Only someone unarmed with facts or absent of logic and reason could possibly be in favor of our government’s current policies grouped together in an anti-illegal drug effort known as America’s War on Drugs. America’s war on drugs is an unqualified disaster. Despite its millions of dollars in effort to eradicate illegal drug use from America’s cities and citizens, the U.S. government has through its policies actually increased the problem and the violent crime associated with its war. Just a few facts would prove this argument to any person who is not basing their answer on emotion or some kind of puritan absolute moralist point of view. Take for example, that the Washington Post recently reported that the “War on Drugs causes over 37% of all the murders which took place in New York City, USA, in 1988” (Whelan 2). However, it is not the use of illegal drugs that caused the crimes, it is the war against their use. The same case used to be made against alcohol during prohibition, but Al Capone was not responsible for murdering people because he was drunk but because they interfered with his alcohol trafficking, “During Alcohol Prohibition our National Murder Rate increased almost 1000%, going from a rate of 1.1 to 1.2 murders per 100,000 people per year before Prohibition, to about 9.8 murders per 100,000” (Whelan 2).
There are so many facts that speak against America’s war on drugs that one would have to stubbornly ignore them to want to continue with our present unsuccessful efforts towards minimizing the use of illegal drugs. First, we have a sitting President and a Republican front-runner for the Presidential nomination who have been accused of, and to varying degrees admitted, being users of marijuana and cocaine. Obviously the use of illegal drugs is a pervasive situation in America, one that crosses all socioeconomic and education levels. Second, we are ex
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