The prohibitionist national policy towards drugs in U.S has been extremely contentious in the present times. After decades of the stance that costs billions how many each year, the paltry achievements and the countless negative externalities have led to a clamor for alternative policies instead of a “War on Drugs”. The proposition focuses on de-penalization of softer drugs and it is recommended to employ the consequent revenues towards creating a society wherein narcotics is treated as a health issue. The brief highlights the economic gains due to decrease in interdiction and legal regulation as well as social benefits through substantial decrease in acquisitive crime rates. The true consumer tendencies over drugs through study of the gateway drug theory and price-consumption responses are analyzed to highlight the flaws in the prohibitionist stance. Divergence between the nature of soft and hard drugs have been re-enforced to de-penalize only private usage of soft drugs while working towards treating hard drug addiction as a health issue through mandatory Opioid Substitution Therapy in prisons. Another recommendation to further the de-penalization policy has been made towards legislative reforms wherein non-violent drug offenders are made to undergo substance abuse treatment instead of incarceration. The focus on health and on liberalization for an overall again is deemed to be the more progressive stance. Analysis of the Policy Proposal 1. Economics of the Alternative Drug Strategy Federal spending over drug control in United States is approx. $15 billion annually of which 50% is over criminal justice expenditure (Mendeza, M., 2010). 10 million Americans use marijuana/month; Consequently, the drug seizures majorly involv... ... middle of paper ... ...ed that economically just cannabis decriminalization has got an enormous value and it wouldn’t be advisable to rope in other illicit drugs as well. Not only because hard drugs form a very small portion in drug trade in relation to marijuana, but also they bring with themselves numerous negative externalities such as extreme increase in consumption and health issues which shall be difficult to control as seen in Portugal (Consumption amplified by at almost double for hard drugs) However, to complement the soft drug de-penalization, hard drug users need to be assisted through compulsory substance treatment in prisons as well as through enactments that can rehabilitate instead of incarcerating the non-violent drug offenders. With the benefits outshining any possible ramifications, as established through strong data, the soft drug policy change is strongly recommended.
Drug use has been an ongoing problem in our country for decades. The use of drugs has been the topic of many political controversies throughout many years. There has been arguments that are for legalizing drugs and the benefits associated with legalization. Also, there are some who are opposed to legalizing drugs and fear that it will create more problems than solve them. Conservatives and liberals often have different opinions for controversial topics such as “the war on drugs,” but it is necessary to analyze both sides in order to gain a full understanding of their beliefs and to decide in a change in policy is in order.
...d self-medication. Finally we started to see what can be done around drug related crime and came with two schools of thought. The first stronger controls through preventing drug use by education, stronger law enforcement and treatment, which has been seen to work with use of heroine. The other school of thought, progressive decriminalisation looked to reduce inequalities, international law reform and then step-by-step decriminalisation. When looking through the research done it seems that stronger controls over drug use will not lower drug related crime as Bean has proven. The idea of progressive decriminalisation seems to be backed up by much of the modern research being done and would help stop the inequalities leading to drug use and can stop Goldstein’s idea around economic- compulsive crime and therefore would be the better idea in reducing drug related crime.
The complex issues of dealing with offenders in the criminal justice system has been a point of ongoing controversy, particularly in the arena of sentencing. In one camp there are those who believe offenders should be punished to the full extent of the law, while others advocate a more rehabilitative approach. The balancing act of max punishment for crimes committed, and rehabilitating the offender for reintegration into society has produced varying philosophies. With the emanation of drug-induced crimes over the past few decades, the concept of drug treatment courts has emerged. The premise of these courts is to offer a “treatment based alternative to prison,” which consist of intensive treatment services, random drug testing, incentives
This topic is very controversial topic because it deals with a growing body of citizens whose lives have greatly been affected by the United States government drug policies. In order to tackle the problem effectively, we need to look how it relates to economic problems, health issues, the criminal justice system and etc in our communities I look at bureau of justice statistics for statistics on National Drug Budget control, National household survey on drug abuse, prison statistics and book written by scholars on the issue.
Harmful drugs are an issue that creates controversy just by being mentioned, let alone acted upon by public policy. Despite this, policy actors must address drugs, through action or inaction, for the chance to make our society safer and healthier. Scientists and policy makers tend to agree that some drugs can be harmful to their users (Nordegren, 2002), but there are two broad camps of opinion on how best to protect users from these negative effects. This paper will discuss the ways that the policies of harm reduction and prohibition are formed, and identify the key actors in this policy space.
In this essay I will define drug abuse and show the economic impact of the sales of illicit drugs. I will introduce an argument for legalization and the impact to the economy. Next I will discuss some of the economic cost from lack of productivity, health care cost and other cost associated with Drug abuse.
The following is a summary of the President’s policy emphasizing on the President’s stated objectives. Stopping drug use before it starts, providing drug treatment, and attacking the economic basis of the drug trade are the main positions the President stressed. The President’s policy was analyzed by the important tasks played by law enforcement, schools and the community. The apprehension of major drug organizations will be explained how they attribute to the policy. The effectiveness of the President’s drug policy will also be evaluated.
