-angle and secondary. Treatment of narrow-angle glaucoma is chiefly surgical. In about 90 % of the open-angle and secondary glaucoma topical ( eye-drop ) , readyings along with some unwritten medicines can efficaciously command the disease, but at least 10 % of all instances fail to be wholly controlled by available normative drugs. In some cases, available glaucoma medicines can do side effects such as concerns, kidney rocks, combustion of the eyes, blurred vision, cardiac arrhythmias, insomnia, and nervous anxiousness. These side effects may go so terrible that the patient must stop usage. Scientists have been working to develop a marihuana eye-drop for several old ages. Until late, they concentrated on delta-9-THC, marihuana? s psychotropic ingredient. Some research workers, nevertheless, have begun to inquire if other components in the hemp works might be more effectual in cut downing IOP. The few glaucoma patients who have continued, legal entree to marijuana long pillow this theory. In these instances, man-made THC is merely effectual for a short period of clip. Natural marihuana, nevertheless, systematically lowers IOP. Marijuana is the best natural expectorator to unclutter the human lungs of smog, dust and the emotionlessness associated with baccy usage. Marijuana fume is a natural bronchial dilator, efficaciously distending the air passages of the lungs, the bronchial tube, opening them to let more O into the lungs. That makes marijuana the best overall bronchial dilator for 80 % of the population ( the staying 20 % sometimes show minor negative reactions. ) Statistical grounds # 8211 ; demoing up systematically as anomalousnesss in matched populations # 8211 ; indicates that people who smoke baccy coffin nails are normally better off and will populate longer if they smoke hemps reasonably, excessively. Dr. Donald Tashkin, UCLA Pulmonary Studies, stated, Taking a hit of marihuana has been known to halt a full blown asthma onslaught. On September 6, 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration? s Chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, ruled: Marijuana, in its natural signifier, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known # 8230 ; . [ T ] he commissariats of the [ Controlled Substances ] Act license and necessitate the transportation of marihuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and freakish for the DEA to go on to stand between those sick persons and the benefits of this substance. The Institute of Medicine? s 1999 study on medical marihuanas summarized the medical value of marihuanas stating: The accrued information suggest a assortment of indicants, peculiarly for hurting alleviation, antiemesis, and appetite stimulation. For patients, such as those with AIDS or undergoing chemotherapy, who suffer at the same time from terrible hurting, sickness, and appetite loss, cannabinoid drugs might therefore offer wide spectrum alleviation non found in any other individual medicine. The informations are weaker for musculus spasticity, but reasonably promising. The least promising classs are motion upsets, epilepsy, and glaucoma. Animal informations are reasonably supportive of a possible for cannabinoids in the intervention of motion upsets and might finally give stronger encouragement. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey? s averment in his Scripps-Howard News Service column that no clinical grounds demonstrates that smoke-cured marihuana is good medical specialty, is inconsistent with the facts. Whether this is an knowing misrepresentation, as portion of the federal authorities? s stated public dealingss offensive against medical marihuana, or whether it is based on ignorance does non count. The world is General McCaffrey? s statements are non consistent with the facts. In the early 1980s the DEA focal point was chiefly cocaine and marihuana. However, a new job was on the rise, cleft. Crack was distributed to the U.S. through the Bahamas. The Bahamas were ideal because of the islands and waterways, and the fact that Florida was merely 90 proceedingss by air. At this point the drug runners have the advantage over the DEA. The runners were ever merely a few stairss in front of the jurisprudence. T he DEA tried utilizing choppers to catch the runners? boats, but by the clip the choppers got near adequate to do the grab ; they would hold to turn back because they were close to running out of gas. The DEA was seen as a Canis familiaris seeking to catch coneies ; the Canis familiaris would catch one or two, but most of the clip the coneies get off. Crack truly began as a job in Harlem, New York. The spread of cleft moved like fire through dry coppice in the New York Tri-State country. This drug hit the Black and Latino communities the hardest. Crack became more popular in interior metropoliss because it was inexpensive compared to cocaine. Cocaine was seen as a drug for the rich, and cleft was for the hapless. Crack was besides more habit-forming than cocaine, since smoking it made it more concentrated. Before the oncoming of cleft, adult females were non statistically nuts. When adult females started