Why The War on Drugs Must End
Why do people come to California? If you were to ask local rapper Kendrick Lamar he might respond, “women, weed, and weather,”(Lamar, “The Recipe”). While California is known globally for its year-round great weather and for having some of the most attractive women on the planet, for the purpose of this paper I will be focusing on the weed as well as other drugs that are found across the Golden State and the rest of the United States. In 1996, California voted to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes and has since then been known as a place that has very liberal views towards marijuana. In 2016, California voted to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes and that brought the topic of legalizing drugs to the dinner table across the United States (California Cannabis Portal). The debate surrounding the legalization of drugs has intrigued me especially because the United States has been in a constant state of conflict with those who sell or use drugs for the past 50 years. This conflict, commonly known as the War on Drugs, has not only affected the people of the United States, but has reached the shores of every country and has touched the lives of countless people. Using the same strategy for 50 years without an end in sight to the conflict has caused many to be curious about how other countries have handled the issue of drugs to see whether or not there is a way for the United States to better handle its drug problem.
The prohibition in place surrounding drugs in the United States is eerily similar to the prohibition against alcohol during the 1920s-1930s. Eliminating the legal market to access drugs such as marijuana or cocaine instantly turned thousands of people into criminals, created demand for an illicit market, and gave hardened criminals the opportunity to make millions of dollars. In an article by Norman Stamper from the Seattle Times, a retired police officer compared the drug laws to the prohibition of alcohol by saying, “Our drug laws have given rise to a new generation of gangsters with names like Sinaloa, Los Zetas and La Familia. These evil and greedy cartels are raking in profits that Capone and his ilk could only have dreamed of.” (Stamper). By keeping this harsh attitude towards all drugs, the United States government has in fact helped create many of the problems it is trying to solve in the War on Drugs. The drug cartels that it is facing only became powerful as a result of the legal avenues to access drugs closing up, similar to how the Chicago and New York mafias became very powerful following the implementation of Prohibition in the 1920s. The incarceration rate in the United States, the highest in the world, is largely due to the fact that so many people are being imprisoned due to drug-related charges. While the criminal punishments for drug use in the United States are without a doubt horrific, they pale in comparison to the actions taken towards drug users in the Philippines.
The Philippines is a nation that has been strongly influenced by the United States for over 100 years. From being a colony of the United States, to being one of the United States chief partners in the Pacific, the two countries have always shared a strong bond and have taken similar attitudes towards various issues. The issue of drugs is one such issue in which the two nations have taken a very similar approach. The Philippines has waged its own war on drugs but has recently taken a much harsher approach since the election that placed current president Rodrigo Duterte into power. According to Amnesty International UK, “In an election campaign speech broadcasted on national television on 5 June, Duterte encouraged citizens to kill suspected drug dealers or users as a ‘duty’, and offered huge bounties to people who turn in drug dealers — ‘dead or alive’,” (Amnesty). This approach towards drug users would shock even the most fervent supporters of the War on Drugs in the United States where hardly anyone would support openly killing drug addicts. The Filipino approach is based on the belief that if the punishment is severe enough, then people will be too scared to ever try drugs. There has not been enough data collected to see whether or not this approach is truly effective but the human cost of this conflict has been tremendous. The people who are addicted to drugs are being treated as if they were vermin and this has torn apart thousands of families. This approach is inhumane and it should end immediately to prevent any further loss of life. This approach is drastically different from the approach taken in Portugal, an approach that actually valued human life.
Since the 1970s, the United States has been steadfast in its militaristic approach to solve the issue of drugs. The United States has militarized its law enforcement agencies, excessively punished all who use or possess drugs, and has used propaganda to make the population view all drugs as evil (Huff Post). Throughout the 1990s, Portugal used similar tactics to the United States to try and end its drug problem. During the 1990s, in Portugal, “an estimated 1% of the population-bankers, students, socialites-were hooked on heroin and Portugal, had the highest rate of HIV infection in the entire European Union,” (Bajekal). Seeing that the militarized approach that the Portugese government had tried for years was not fixing the problem, the Portugese people decided to try a radically different approach. In 2001, “It became the first country in the world to decriminalize the consumption of all drugs,” (Bajekal). The country chose this radical approach because the people in power viewed those that were addicted to drugs as patients in need of serious help, instead of hardened criminals with the intent to cause harm. While drug dealers would still be sent to prison, people that were caught with drugs would be, “sent to a local commission, consisting of a doctor, lawyer, and a social worker,” (Bajekal). This approach would give addicts the opportunity to improve their lives and it would pair them with people that actually cared about their wellbeing.
