Over 40 years ago US President Richard Nixon declared drug use public enemy number one. Starting an unprecedented global campaign against the war on drugs. Today the numbers are in, the war on drugs is a huge failure. with devastating unintended consequences. It led to mass incarceration in the US, to corruption, political destabilization and violence in Latin America, Asia and Africa to systemic human rights abuse across the world. It negatively affected the lives of millions of people. All of this while we waste billions of dollars every year only to create and fuel powerful drug cartels. While the goal of the war on drugs seems less achievable than ever The core strategy on the war on drugs is no drugs no problems. So the main focus on the war on drugs in the last few decades has been eradicating the supply and incarcerating drug traffickers. This ignores the most fundamental of market forces. Supply and Demand. if you reduce the supply of anything without reducing demand first the price skyrockets. This might lower sales for many products but not for drugs. The drugs market is not price sensitive, drugs will be consumed no matter what the price is. So the effect is to encourage production of more drugs and recruitment of more traffickers with more ways to distribute which increases the availability. This is also known as the balloon effect. Even if drug production or a major supply root is destroyed the supply for the end user is not reduced. A perfect example of this is : Crystal Meth. the US government tried to stop its production by strictly regulating the sale of chemicals used to manufacture the drug. this forced Big Meth out of business but the unintended consequences were that thousands of small scale operations started all over the country mostly in small towns and rural areas using chemicals that weren't regulated. In response to this some US states wanted to reduce the supply of home made meth by regulating even more chemicals which reduced small scale meth productions drastically. But the supply of meth still stayed the same, mexican drug cartels immediately took over and opened big production operations. Their meth was even better than before and they had loads of experience with smuggling. So all these efforts made the meth industry more professional, the drug more potent, while supply wasn't reduced at ALL. You cant win this war on the supply side. With a budget around 30 BILLION DOLLARS the US Drug Enforcement Agency has an efficiency rating of less than 1%, when it comes to stopping the flow of drugs into the US and inside the US. <=fail. Many problems we associate with drug use are actually a result of the war against them. Prohibition just makes drugs stronger. the more potent drugs you can store in a smaller area, the more profit you will make. the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders has the largest impact on our society, the us has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the worlds prison population, largely due to the harsh sentences and mandatory minimums. African americans make up 40% of the US prison population. And while white kids are more likely to abuse drugs, black kids are 10 times more likely to get arrested for drug possession. Drug prohibition has led to a system that Bulldozes human rights, cost VAST sums of money and creates ALOT of human misery. All in pursuit of an unattainable goal. after 40 years its time to end the war on drugs. its time we start taking back our human rights and keep them.
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