Samuel Gallardo 1

Samuel Gallardo
Professor Fiore
ENGL. 220.011
May 6, 2013

Treatment and Decriminalization is The Solution to The War on Drugs

Across the board people agree that the war on drugs in America has failed, but the
problem is what should our solution be? Some say that we must be stricter on drug users and
dealers, but there is no proof that it will work. Others say that we must decriminalize drugs so
that we can stop high incarceration rates and massive government spending. Others argue that we
must legalize all drugs to stop drug cartels from creating a monopoly in the black market, and to
be able to tax drugs to create more revenue. There are also arguments for adding more money to
prevention and rehabilitation programs which statistics have shown work immensely. Everyday
more people agree that the war on drugs has failed and while there are many approaches such as
legalization, decriminalizing drugs, or getting tougher on drugs, the real solution is to offer more
prevention and rehabilitation programs.
The war on drugs refers to how America has created strict, tough laws and punishments
for people accused of using or dealing drugs. Laws restricting drug use has been around in
America since the early 1900s. The most famous first law was the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of
1914. This law restricted the use of heroin and cocaine for all Americans. In 1954, when
President Eisenhower announced the U.S. Interdepartmental Committee on Narcotics, he called

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for a war on drugs for the first time ever. Later with each president of the U.S., there came
stricter, tougher laws on drug user and dealers such as Senator Joe Biden's 1994 Omnibus Crime
Bill which called for allowing the execution of drug kingpins.
The war on drugs has gotten much worse. The price spent to pay for extra law
enforcement, drug agencies, court hearings, and prisons are much higher than what could have
been spent on treatment programs. $14,272,558,928 dollars have been spent since May 5th from
the federal government and state governments for the war on drugs. (Drug Sense Map Inc. ) With
only five percent of the worlds population, America still has 25 percent of the worlds prison
population. In fact almost 49 percent of all American prisoners are in there for nonviolent crimes.
From 1970 to 2005, the general population of America has grown 44 percent, while the rate that
the prison population has grown in the same time is 700 percent. (Sledge) That rate is
embarrassing, and America needs to figure out how to lower these statistics. Much of the
problem is due to the toughness on drug users and dealers.
Yet with all this information some people still say that the war on drugs has succeeded.
Russell Eisenman wrote an article titled Decline in the use of legal and illegal drugs in the
United States, 1972-1990, and the subsequent drop in crime. In this article Eisenman explains
why he believes the use of drugs has been going down since 1972, and that statistics prove that
drug usage is declining across the board in America. He explains how a random sample of U. S.
households was done by Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. In
this sample the results showed no great increase in drug usage, legal or illegal, in the United
States, from 1972-1990. In fact, the tendencies is for drug usage to decline (Eisenman 1).

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As you can see in the picture above, incarceration rates have risen dramatically since
Nixon launched the war on drugs and became tougher on users and dealers. While drug usage
may have gone down, incarceration rates taken from actual prisons have risen. This is proof
enough to show that the solution to drugs is not working.
Incarcerating people for drug use is immoral because they are doing harm to themselves
and they should only be arrested if they are doing harm to others. One of the biggest problems
with the war on drugs is that while cocaine, heroin, meth, marijuana are all illegal alcohol,
caffeine, nicotine, and sugar are legal. These drugs are just as bad and more importantly are
known as drugs. Yet these are legal even though they do harm to the individual who uses it. Most
would agree that no one wants to make sweets (sugar), beer (alcohol), and coffee (caffeine)
illegal, yet they are all harmful.
So what are the solutions to the dealing with drugs? Well, the biggest solution heard
around the country by many is that we should legalize drugs. This would allow the government
to regulate the industry and decide how much the drugs can be taxed. This would also allow for
drug dealers to not be able to make as much money with competition. Most would also go to a

