In my day-to-day work, I've seen individuals waste their life away on drugs and families broken up because of one (or more) member's drug habit. How much responsibility should we put on the individual who falls to addiction and how much responsibility should we assign to the state? Or to the society who has failed to provide the support these individuals need to cope with their mental health problems?
Drugs Won the War
This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.
First, we have vastly increased the proportion of our population in prisons. Second, we have empowered criminals at home and terrorists abroad. Third, we have squandered resources. We spend seven times as much on drug interdiction, policing and imprisonment as on treatment. President Obama’s new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske wants to banish the war on drugs phraseology, while shifting more toward treatment over imprisonment. “I don’t see any big downside to marijuana decriminalization,” said Peter Reuter At most, he said, there would be only a modest increase in usage. One approach would be for a state or two to experiment with legalization of marijuana, allowing it to be sold by licensed pharmacists, while measuring the impact on usage and crime. |
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