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Sang Hyun Lee Writing 1010 Professor Harcourt 11/21/13 Is the War on Drugs Working? The United States is still undergoing a war against drugs. This war, commonly called War on Drugs, refers to the effort of reducing illegal drug trade and discouraging the act of producing, selling, or consuming illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and more. The war on drugs began in the summer of 1969 when President Nixon addressed in his speech Drug abuse is a serious threat. Currently, the United States chose to focus on three targets. One target is teenagers. Government-funded anti-drug groups create public-service advertisements broadcast on all forms of media--television, radio, the Internet that attempt to communicate the dangers of illegal drug use. Drug criminals--people who buy and sell drugs--are the second focus of the nation's drug policy. Nearly two million drug criminals were sentenced to jail in 2006, the last year for which data are available. The third and final focus of U.S. drug policy is the overseas drug market (Issues and Controversies). Some of the Americans think that this policy against drugs is working really well and need to keep up the work as the drug use rates among teens are steadily decreasing. However, the United States needs a better policy because the current policy is spending too much money on almost no shown results, focusing on arresting low-level drug dealers, presenting drug laws that are unfairly skewed against minority communities, and focusing mainly on marijuana. Supporters of the current American drug policies praise that the United States is spending a lot of money to prevent the abuse of illegal drugs. Just for the programs that the

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United States proposed for this war on drugs, the United States spent total of more than $500 billion trying to win the war. Since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on drugs in 1973, federal spending on the anti-drug campaign stopping big-time drug smugglers and arresting users and sellers has increased 30-fold from $420 million in 1973 to $12.7 billion this fiscal year (Katel). However, the problem is that there arent strong enough shown results to prove that the money was worth spending. While drug use has shrunk since the peak years of the late 1970s and early '80s, half of the nation's 2005 high-school graduates reported having used an illegal drug at some point; the number of new heroin users has increased to more than 100,000 a year; and local officials across the country say methamphetamine production and use are devastating their communities and over-burdening their resources (Katel). Supporters of the current policy argues that the drug abuse by teenagers decreased steadily over the past decade, but a survey from University of Michigan in Ann Arbor found out that illicit drug use by 12th graders decreased from 53.9% in 2001 to 46.8% in 2007, which means that billions of dollars were spent to decrease only 7% of the teens usage of illegal drugs. This is not an improvement considering the money that government spent with citizens taxes. The United States needs to make a better plan and target something else to present a viewable improvement in banning drug abuse. Another big problem of the current policy is the arrestment of low-level drug dealers. The United States made a bad choice to focus on low-level drug dealers. Some argue that these lower-level drug dealers cause problems and need to be targeted. Supporters argue that despite frequent criticisms, the U.S.'s approach to drug use is based on sound logic. The drug trade, like any other free market, is based on supply and demand, supporters note. By removing drug dealers from the streets, supply is reduced; by removing drug addicts from the streets, demand is reduced, proponents say (Issues and Controversies). However, this approach is not working properly.

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In June 2010, Margaret Schoendorf was arrested after she sold an undercover detective 47 painkillers in Orange County. The same day, agents arrested doctors Roman Mosai and Michael Moyer on charges they were illegally doling out addictive painkillers from their Central Florida offices. Schoendorf was sentenced to two years in prison for her crime, but the doctors won't face the same future. In recent weeks, Mosai and Moyer each pleaded no contest to a racketeering charge in agreements with the state that call for the physicians to serve probation -- and no prison time (Pavuk). This case shows how unfair the system is right now. Not only it is unfair, but it also creates a cycle that drug sellers undergo. The war on drugs wastes too much time, money and manpower by focusing on arresting low-level drug users and dealers, rather than concentrating on the true roots of the illegal-drug problem. Providers will provide without worries since they are not getting arrested. It is very easy to get a low-level drug dealer that providers want as it assures a lot of money. This creates a cycle of drug production, distribution, and consumption although a low-level drug dealer gets arrested at some point. Orange-Osceola Public Defender Bob Wesley -- whose office represents countless low-level drug cases and none of the high-profile physician cases -- said the street drug dealers often get the most prison time because they have no clout (Pavuk). And from this one cycle of drug distribution, there is nothing to take from anyone. "The problem is ... what do you take from a poor person?" Wesley asked. "The only thing you can take from them is their freedom" (Pavuk). In order to tear out the root of this drug cycle, government needs to focus on the high-level drug dealers and the providers not the low-level drug dealers. This relates to the highly increased rate of arrests compared to the past. These increased rates are praised by the supporters of current policies in that they see the statistics with optimistic view that it is an indication of better regulations. In 1971, the number of drug

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sellers who were arrested marked 49,200,000 compared to four times increased arrest in 2006 which marked 1,889,800,000. However, this is rather a strong indication that there is an excessive prison sentence for relatively minor drug-related offenses. If the cost was low for this to happen, the United States is on the right track. However, this is a result of decreasing the cost of federal drug-treatment and drug-prevention programs. When Bush took office in 2001, 45% of the U.S.'s annual budget for fighting the war on drugs was dedicated to treatment and prevention--helping addicts kick their drug habits while encouraging teenagers not to try drugs. By 2008, however, only around one-third of the budget for the war on drugs focused on treatment and prevention (Issues and Controversies). The United States focused so much on the imprisonment and persecution that these treatment programs and prevention programs cannot work properly. If the treatment programs are not working, addicts will try to steal or gain the drugs they need. Also when the prevention programs are not working properly, there will be more people trying drugs out of curiosity. If these persecutions were aimed at the high-level drug dealers and the providers, it must have brought significant improvements as it gets harder to gain those drugs. In terms of cost, it is much cheaper to deal with addicts and non-drug users than arresting low-level drug dealers. Indeed, many critics of U.S. drug policy note that it is far more expensive to imprison a drug addict than it is to treat one for his or her addiction. However, they say, the U.S. continues to prosecute hundreds of thousands of drug-possession cases each year (Issues and Controversies). Also, drug related problems are health problems. Drug addiction is a health problem-indeed, many doctors treat it as a disease--and should therefore be primarily dealt with by health professionals (Katel). However, governments policy on drugs tries to deal with this in the hands of law enforcement and the courts. The results were obvious; with huge expenses of time, money, and manpower, there is no obvious change. These huge expenses are sometimes not even going in the right direction.