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legal drug store where they wouldnt be afraid of getting in any trouble with the law. This would
theoretically stop a lot of criminal activity because the violence that comes from the drug cartels
and drug deals would be gone. This also would decrease court hearings and prison incarcerations
which would lower the price the government has to pay and would increase their revenue from
taxing drugs.
In a YouTube video named Retired Police Captain demolishes the War on Drugs, the
video shows a retired captain named Peter Christ who believes that drugs should be legalized. In
the video he explains in a news interview, why he feels legalization is the only resolution. He
points out that when prohibition was implemented, violence and homicide soared in America. He
explains that once prohibition was stopped, homicides went down. Homicides had gone down
substantially and that was during the Great Depression, and yet people werent killing each other
as much as before. Peter Christ is also the co-founder of LEAP, an organization where cops are
for legalization of drugs.
In the interview, Peter Christ explains why officers should not be trying to enforce these
laws because officers should not be stopping people from hurting themselves. It also does not
work because drug use has gotten worst. A good example that Christ uses is that American
prisons which are considered the best in the world cannot keep the prisons drug free. If prisons
cannot be drug free, then how can we keep drugs out of society? Peter Christ says that everyone
who wants drugs can get ahold of them, and so legalizing drugs would not make it easier for
people to get ahold of them. A drug that is legal and has also gone down in usage is cigarette use
which has gone down 50 percent in adults.
But many beg to differ, as James A. Inciardi and Christine A. Saum argue the contrary in
their article Legalization Madness. In it, the authors argue that The Office of National Drug

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Control Policy estimated that the legalization of cocaine would increase the number of addicts
from 2 million to a range between 18 to 50 million (Inciardi and Christine). The authors also
point out that while many drug advocates want to legalize drugs, they do not want to legalize
crack cocaine which is very potent and dangerous. If all drugs arent legalized, then people will
still do illegal things to get those drugs and that would ruin the whole point of legalizing drugs.
The authors also argue that while many believe that drug users are not violent unless deprived of
their drugs, it is actually untrue and evidence suggests that when high drug users are more
violent.
In a slew of drug research, the authors show that in all drugs including alcohol and
marijuana, people are more aggressive. in a study of drug use and psychopathy among
Baltimore City jail inmates, researchers at the University of Baltimore reported that cocaine use
was related to irritability, resentment, hostility, and assault (Inciardi and Christine). The study
concludes that this aggression could be an effect of the drug rather than an effect of not having
the drug. (Inciardi and Christine) The authors also point out that during prohibition, alcohol use
went down to 50 percent down 20 percent from before when alcohol was legal. These were based
off of alcohol related deaths and once alcohol was made legal again, the deaths rose.
While the authors of Legalization Madness believe that drugs being legalized could
make society much more violent and add much more users in society, they have one problem.
Their problem is that there research while good is based off of hypotheses and statistics from
opinions. They predict much more violence and specifically many more users, but there are
places where drugs are legal and the questions is, how many people use drugs in those places?
This is why it is good to see how other societies differ from our laws to see which ones work the

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best. Someone else who agrees with the authors of Legalization Madness is Asa Hutchinson
who also believes that the war on drugs has worked.
Asa Hutchinson wrote in his article labeled An effective drug policy to protect
America's youth and communities, about how the authorities handle the drug problem, and why
it would be wrong to legalize drugs. In the article, Hutchinson argues that authorities do not
focus on drug users but on the drug dealers. There is an argument that the Federal law
enforcement authorities investigate and prosecute the growers, manufacturers, shippers, and
distributors of dangerous and addictive illegal drugs (Hutchinson). While Hutchinson argues
that the laws are working, he also argues that the law on first time offenders is not as harsh as
some make it out to be. His strong point is how much we need to focus on education and
treatment programs and on how these work very well, which is something we will get into soon.
There is a lot of fear regarding legalizing drugs. People think that it could cause a rise in
violence and drug users would be abundant. There is another alternative to legalization though,
and it is decriminalizing. The difference between decriminalization and legalization is that
legalization makes it okay to use the drugs and its also possible that businesses couldnt not hire
you if you are a drug user. But decriminalization is that the drug is still illegal but its considered
basically a misdemeanor and you wont go to jail or prison if you are found using drugs. This
would only be for users and dealers and you would still have to pay a small fine, but officers
wouldnt be looking out for drug users. There have actually been places where drugs have been
decriminalized and show a lot of success.
Maia Szalavitz writes in Time Magazine an article called Drugs in Portugal: Did
Decriminalization Work? She looked at statistics in Portugal which used to make drugs illegal
and try to enforce their laws but now has decriminalized all drugs. After five years of having

