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Yearly, the United States spends over $40 billion to combat the use and sale of illicit drugs. The United Nations has estimated the international drug trafficking market at over $400 billion, 8 percent of all international trade, and the United States accounts for at least one-eighth of this business.
Over half-a-million people are presently in jail for nonviolent drug crimes and they account for more than one-fifth of the prison population, straining our jails well beyond their capacity and costing taxpayers millions each year.
All of this simply because the government insists on restricting the basic freedoms of its citizens.
Prohibition of alcohol started in 1919 and ended in 1933. At the beginning of this period, alcohol use went down markedly, but climbed steadily through the next 14 years.
What prohibition did bring, though, was a huge amount of government spending to find and prosecute drinkers, as well as a dramatic increase in the prison population. Furthermore, prohibition sparked the advent of organized crime, which subsequently led to an increase in government corruption.
Practically none of the expected gains from the act (decreased crime, solved social problems, improved national health) was realized.
Today's drug war is no different from the prohibition of 1919. By criminalizing everything from marijuana to LSD, we've given our law enforcement agencies an insurmountable task and asked our overworked prison system to take on even more inmates.
In creating a black market for drugs, we've given people an incredible incentive to participate in trafficking, regardless of the consequence, and the billions of dollars we spend will never be enough to eradicate the practice completely. This is a war that is literally unwinnable.
Additionally, by criminalizing drugs we compound any negative effects they have. Instead of allowing people to seek treatment, we force them into basements and behind closed doors, in fear of prosecution.
Also, we remove all possibility for a safe drug environment when we criminalize drugs; according to a 2003 Center for Disease Control report, dirty needles alone account for 37 percent of all AIDS cases in black men and over 40 percent in white females.
By decriminalizing drugs, we can allow people to more freely seek help for drug problems and create safer environments for those who choose to use them.
More important than any of these issues is the oppression inflicted by our own government. It has never been the stated intention of the United States to deliberately dictate what one can and cannot do in the privacy of one's own home, yet drug laws do just that.
It is impossible to be free, when one is ruled by a government that tells you what you can or cannot put into your own body. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with drug use, and any crimes committed under the influence of drugs should be prosecuted, not as drug charges, but as crimes unrelated to drug usage.
Until the United States decriminalizes all drugs we can never be a truly free nation. We will continue to live under the tyrannical fist of an overbearing government until we can resist its coercion and reclaim our right to liberty.
For the sake of our national budget, our justice system and law enforcement agencies, the safety and health of drug users, lowered crime rates, and freedom and liberty, end the drug war now.
Robert Cowan is a senior at Gonzaga.
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