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A $570 television recently installed in the Exeter's police department was purchased with money from the Luzerne County Housing Authority earmarked to fight drugs in the Schooley Avenue complex, officials confirmed Wednesday. Police Chief John McNeil said the television, a high-definition, flat screen model, was purchased with money left over from authority funds that were used to support a drug bust in December (Terrie). This is a strong indication that government should change its policy towards drug problems. Even the money that was supposed to be used for drug busting ended up in a television. Government should increase funds toward curing addicts and informing non-drug users about the bad consequences that these drugs will bring rather than using them to arrest low-level drug dealers. The United States drug policies are also extremely racist. Critics note that people who are arrested with just five grams of crack are subject to the same mandatory minimum sentence as those arrested with 500 grams of cocaine. More than four out of five Americans arrested on crack-possession charges are black (Issues and Controversies). The thing is that they are both dangerous and addictive drugs, but the charges are much different. According to statistics, blacks make up thirteen percent of the national population and thirteen percent of the country's monthly drug users, they account for thirty-five percent of arrests for drug possession, fifty-five percent of convictions and seventyfour percent of prison sentences, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that promotes criminal-justice reform (Freedman). This is a serious inequality and the persecutions are pointing at the wrong directions. Between I986 and I99I, the number of blacks held in state prisons on drug charges rose by 465 percent, the project also reported. That increase partly reflects the inequality of federal sentencing rules, under which a person convicted of possessing five grams of crack cocaine

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receives the same five-year mandatory minimum as someone caught selling 500 grams of powder cocaine (Freedman). If the United States wants to rule equally like what the constitution says, this needs to be changed. For the past two decades, governments worked hard to put legal barrier on marijuana. They wanted to keep it illegal, and they did many campaigns on the idea to prevent the drug use. Some of the supporters argue that it is the right sequence to eliminate the most popular drug like marijuana, in that marijuana is like a gate way to stronger drugs such as cocaine and meth. However, that led to the failure of the current American drug policy. "What I've never understood," says Sen. Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa), "is why [the ONDCP] took marijuana so much more seriously than methamphetamine, when methamphetamine is a much more serious drug." Opponents further argue that the so-called gateway theory--the idea that marijuana use will lead to the use of more dangerous drugs--has been thoroughly debunked by most independent studies, including a landmark 2002 study by the RAND Corporation, a centrist think tank (CQ Researcher). There is strong evidence that targeting marijuana has been a failure. One is that in Colorado and Washington, even the recreational use of marijuana has been legalized. Another is that the public opinion about banning marijuana changed over the decades from strongly banning marijuana to allowing marijuana. The marijuana itself is not perceived as a bad drug anymore for many Americans. Supporters for legalizing marijuana increased from almost 5% in 1969 to 40% in 2009. This is a strong indication that government has targeted the wrong drug. And still, the government is trying to persecute those who use marijuana. Even as states accelerate toward legalization, in 2011 more than 750,000 people were arrested nationwide including states that are experimenting with legalization - for offenses related to marijuana use or distribution. This discrepancy makes little sense (Legal Marijuana?). The change of

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thoughts that Americans are undergoing suggests that they are tired of this war against drugs. Regardless of whether they describe themselves as liberal, conservative, or libertarian, most Americans are united in that they oppose drugs. The fact that these Americans are favoring the legalization of the marijuana by 40% means that current policies toward the drugs will no longer work. The United States has approached the time to change their drug policy. There is no doubt that the United States should ban the drugs to reduce abuse. Drugs are harmful physically and mentally, and no bans of drugs will bring chaos to American society. However, the methods of banning drugs are heading into a completely wrong direction. The current drug policy is spending too much money with no improvements, targeting on low-level drug dealers rather than the providers, presenting drug laws that are unfair towards minority races and focusing mainly on marijuana than other harmful drugs. These policies should change to focus on curing addicts, preventing non-drug users from harmful drugs, finding equality in terms of race, targeting the high-level drug dealers including the providers of those illegal drugs, and changing target from marijuana to more general illegal drugs with more addictive and harmful substances. This in conclusion, will help the United States to win the war against drugs.

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Work Cited Freedman, Samuel G. "Is the Drug War Racist?" Proquest. N.p., 14 May 2008. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Katel, Peter. "War On Drugs." CQ Researcher Online. CQ Press, 2 June 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2013 "Legal Marijuana?" Proquest. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. Pavuk, Amy. "Pill-mill Docs Often Avoid Prison, but Street-level Dealers Get Locked up." Proquest. N.p., 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013 Terrie, Morgan-Beseker. "Money to Fight Drugs Buys TV: EXETER: Police Chief Defends Purchase. He Says No Restrictions Were given." Proquest. N.p., 09 Mar. 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. "Update: Drug Policy." Issues and Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 11 Apr. 2008. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.