The war on drugs is one of this nations biggest follies. Since its start it has been overwhelmingly unsuccessful, with not much being done to change drug laws or to limit the amount of incarcerated people the war on drugs has given this county. With the war on drugs continuing as it has been, and the drug laws remaining the same, prisons are overflowing. As Senator Jim Webb says "either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice." It would seem that no longer is it just a war against drugs but a war against the criminal justice system.
We are moving slowly towards the issue of drug legalization, but we are no where near it seems close to alleviating the over population of prisons in the United States. Government officials seem to give much less attention and money towards what prison does to the inmates of this drug war. The approach to stopping violence is by incarcerating drug offenders. However this isn't the right approach. Rather than providing drug offenders with comprehensive drug treatment they are rather thrown in jail. On the website Drug War Facts it states that the "department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced for a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them." The war on drugs isn't solely about getting rid of drugs but rather limiting crime, reducing addiction, and hopefully soon about decreasing the population of prisons.
We can no longer be oblivious to the facts of the drug war. The current drug policies don't work to stop addiction, the rate of drug related crimes is not decreasing, and we are in a financial recession. We need to realize that not all drugs should be considered the same and that by perpetuating the law enforcements idea that anyone who does drugs is a criminal and should be punished rather than helped only worsens our nations drug issue.
Ross, I like this. The picture is excellent, and though you could have gone even deeper in your argument, i appreciated seeing your opinion up there. As for links. Very, very close, but not quite right. In the first one, I would have quoted Webb and then said - to read more comments... read this Times story..." Or something like that. You can always just say, hey reader, check this out for more insight. And for your second link I really like Drug War Facts - that's good reporting to find that source on your part. But again, I'd have done the quote and then just told the reader to go to Drug War Facts for more infor. Or had the link been to the piece that the quote was actually from.
ReplyDeleteYOu were supposed to have four links - what happened to the other two?