The budgetary demands of swollen prison populations are forcing states to reconsider their sentencing policies and examine the cost-effectiveness, fairness, and wisdom of adopting shorter sentences, eliminating mandatory minimums and increasing the use of alternatives to incarceration (Incarceration pp).
According to a March 2004 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled "Actual Causes of Death in the United States," tobacco is number one with 435, 000 deaths per years, followed by poor diet and physical inactivity at 365,000, then alcohol at 85,000 deaths (Annual pp). Adverse reactions to prescription drugs accounts for 32,000 deaths, while motor vehicle crashes cause 26,347 deaths (Annual pp). All illicit drug use, direct and indirect is responsible for 17,000 deaths, however, marijuana is responsible for zero deaths (Annual pp).
In March 2005, people from various backgrounds, from attorneys to outreach workers to recovering drug users, gathered at Seattle City Hall to discuss the war on drugs and concluded that, "as waged today, it is at best ineffective and at worst expensive and unfair" (Castro pp). Roger Goodman, an attorney with the King County Bar Association, said, "We really must stop these wasteful practices," (Castro pp). Councilman Nick Licata said the goal is for the city to begin working on drug treatment as a way of reducing street-level drug dealing, rather than relying on law enforcement to arrest street dealers (Castro pp). The week before the meeting, the King County Bar Association released a report "arguing that drug abuse should be dealt with as a medical problem, not a crime' (Castro pp). Moreover, the state should regulate the manufacture and distribution of now-illegal drugs and that, the association contends, would reduce drug-related crime, gang violence and drug use among children (Castro pp). Former Seattle police...
Drug addiction is not merely a failure of will or weakness in character, however having this 'brain disease' does not absolve the addict of responsibility for his or her behavior, but it does explain why an addict feels compelled to continue using drugs (Leshner 2001). Environmental cues that surround an individual's initial drug use and development of the addiction, actually become "conditioned" to the drug use and thus are
"As a case in point we may take the known fact of the prevalence of reefer and dope addiction in Negro areas. This is essentially explained in terms of poverty, slum living, and broken families, yet it would be easy to show the lack of drug addiction among other ethnic groups where the same conditions apply." Inciardi 248() Socio-economic effects Legalizing drugs has been deemed to have many socio-economic effects. A study
Although the cost of these successes can be tabulated in billions of dollars, money was also recovered from these arrests, and there is no way to measure the human lives that were not lost or affected due to the apprehension of dangerous drug lords. Still, the EU Commission has raised the familiar argument that economics can generally used to support the side against continuing the drug war. In addition to
In their efforts to put an end to the presence of drugs on U.S. territory, authorities have implemented tougher drug laws. "Congressman Barr has described the "War on Drugs" as a war for the very lives of our children." (Williams, Juan 2001) Even if there have been divergences in the past between the American government and drug abusers, it has not been until the 1970s that the actual war against drugs
At present, Al-Qaeda is known to finance its terror operations through drug-trafficking. "[the New York Times reported] that 'militants linked to Al Qaeda also established connections with Bosnian organized crime figures. The officials said Al Qaeda and the Taliban found a route for the trafficking of heroin from Afghanistan into Europe through the Balkans.'... In other words, the CIA knew that Al-Qaeda was involved in heroin-trafficking, but (as is
This despite how much money is being wasted on "the war on drugs." Making "war" militarily on a medical/social problem makes no sense. In addition to the psychological problems of individuals, social conditions contribute greatly to the problem. People who are alienated from society become addicted to drugs, as Sen. Robert Kennedy pointed out back in 1965. Solving the drug problem means "solving poverty and broken homes, racial discrimination
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