utilizing cleft, it brought about a entire decomposition of the household. Babies born to female parents who used cleft were addicted themselves. Heroin has been an abused drug since it? s construct in the late 19th century as a patent medical specialty. Today there are interventions available to heroin nuts, nevertheless users are still stigmatized and because of that stigma of being a drug addict , many do non seek aid. The wellness jobs brought on by utilizing diacetylmorphines are normally associated with the usage of acerate leafs. Hepatitis C and HIV are two of the biggest heath jobs that IV diacetylmorphine users face. Users that snort heroin or smoke it ( referred to as trailing the firedrake ) have really few of these jobs. There are different sentiments on how to halt America? s drug job. Two of those sentiments are instruction and intervention, and prison. D.A.R.E. is a popular instruction tool for learning kids how to avoid the elusive force per unit area to make drugs, and how to pull off emphasis and struggle without drugs and force. D.A.R.E. is really popular, and one of the grounds is because it puts the local constabulary in the good cat place. Having a policeman semen into a schoolroom can be an effectual manner to learn of import endurance accomplishments, such as traffic regulations, and bike safely, and defying marauding aliens. In recent old ages, newspapers have published several histories where kids credited D.A.R.E. with assisting them queer an improper attack by a alien. D.A.R.E. is particularly popular among the kids themselves. Most D.A.R.E. officers are friendly, amiable officers, and develop good resonance with the childs, who are charmed by narratives of escapade in jurisprudence enforcement. Police sections like D.A.R.E. because it provides extra gross and a utile chance to prosecute in community dealingss. D.A.R .E. officers are often personable, attractive officers who make an first-class feeling on kids and show a positive image of constabulary in general. However, informal studies have found that D.A.R.E. is no more effectual than any other drug instruction plan. The D.A.R.E. plan? s limited consequence on adolescent drug usage contrasts with the plan? s popularity and prevalence. An of import deduction is that D.A.R.E. could be taking the topographic point of other, more good drug instruction plans that childs could be having. Because of trying to forestall all drug experimentation and/or usage, D.A.R.E. ? s aims are non merely unrealistic but besides possible counter-productive because they are evidently unachievable. As an illustration, some surveies have shown that striplings who have experimented with illicit drugs ( particularly marijuana ) are better adjusted than either ascetics or frequent users and were more socially skilled with higher degrees of self-pride than ascetics. Some people say that drug dependence is a disease, and nuts should be treated as people necessitating medical aid. Whatever conditions may take to opiate exposure, opiate dependance is a brain-related upset with the needed features of a medical unwellness. There are a few different methods of intervention, but for the interest of simpleness, this paper will cover dolophine hydrochloride and narcotic adversaries. Methadone is a man-made narcotic anodyne that was developed in Germany during World War II due to the deficiency of opiate based hurting medicine. Methadone prevents often-excruciating backdown symptoms, yet blocks the enjoyable effects of diacetylmorphine. For a diacetylmorphine nut, he is either consecutive ( experiencing normal ) , high , or ill . He wakes up ill, hit up, and gets high. That lasts for a few hours possibly, and he shoots up once more if he can, to avoid acquiring ill. In this syrupy rhythm, it is easy to see how keeping a occupation or life usually is out of the inquiry. Although a drug-free province represents an optimum intervention end, research has demonstrated that this end can non be achieved or sustained by the bulk of opiate-dependent people. Harmonizing to the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) , Methadone care intervention is effectual in cut downing illicit opiate drug usage, in cut downing offense, in heightening societal productiveness, and in cut downing the spread of viral diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis. All opiate-dependent individuals under legal supervising should hold entree to methadone care therapy # 8230 ; Methadone care is long-run, if non lasting. However, the dolophine hydrochloride is given in a controlled environment ; patients must come to the clinic once or twice a twenty-four hours for their dosage. This manner the patients were non given a narcotic that they could sell on the street. A day-to-day visual aspect at the clinics and the chances for guidance is cited as one of the major grounds for the success of the dolophine hydrochloride plan. Of the assorted interventions available, Methadone Maintenance Treatment, combined with attending to medical, psychiatric and socioeconomic issues, every bit good as drug guidance, has the highest chance of being effectual. Narcotic