Surprisingly. drug use and drug related death dropped exponentially. According to Bajekal, “In Portugal, meanwhile , the drug-induced death rate has plummeted to five times lower than the E.U. average and stands at one-fiftieth of the United States’…Drug use has declined overall among the 15-to 24-year-old population, those most at risk of initiating drug use.” (Bajekal). This approach has proven to be widely successful and is proof that in order to end the War on Drugs, the government needs to stop treating drug addicts as enemy soldiers and instead as humans with dignity who ought to be treated as victims. The great success found in Portugal has made many wonder if it could be repeated in the United States. Unfortunately, the approach taken by Portugal will be hard to replicate in the United States. The United States has always had a hard time admitting it has made mistakes and changed its course, especially when it has had the same approach to an issue for 50 years. According to Vox, “Over the past four decades, the US has committed more than $1 trillion to the War on Drugs.” (Vox). Many peoples’ livelihood is dependent upon the War on Drugs never ending. Thousands of law enforcement officials would lose their jobs, as there would no longer be a need to arrest people on drugs and private prisons would lose many of their occupants if drugs were to be decriminalized. This would especially affect a state like California where there are several private prisons that employ thousands of people and are essential to the prosperity of many communities. Unfortunately, there is an entire industry that functions on the War on Drugs never ending.
In addition to financial interest in keeping the same policies in place, there is also strong cultural resistance to legalizing drugs or changing the attitude by law enforcement to drug addicts. In the United States, there have been constant campaigns by organizations such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) and Keepin’ it Real which have brainwashed the population into thinking that all drugs in circulation will kill you and that they must be eradicated at all costs. (Alcohol Problems). Countless films and tv shows have vilified anyone that uses drugs and that has resulted in the American public at large still believing that the current approach taken to solve the issue of drugs is effective. However, the legalization of marijuana in states such as California and Colorado have begun to change that narrative.
The legalization of marijuana for recreational uses in states such as California and Colorado greatly changed the debate about the legalization of drugs in the United States because it showed that legalizing the use of a drug would not result in the entire population becoming dependent upon it. There were fears that if marijuana was legalized then everyone would automatically start using it and that would lead to problems such as laziness, decline in morality, as well as an increase in crime. This is a logical fallacy because despite marijuana becoming legal for recreational use, there isn’t a rule forcing an individual to take the drug if they do not want to. What actually occurred is that the people who always wanted to use marijuana could do so without fear of punishment while those who had no desire to ever use marijuana still never used the drug. According to an article written by the Public Health Institute, “A new assessment of marijuana use in Washington States published by PHI’s Alcohol Research group found only a 1.2 percentage point increase in past year use after recreational marijuana was legalized-suggesting that a previous report showing an increase of 3.8 percentage points may have been overestimated due to respondents underreporting their consumption when marijuana was still illegal.” (Public Health). This clearly shows that the fears of people who believed that legalizing drugs would massively increase drug use were unsubstantiated.
In addition to the fears that legalization of marijuana would result in a drastic uptick in use, there have also been fears that the legalization of marijuana would result in a dramatic rise in crime. This is due in large part by the propaganda created during the War on Drugs as well as the belief that people who use marijuana would act as irrationally as the people who are addicted to more serious drugs such as cocaine would. According to the Marijuana Policy Project, “In a more recent paper using regression analysis, a University of Washington researcher wrote, “Results indicate that the legalization of marijuana, both recreational and medical, does not increase violent crime rates. In contrast, marijuana legalization could lead to a decline in violent crime such as homicide, robbery and aggravated assault.” and also, “a University of Washington researcher wrote, “Another peer-reviewed paper in The Economic Journal supports the argument that legalizing marijuana reduces crime by displacing illicit markets traditionally controlled by drug cartels and illicit distributors.”(Marijuana Policy). This begs the question, why are so many states opposed to legalizing marijuana if its effects are being shown to be nowhere near as harmful as predicted?
