Drug Prohibition essays

Drug Prohibition essays Under the United States Constitution the federal government is charged with the responsibilities to protect our individual, as well as collective, rights to life and liberty. Often times this charge leads the various branches of the federal government to create, implement, and enforce policy that is designed to protect society from itself. Noble in its ambition the result although not apparent initially, sometimes does more to hinder the rights of the citizens it is attempting to protect, and/or the cost of doing so becomes a higher price than that of the cost that is being avoided. In this case it is necessary to re-evaluate the situation and explore any alternatives that may offer a more fathomable solution concerning both protection of rights as well as the cost of so doing. In the late 1980s the United States government made such policy and today the results have done little to resolve the problem and have left the country closer to the danger it sought to prevent. The policy is known as the War on Drugs. Initially the drug prohibition was, however idealistic, a valiant attempt to rid the country of this terrible enemy. The objectives were simple; to impose stiff penalties on those who use drugs outlined to be illicit, quell all to trade and commerce of such substances, and even to go as far to prevent countries with in our general border vicinity from producing and exporting these substances. The illicit drug market, pre-drug war, is estimated to be a hundred billion dollar a year business. The federal government, since the beginning the war of drug, spends approximately ten billion dollars a year on drug enforcement agencies and programs, and another estimated one hundred and ninety billion dollars a year on investigating drug related crimes, prosecution of alleged drug activities, and enforcing punishments and/or imprisonment. That adds up to be a staggering cost of two hundred...