A Drug Problem?
A Unique Perspective Regarding the War On Drugs
The United States is facing a problem with the usage of illegal drugs. No, the problem is not with users, or dealers. The real problem with drugs in this country is the bureaucratic non-sense that engulfs Washington D.C.
The argument over whether to legalize narcotics is still under debate. While there are pros and cons to each side of this argument, one thing that the Federal Government needs to look at is if they are to legalize these drugs, how do they plan on enforcing their decision? Would they allow persons of age 18 to purchase marijuana from the local 7-Eleven? Or would they restrict the sales to those over 21? How are they going to reap the cash from the sales of these new items on the market? What impact would this have on our economy?
There is the issue over whether or not these narcotics are worse for your health than tobacco and alcohol. I think the issue here is someone is trying to force their idea of morality down everyone else’s throats. I truly do not believe that those persons raising a ruckus over the health concerns of users are being honest. People are going to do what they want in this country, whether it is legal or not.
We saw the kinds of problems of prohibiting substances during the days of Prohibition. We saw the rise of the mob bosses such as Al Capone. Whereas these days we have Drug Czars like Manuel Noriega. I’m not fighting for one side or the other, but there is a problem here, and we have to figure out how to deal with it.
There are more than a few people in this country that think the way to solve the drug “problem” is to create more legislation. Apparently these people have never bothered to look up the federal law codes for addressing the use and sale of currently illegal or controlled substances. We have literally miles of paper worth of written laws from both the federal and state governments dealing with narcotics. Yet, we still have people breaking the law on a regular basis.
The solution to the problem of illegal drug use is not through more laws. After all, doesn’t Congress have enough on their plate as it is? Shouldn’t they be spending more money and time on dealing with the economy, national defense, foreign policy, welfare, healthcare, and making sure that the budget is balanced?
The solution to the problem is enforcement of established laws and policies. At places of employment, where the use urinalysis is used to determine whether or not employees use drugs, most of the time, the management simply turns its head when someone is found with substances in their system that they should not have there. How is this solving any kind of problem? Do we not have police out on the nation’s highways using RADAR to ensure that people are obeying the posted speed limit? Are not those found breaking the speed limit more often than not ticketed?
Yet when someone smokes marijuana in the privacy of their own home, are the police breaking down the door to haul them off to prison for committing a felony, of course not. Here’s another item, how do you stop the demand for these products? We accomplish this by stopping the supply. If people can no longer buy these drugs, they inevitably have to quit using them. How do I propose we do this? By pushing the maximum penalty under the law for anyone caught selling what ought not be sold.
You are probably saying to yourself, well, if we are to arrest all the drug dealers, would we not need larger police departments? And if so, where do we to get the funding for such a program? Let me break it down for you. If you want a new car, most of the time, don’t you save up enough for a down payment and make sure ahead of time that you can afford the payments and the insurance every month? What needs to happen is that we need to free up the courts, thus saving money, which could be spent on finding these drug dealers and not going after those who have an occasional joint. This would also free up the courts enough to allow more felons to prosecuted more expediently rather than taking months on end to come up with a decision.
To sum up, we don’t need more law, we don’t need to make drugs legal or make more drugs illegal. We need to enforce what we already have written down. When that is done, then we can take the time to determine what our next course of action should be.