adversaries, such as the drug naltrexone, work by barricading the effects of narcotics such as diacetylmorphine. Naltrexone works merely if the nut has already been detoxed, and is motivated to take the drug. Narcotic adversaries work best for those nuts that tend to get worse impetuously. The unneeded ordinances of dolophine hydrochloride care therapy and other long-acting opiate adversary intervention plans should be reduced, and coverage for these plans should be a needed benefit in public and private insurance plans. The National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study ( NTIES ) found that with intervention: drug merchandising decreased by 78 % , shoplifting declined by about 82 % , and assaults ( defined as? crushing person up? ) declined by 78 % . Furthermore, there was a 64 % lessening in apprehensions for any offense, and the per centum of people who mostly supported themselves through illegal activity dropped by about half # 8211 ; diminishing more than 48 per centum. Another manner of thought is that drug nuts are felons and should be punished. Surely, this is one of the aims of the War on Drugs, to set the drug sellers in prison. However, how many 1000000s of people do you think we have to set in prison to hold the best consequences? Under current Torahs, most users besides fall under the class of traders, due to either the sum carried, or the manner the drugs are packaged. Potentially 40 million people would hold to be imprisoned under these Torahs, and that is merely impossible. Although people may believe that the War on Drugs marks drug runners and? King Pins, ? of the 1,559,100 apprehensions for drug jurisprudence misdemeanors in 1998, 78.8 % ( 1,228,571 ) were for ownership of a controlled substance. Merely 21.2 % ( 330,529 ) was for the sale or industry of a drug. Simple ownership of marihuana accounted for 38.4 % ( 598,694 ) of the entire apprehensions. Even if merely 10 per centum of the drug traders were put in prison, the U.S. would hold to construct four prisons for every one we have now. How many people need to be in prison for drug discourtesies to efficaciously command the drug job? The authorities has asked the taxpayers to compose a clean cheque for prisons to imprison non-violent wrongdoers. Since the passage of compulsory minimal sentencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget increased by more than 1,350 % , from $ 220 million in 1986 to about $ 3.19 billion in 1997. The ONDCP in its 2000 one-year study detailed disposal petitions for major additions in support to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for drug-related prison building. These include an excess $ 420 Million in financial twelvemonth 2001, and advanced appropriations of $ 467 Million in 2002, and an extra $ 316 Million in 2003 # 8211 ; all drug-related. The 1997 National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study ( NTIES ) stated, Treatment appears to be cost effectual, peculiarly when compared to captivity, which is frequently the alternate. Treatment costs ranged from a depression of $ 1,800 per client to a high of about $ 6,800 per client. To contrast, the mean cost of captivity in 1993 ( the most recent twelvemonth available ) was $ 23,406 per inmate per twelvemonth. For a individual drug user to be put in prison, it costs taxpayers about a half million dollars. That includes $ 150,000 for apprehension and prosecution, $ 150,000 for a new cell, and about $ 30,000 a twelvemonth for the following five old ages. In the same regard, that sum of money could supply instruction and intervention for one hundred people. Which do you believe is the better option? In California, and in a few other provinces, schools, libraries, and medical installations are being closed in order to construct more prisons. The money is being taken from instruction and intervention in order to construct more prisons. Is this planning for our kids? s hereafter? Prisoners sentenced for drug discourtesies constitute the largest group of Federal inmates ( 58 % ) in 1998, up from 53 % in 1990 ( table 21 ) . On September 30, 1998, the day of the month of the latest available informations, Federal prisons held 63,011 sentenced drug wrongdoers, compared to 30,470 at yearend 1990. Table 21 notes there were 56,989 Federal captives in 1990, compared to 108,925 in 1998. : Over 80 % of the addition in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 were due to drug strong beliefs. In 1998, drug jurisprudence lawbreakers comprised 21 % of all grownups functioning clip in State prisons # 8211 ; 236,800 out of 1,141,700 State inmates. Nonviolent wrongdoers accounted for Eighty-four per centum ( 84 % ) of the addition in province and federal prison admittances since 1980. Department of corrections informations show that about a 4th of those ab initio imprisoned for nonviolent offenses are sentenced for a 2nd clip for perpetrating a violent discourtesy. Whatever else it reflects, this form highlights the possibility that prison serves to convey violent wonts and values instead than to cut down them. It seems that no affair how hard the authorities tries