One possible reason that so many states are opposed to legalizing marijuana is that in many states where marijuana is legal, the illicit market has persisted. This is especially true in the state of California where excessively high taxes and overregulation have made it very difficult for the legitimate market to compete with the illicit market. Jacob Sullum from the media site Reason.com wrote, “California is regulating and taxing the hell out of cannabis, which makes it hard for legal suppliers to compete with the state’s longstanding, extensive, and highly developed black market.” (Sullum). This is once again showing that the actions taken by the government have proven to be more harmful than helpful. By making the process to open a legal marijuana dispensary difficult and by taxing marijuana much higher than it should be, the state government has disincentivized people from participating in the legitimate market. However, this problem can easily be solved. If the government in California were to make it easier to operate a marijuana dispensary as well as lower the taxes imposed on marijuana products, many people would quickly return to the legitimate market. This would in turn reduce crime, increase overall tax revenue for the government, and ensure that the product consumers are receiving is safe for use.
One of the best results of the legalization of marijuana in states such as California is that it has significantly harmed the drug cartels that have historically dominated the production and trade of drugs. By creating legal avenues for the production and sale of marijuana, the drug cartels have begun to lose their monopoly on the drug trade. In California alone, there is now a multi-billion dollar market that shows no signs of slowing down in the coming years. Thousands of jobs have been created and none of the profit from the legitimate market is going into the hands of the cartels. If more states legalize marijuana and other drugs, there is hope that the drug cartels will fade from relevance because they will lose too much money to be able to operate. There is already strong historical precedence for this. During prohibition, the mafia families and crime empires of that era made millions upon millions of dollars selling alcohol, but once prohibition ended and companies were once again able to produce alcohol, these criminal organizations lost their hold on the market and had to shift towards selling drugs and narcotics in order to stay in business at all. In Mexico, a country that has been devastated by drug conflicts, there has been growing recognition that legalizing marijuana is the correct approach to dismantle the hold the cartels have on the market. Former Mexican President Vicente stated recently, “Watching that example, we see that in a natural way, the old illegal underground activities start to disappear by themselves, because now they don’t have a market. The market is taken by the new situation-the new products, the new corporations being provided,” (CNBC). The former president was far from being the only notable politician who has come to this conclusion. On March 10, 2021, Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies (similar to the House of Representatives found in the United States) voted to legalize marijuana for all purposes. While the bill now has to wait to be passed in the senate, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that this bill will be passed. (Bloomberg). This is a critical moment not only for Mexico, but for the entire world. If the bill passes then Mexico will become the most populous country in the world to have legalized marijuana. This will no doubt inspire other countries to legalize marijuana, especially the United States.
In addition to legalizing marijuana and other drugs, there has to be recognition that the actions taken by governments towards drug users over the years has been nothing short of horrific and that action must be taken to compensate these people for being punished so severely. This will no doubt be a very painful process, but it is one that must occur. California has begun the necessary steps to compensate its citizens for the actions taken while marijuana was illegal throughout the state, In 2020, the District Attorney for Los Angeles Jacky Lacey and her fellow prosecutors sought to have tens of thousands of marijuana related convictions dismissed. According to the Guardian, “Prosecutors this week asked a superior court judge to dismiss 62,000 felony cannabis convictions for cases that date back to 1961.” (The Guardian). The rest of the United States is soon going to have to deal with the mistakes of the past, especially due to there being overwhelming support to legalize marijuana. (Pew Research). This will be uncomfortable, but similarly to how necessary it is for the United States to address the horrible actions it has done towards racial minorities, it is necessary for the United States to address the horrible actions it has taken against drug users. However, the United States is not alone in having to address how it has treated drug users. There are still many countries like the Philippines that have taken extremely harsh approaches towards drug users and there will come a time when they will have to atone for what they have done.
While it seems clear to everyone that marijuana will inevitably be legalized in many countries in the coming years, that does not mean that the War on Drugs will end there. In the United States, the war is still being waged on drugs such as heroin, cocaine, LSD, and countless other drugs. Seeing how difficult it has been to legalize marijuana, a drug becoming increasingly recognized as not being very harmful, it is clear that the road to legalizing drugs is very long and it will take several more years to cross. There are reasons to be very optimistic however. Many people are questioning why people are being punished so harshly for consuming drugs, why the laws in place have disproportionately affected minorities, or if the actions taken to keep drugs out of reach are worth so much violence. I truly believe that we will collectively reach an understanding that the War on Drugs has been a failure and that there is a much better approach to solve the issue of drug addiction. I truly hope that we reach that understanding sooner rather than later.
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