Stop the war…
With the Keynesian ideas of Richard Nixon at the helm, his monumental stepping-stones of complete disaster were sure to steer his barge into yet another ship-sinking iceberg. Many remember Nixon because of the Watergate Hotel Scandal but that infraction was microscopic compared to his many abominable and treasonous misdeeds. The War on Drugs was his most atrocious and pitiful achievement.
The War on Drugs was initially implemented for only one reason. Nixon’s first term in office, he knew that an admission of defeat against the North Vietnamese Guerrillas’ would not be a positive mark up for his administration. The war of attrition military mission was a complete disaster for the US. Commands were not being followed, armed soldiers were refusing to obey orders, and some soldiers’ were using drugs. The entire mission fell apart.
Nixon knew he had to find an excuse that caused the war of attrition to fail. The administration with the help of social media manufactured the perfect scapegoat… DRUGS!
With no ability to cross-examine the inanimate objects, the administrations plan was a complete success. In June of 1971, Nixon announced “America’s public enemy number one in the [US] is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” This was the creation of “The war on drugs.”
If you look closely at his statement, he told us exactly what he was planning to do. The drugs were not the problem as you can read from his statement. The problem was drug abuse. Who abuses drugs? That’s right! People do. “In order to fight this enemy…” he stated, “it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive.” So new criminal laws were enacted as well as massive amounts of tax payer money to wage a war against people who were using drugs.
This supposed “war of drugs” has cost American’s between 1 trillion and 2.5 trillion tax dollars fighting people who use and sell drugs.
The war on drugs has done the complete opposite of its intended goals:
In a 10 year span, opiate use has increased by 34.5%, cocaine use has increased by 27% and marijuana has increased by 8.5%.
If the war on drugs was effective, shouldn’t we be spending less and less money and shouldn’t drug use be falling? It is quite obvious the war on drugs is completely ineffective.
Why is buying and selling drugs so violent and dangerous? Well, because it is illegal. If drugs were decriminalized, drug addicts wouldn’t have to steal, rob, and kill to supply their habits. The 2 plus trillion we have spent locking up millions of people could actually go to help these people instead of ruining their lives.
Jails and prisons only make drug offenders worse off. They find new drug dealers, they may be violently raped and they waste away their life, year after year as their family at home slowly corrodes. Once they have a criminal record, they can only chose a job from the very bottom depths of the barrel. Many commit suicide because they can’t find their way out of the vicious circle of addiction. I have stood on that edge before. It is cold and lonely.
The way we treat addicts in this country is a disgrace. The vast majority of addicts/alcoholics are the way they are because of adverse childhood experiences. Someone buying drugs from another person is a free exchange of goods. There is no aggression. No violence. Both parties are happy with the trade- so why the hell are we locking them up? We should be helping them, not hurting them. Ultimately, it’s not their fault. America has more prisoners than Stalin’s Archipelago. 80% of prisoners in the US are drug offenders. I hope we are not proud.
(Info/stats cited from)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu-eEZ-8y6U&list=UUC3L8QaxqEGUiBC252GHy3w
A Walk In His Shoes 