The New Prohibition

By Jonathan Schmidt

Any good general knows when losing a war it is better to cut your losses and pull out then take any more losses; in this case, the general is the United States government and the war is the “War on Drugs.”

The War on Drugs has been going on for over 20 years, it’s time it ended. The government started this prohibition thinking it was going to save lives; in the end it only made matters worse. Mary Ruwart, an avid member of the Libertarian party, wrote a book entitled Healing Our World. In this book is a chapter on the status of the War on Drugs.

Ruwart states in 1987 the federal prison population was made up of 36 percent drug offenders. This is scary, instead of our federal law enforcement arresting the murderers, the rapists, and the thieves it’s arresting the peaceful drug user. This makes our streets really safe at night. Ha! And the government continues to put federal funding into arresting the peaceful drug users and possessors.

The government does not realize this is a second prohibition. In the early 1900s the government put a prohibition an alcoholic beverages. Everyone knows people still drank; they made home-brews that made people sick some even caused fatalities.

The War on Drugs is also fatal. Because drugs are illegal, no one is watching over the production of these drugs, they could be impure, they could kill. Yet, if drugs were legal, the government could oversee the production of dugs, maintain how much is sold, and bring the death rates down considerably.

Needles are another cause of casualties in the War on Drugs. In Ruwart’s book, she talks about how people die from AIDS acquired from dirty and shared needles. Why do people share needles? Because the government does not regulate the sale because drugs are illegal! Ruwart says 3,500 drug users die from AIDS contracted from dirty needles every year. This could be stopped if the government sold needles, like Hong Kong where one can obtain a needle without a prescription and their drug users do not contract AIDS from dirty needles.

The government is worried about drug related deaths. Ruwart says 7,000 people die from drug overdose from illegal substances while 100,000 to 200,000 die from alcohol related deaths and 320,000 to 390,000 die from tobacco. Alcohol and tobacco are legal and the government is worried about the death rate from illegal substances?

More deaths are caused in black market turf wars. Because drugs are illegal and hard to come by, black market dealers steal from other dealers in order to keep a supply up. If drugs were legal, these deaths would go down considerably.

Robbery is a problem not only with black market dealers, but also with the everyday drug addict. Ruwart says because drugs are illegal, they are expensive. Addicts steal money in order to buy drugs. Now why aren’t people stealing in order to buy alcohol and cigarettes when people are addicted to those? Because they are legal! They are legal, therefore the government can regulate their manufacture and the prices go down, and stealing for liquor money just is not common since the prohibition ended.

These crimes and deaths mentioned before are just a fraction of what really happens, deaths related to medicinal marijuana being unavailable or taken away are frighteningly common as well. If the government made at least medicinal marijuana legal, death rates would go down considerably.As mentioned before, all of these accounts are less then half of everything that occurs. The casualty rates are high, general, don’t you think it’s time you pulled out of this war?