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drugs been decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new
HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking
treatment for drug addiction more than doubled (Szalavitz). Across the board, drug usage in
teens of all ages declined, HIV and drug related deaths declined as well. Money that was spent
on enforcement was switched to treatment plans and programs which have worked for many
people.
Decriminalization may be a good alternative to many of our drug problems because while
we can still keep the drugs illegal, we can make them misdemeanors and drug users will not be
afraid of going to prison. This would surely decrease the amount of nonviolent people in prison
and would lower the cost of enforcing the drug war. If this money was changed to focus on
treatment plans like how Portugal did it, then we could see much less drug users on the streets. It
has also been shown that the longer a person is in treatment, the better chance they have of never
going back to drugs. Throughout this essay, I have shown arguments for and against legalization
of drugs and while many argue about its effectiveness, almost no one disagrees that treatment
and prevention programs work.
While all the presidents of the U.S. have all been for the war on drugs, there has been
some progress in them moving more towards treatment options. President bush has spent a total
of $6.285 billion, or thirty-three percent of the federal drug budget, to demand reduction and
rehabilitation, through prevention and treatment research, as well as prevention education and
drug treatment programs (Hutchinson). These programs have shown great improvement in the
people who use it. In a survey taken by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA), it was found that substance abusers that remain in treatment longer
are less likely to resume their former drug habits (Alter). In the study, 66 percent were cocaine

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users and after long-term treatment, only 22 percent returned to cocaine which is two-thirds of
people treated.
Drugs have been around since the beginning of man, and this is why, no matter how evil
and dangerous it is, we will never get rid of it. Everyone agrees that drugs will never go away, so
we must try to show the facts and follow the facts to make the best quality society. The war on
drugs has failed. It has not worked the way we wanted it to, and we must learn to try new
methods. Legalization is too extreme for our society and we do not know for sure it will work.
Being tougher on drug dealers and users has been done already and America still uses more
drugs than any other country in the world. Decriminalization has shown progress and success in
other countries and it is definitely a method that should be kept in mind. But the best method that
everyone agrees on is that treatment, prevention, and rehabilitation works and more money
should be put into it.

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Works Cited
http://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2012/04/19/lets-be-blunt-its-time-to-end-the-drug-war/
Sources
Alter, Jonathan. The War on Addiction. Newsweek, February 12, 2001, pp. 3743
CopsSayLegalizeDrugs. Retired Police Captain demolishes the War on Drugs. Online video
clips. Youtube. Youtube, 25 Oct. 2012. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk
Drug Sense Map Inc. . 5 May 2013. Web. 5 May 2013. http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock
Eisenman, Russell. "Decline in the use of legal and illegal drugs in the United States, 1972-1990,
and the subsequent drop in crime." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology (2002): 107+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.
Head, Tom. "History of the War on Drugs." 2013. About.com Civil Liberties . Web. 29 April
2013. http://civilliberty.about.com/od/drugpolicy/tp/War-on-Drugs-History-Timeline.htm
Hutchinson, Asa. "An effective drug policy to protect America's youth and communities."
Fordham Urban Law Journal Jan. 2003: 441+. Academic OneFile. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.
Inciardi, James A., and Christine A. Saum. "Legalization madness." Public Interest 123 (1996):
72+. Academic OneFile. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.
Sledge, Matt. "The Drug War And Mass Incarceration By The Numbers." 08 April 2013.
Huffington Post Politics. Web. 29 April 2013.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/drug-war-massincarceration_n_3034310.html?utm_hp_ref=war-on-drugs
Szalavitz, Maia. "Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?" 26 April 2009. Time. Web.
22 April 2013.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html#ixzz2QBRQ8Qvf