Hollersen, Wiebke. "Evaluating Drug Decriminalization in Portugal 12 Years Later." SPIEGEL ONLINE. N.p., 27 Mar. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.
Recreational drug use has been controversial for years. Government has deemed the use of certain drugs to be dangerous, addictive, costly, and fatal. Governmental agencies have passed laws to make drugs illegal and then have focused a great deal of attention and money trying to prohibit the use of these drugs, and many people support these sanctions because they view the illegality of drugs to be the main protection against the destruction of our society (Trebach, n.d.). Restricting behavior doesn’t generally stop people from engaging in that behavior; prohibition tends to result in people finding more creative ways to obtain and use drugs. However, just knowing that trying to control people’s behavior by criminalizing drug use does not work still leaves us looking for a solution, so what other options exist? This paper will discuss the pros and cons about one option: decriminalizing drugs.
Jag then launches into the main topic of discussion for his essay: Drug Legalization, by asking his readers if they would want any of their loved ones go to jail for mere possession of a hard drug. The author, assuming that no one would want a friend or family member to go to jail for hard drug possession, begins to make his case for drug decriminalization by stating that legalizing the possession of hard drugs could signify a drop in criminal arrests linked to having little amounts of drugs for personal use. Jag then goes on to claim that this is a crucial time for drug law reform, seeing as President Trump’s administration is anti drug legalization, and states that the government of the United States is better off focusing on policies and reforms that would push for new ways to treat drug addiction and deaths related to drug overdose.
“How Goes the ‘War on Drugs’?: An Assessment of U.S. Drug Problems and Policy.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2005, doi:10.1037/e504322006-001.
There is a correlation between the illegal drug dealers and the strain on financing the war against drugs; there is the cost of imprisoning drug offenders; the cost of court fees; lawyer fees; the funding of police officers fighting the drug black market. Legalising cannabis in Australia opens up many opportunities, for example the legalisation of the production and sale of cannabis will remove the black market and generate tax for the government (Walters, 1993). Also based on the 2001 statistic of the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal, there has been an increased uptake of treatment and reduction in drug related deaths (Hughes & Stevens, 2007). The legalisation of cannabis could save approximately $3 billion to $10 billion and focus could be shifted away from interdiction, enforcement, court, and prison costs (Dennis & White, 1999). Now emphasis has been shifted to drug addiction treatment, and increase in therapy has increased since legalisation (Loo, et al., 2002). The decriminalisation of drug possession has allowed addicts to seek for earlier involvement from medical professionals and allow more effective methods of intervening to drugs problems (Hughes & Stevens, 2007). This has removed the stigmatism behind drugs and professionals are able to seek out problematic drug users. In addition, since decriminalisation there is a more visible view of the amount of active drug users. Robson (1999, p. 22) maintains that “the great majority of people who use drugs never come to the attention of doctors, lawyers, or policemen.” Research is now more efficient, especially with the many that propose interest in the understanding of issues pertinent to drugs. Furthermore, now there are many that are reporting their use of drugs, statistics are therefore more accurate and measuring the rate of overall drug use is
The use of drugs by members of society is a problem for some individuals and a larger problem for the legal system. The use of drugs has created crime among the dealers of illegal substances in many forms, the classification of that substance determines the level of the crime, and with different charges the legal system acts accordingly. In the case of drugs and the legal systems, action against the use or distribution of those substances, many people have been incarcerated in the United States where the tax payers have to support the criminals that are housed for a period of time. In the United States over half a million individuals have been incarcerated for drug crimes and that number is growing annually. Society cannot continuously bare the burden of paying higher taxes to support the welfare of drug offenders if the number is only going to increase year after year. The suggestion has been made, which has been highly followed in some cases, that the use and distribution of illegal drug type substances should be legalized. The legalization of drugs, in various forms, is something that a large part of society do not have a problem supporting. The facts are that a large part of society use drugs on a fairly steady bases and that legalizing some forms of drugs could be beneficial to those individuals. The individuals that use drugs in society would not face jail time if caught and the ones that have been incarcerated would certainly be released, this would free up taxes to go toward other problems. It is theorized that legalization of drugs could get criminals off the streets and keep them out of jail so that the tax payers could pay less or the taxes could go toward more useful areas of focus. Many believe that legalization of...
Addiction shows a dark path for many. It affects everyone around the addict and often leads to arrest. This presents reasoning as to why addicts need to receive treatment opposed to simply locking them away. Treatment of addiction greatly benefits addicts and proves to aid the individual more than incarceration. The proven benefits show why enacting a solution for the aid of drug offenders needs to occur. Nonviolent drug offenders need to be granted extensive addiction treatment and counseling in the place of incarceration for their crimes.
Western society is undergoing a change, as progressive activists are working hard to bring attention to the fact that current laws against drugs are ineffective. Tens of thousands of people are convicted for drug offences each year, often seeing long prison sentences for relatively minor crimes. It seems as though addicts are incarcerated for drug possession, then released into a society without any help or support systems. This results in addicts continuing to abuse drugs, and being caught with possession again. There are many flaws with the current system regarding drug possession, most of which can be traced back to the unsuccessful policies of the War on Drugs and the increase in enforcement that followed. Fortunately, there are alternative