The Failure of Drug Prevention

Source: http://cdn.thewire.com

When it comes to the drug war which has been apart of US policy for the past 44 years, many people are weary on its success. Has the war on drugs actually done much to curb drug trafficking or drug use in the United States? Like many people in this country, I don’t think it has done too much to help the problem.

Today, if you were looking to buy a single gram of Cocaine, it would cost $177.26. But taking a trip back 30 years and it’s 1985. Cocaine was 74% more expensive back then according to the Drug Enforcement Agency. Now, there are two ways this number can be interpreted- quite differing views actually. Person A could interpret that number as a sign of a successful war on drugs; clearly with a lower price, demand for it is down thus showing people are educated on the harmful effects of cocaine and the cartels are selling less. While Person B on the other hand could view that number as a drug war failure. For instance, maybe there’s so much of it going around that this has caused cocaine to lose its value. Whichever way you view this number though, there appears to be more evidence backing up Person B. Eduardo Porter, an economist with The New York Times even found that drug use by high schoolers has increased from 30% to 40% within the past two decades. Or focusing back on cocaine, whose numbers still hover around 3% since 1990. That makes it clear that traffickers are still bringing drugs into the United States despite the billions of dollars the US government has poured into stopping that happen. But while Harvard economist, Jeffrey Miron states that legalizing all drugs would save the US government $65b a year, I don’t think that’s the right answer as I don’t think this country would be portraying a very good image if we said you can run around shooting up heroin or snorting lines of coke.  

Just as I had said previously that I don’t believe the war on drugs has done much, a lot of this country agrees with me. The New York Times found that only “31 percent of Americans said they thought the government was making much progress dealing with illegal drugs.” Clearly reform is what this country is looking for. Instead of focusing solely on getting rid of the supply, the government should be focusing on lessening the demand and helping those with serious drug problems related to hard drugs. That said, even without legalization, the government shouldn’t spend so much time going after small time marijuana dealers and instead go after the meth, crack, cocaine, etc. So while the US government hasn’t done too much to curb the use of or trafficking of drugs,  there are much better alternatives it can take to help its cause; all it requires is a small step in a slightly different direction.