Have We Won The War On Drugs?

With a 43 year long war on drugs, one would think the United States has exceeded its goal in decreasing illegal narcotic activity in the country. The answer is no, despite a trillion dollars spent and the arrest of a hundred million citizens. In fact, the drug problem is worse today. One example that succinctly proves this fact is heroin.

Officials right to crack down on prescription painkillers

(published in The Washington Post on 3-15-14)

“…At the same time, there is a key difference between this heroin epidemic and previous ones, as [U.S. Attorney General] Holder noted: It is related to the abuse of chemically similar legal drugs, prescription opioids, whose use, both legitimate and illicit, has exploded in recent years. Properly administered, these painkilling drugs can bring patients necessary relief. Diverted to unintended and unauthorized use, as they too often are, these highly addictive drugs function, in many cases, as a gateway drug to heroin.”

“…The reason, experts on addiction note, is that heroin already was cheaper and more accessible than prescription medicines.

The government’s crackdown, such as it has been, did not prevent doctors from writing an estimated 241 million prescriptions for opioids in 2012, which was down 2 million from 2011 but still 97 million more than in 2002, according to data from IMS Health that first were reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.”

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Painkillers and Heroin: Which drug is more prevalent and affordable?

            In mid-March 2014, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in his weekly video, warned of an urgent and growing public health crisis. The abuse of legal painkillers, categorized as prescription opiates, can lead to the use and addiction to heroin. How? States and the federal government have recently prioritized the war on opioid abuse. This has led to the reduced supply of pain killers, forcing addicts to seek other medication; and as I’ve written previously, heroin is a poor man’s pain killer. The rising death rate for heroin abuse, both locally and throughout the country, sadly has been rising. Thats not very good evidence of us winning any war on drugs.

Does The Punishment Fit The Crime?

In the March 2014 edition of the American Bar Association Journal, these disturbing statistics appeared. As of 2012, in the United States of America:

1)     3,278 people were serving life sentences without parole.

2)     79% (2,586) were sentenced for non-violent, drug-related crimes.

3)     20% (656) were convicted of non-violent property offenses

Ethnicities of 3,278 non-violent lifers

·       65% (2,131) are African American

·       18% (584) are Caucasian

·       16% (524) are Latino or Hispanic

From: A Living Death: Life Without Parole For Non-violent Offenses, American Civil Liberties Union, 2013 (November).

            Does it make the numbers far worse when you ponder the following question? How many of the 3,278 human beings sentenced to life without parole were sentenced by a judge whose hands were tied by a mandatory minimum sentence or sentencing guidelines from which he/she did not think he could or should deviate?