Current reefer policies amount to madness
Joe Schroeder, Staff Writer
In a well-intentioned effort to protect the nation from the horrors portrayed so well in last spring’s campus drama, “Reefer Madness,” the U.S. has entered an epic struggle popularly dubbed “the war on drugs.”
The musical depicted the effects and dangers of marijuana use and was aimed at preventing the legalization and distribution of the substances America is currently battling against.
Casualty figures for this war are startling. Tens of thousands have died on battlefields stretching from crime-controlled American streets to those lining poor barrios in Mexico.
According to a 2007 Bureau of Justice study, more than 340,000 prisoners of war are taken in the U.S. alone every year.
The formidable foe was created by the illegal status of drugs. Profits from illegal distribution methods for marijuana and other commonly “abused” substances have served to fund the operations of American gangs and those of great cartels in Mexico.
According to Press TV, these same cartels have killed more than 10,000 people over the course of government crackdowns during the past two years.
Time Magazine’s Claire Suddath said the drug industry’s costs have added up to approximately 2.5 trillion dollars over the past 40 years.
According to a Sept. 2009 National Priorities Project study, this amount is about four times higher than total government expenditures associated with the war on Iraq.
It would be cheaper for the U.S. government to simply buy the drugs and burn them than to pursue its current strategy.
The U.S. is losing the war on drugs and has been for decades. It is time for it to end.
Upon his accession to the presidency in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ended Prohibition, a failed attempt to keep citizens from the substance-related den of sin.
Roosevelt ended an intractable crime problem, saved an ailing economy from spending on the enforcement of unnecessary laws and gave the government a very large new stream of tax revenue.
The current administration has a similar opportunity to legalize marijuana. This drug makes up a large portion of the present American drug debacle. Its health effects do not exceed those incurred of already legalized substances.
Thus, the legalization of marijuana makes economic and humanitarian sense.
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