to contend drugs, it will ever lose. Government? s solution is passing more money, imprison more people but that does non maintain people from utilizing drugs. In this concluding portion of the paper, I will discourse legalisation and decriminalisation to efficaciously stop the War on Drugs. Prohibition # 8230 ; goes beyond the bounds of ground in that it attempts to command a adult male? s appetency by statute law and makes a offense out of things that are non offenses. A prohibition jurisprudence strikes a blow at the really principles upon which our authorities was founded. ? Abraham Lincoln December, 1840 As the drug war craze begins to lessen, it becomes progressively obvious that there must be a serious re-examination of the Torahs forbiding soft drugs , such as marihuana. The decriminalisation of soft drugs has emerged as an active political issue in many European states, including Switzerland, Holland, and Germany. The policies being considered scope from decriminalisation, or abrogation of condemnable punishments for private usage and cultivation of hemp, to full legalisation, in which marihuana is commercially sold like intoxicant and baccy. The Netherlands follows a policy of dividing the market for illicit drugs. Cannabis is chiefly purchased through java stores. Coffee stores offer no or few possibilities for buying illicit drugs other than hemps. Thus The Netherlands achieve a separation of the soft drug market from the difficult drugs market # 8211 ; and separation of the? acceptable hazard? drug user from the? unacceptable hazard? drug user. Decriminalization involves the remotion of condemnable punishments for ownership of marihuana for personal usage. Small mulcts may be issued ( similar to traffic tickets ) but there is no apprehension, captivity, or condemnable record. Marijuana is soon decriminalized in 10 provinces? California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon. In these provinces, cultivation and distribution remain condemnable discourtesies. We already have some grounds that legalisation plants. In the U.S. provinces that have briefly decriminalized marihuana in the 1970s, the figure of users stayed about the same. In the Netherlands, legal tolerance of marihuana has led to a important diminution in ingestion and has successfully prevented childs from experimenting with difficult drugs. Eleven times every bit many U.S. high school seniors smoked pot daily in 1983 as did pupils the same age in the Netherlands. The Dutch discovered that doing the purchase of little sums of marihuana freely available to anyone over 16 cuts the drug trader out ; as a consequence, there is virtually no offense associated with the usage of marihuana. Treatment for dependence to hard drugs is widely available at that place ; 75 per centum of the diacetylmorphine addicts in Amsterdam are on dolophine hydrochloride care, populating comparatively normal, crime-free lives. All this still falls short of legalisation, and jobs still abound, but the e xperience of the Netherlands clearly points in the right way. The Dutch see illicit drug usage as a wellness job, non as a condemnable job. Drug legalisation is neither a simple nor remarkable public policy proposal. For illustration, drug legalisation could at one extreme affect a return to wide-open entree to all drugs for all people as. Partial legalisation could imply such alterations in drug policy as doing presently illegal drugs available in their petroleum signifiers to certain types of medical patients. It might include the care of nuts on diacetylmorphine or their drug of pick, press releases of acerate leafs to nuts without the demand of surcease of drug usage, or marked softening in condemning guidelines for drug-related discourtesies short of blunt legalisation. Right now, a marihuana tobacco user is arrested every 45 seconds. When we define all marijuana smoke as condemnable, including that which involves grownups smoking in the privateness of their ain places, we are blowing constabularies and prosecutorial resources, choke offing tribunals, make fulling dearly-won and scarce gaol and prison infinite, and needlessly bust uping the lives and callings of truly good citizens. Millions of Americans use marihuana ; few abuse it. The authorities should restrict its engagement in this issue entirely to turn to and countenance irresponsible marihuana and other drug usage. Responsible marihuana usage causes no injury to society and should be of no involvement to the federal authorities. In decision, it appears that nevertheless good intentioned the War on Drugs was, it is now a losing conflict that Americans keep pouring their revenue enhancement dollars into. It all boils down to provide and demand. If there is a demand for illegal drugs, there will ever be a supply. The drug war is over, and we lost. We simply repeated the error of Prohibition. The harder we tried to stomp out drugs, the more moneymaking we made them, and the more they spread. I hope that it will merely be a affair of clip before the drug Torahs are exhaustively reexamined, and the authorities can acknowledge that the War on Drugs was a failure.