Drug Prohibition †The solution that never worked Essay

Countries have been making drugs illegal over the years for varieties of reasons - be it to combat a perceived moral or health epidemic, to single out certain groups of people, or to reflect religious influences. Even when some drugs do not present notable health dangers, governments ban them. While there are many drugs that are unhealthy when abused, the drug policies around the world, particularly the United States, are inconsistent and oppressive. Drug laws were supposedly created for the good of society, but the prohibition of drugs only serves to cause problems, violence, and unrest. Starting from a historical standpoint, we can see that past endeavors to ban substances were often motivated by discrimination and racism. Drug†¦show more content†¦These deaths are due to drug wars and fights over territory between the various organized crime groups, who get their business by trafficking drugs over the United States border. Their booming business and death count directly d epend on the prohibition of drugs to continue. Former US narcotics officer Michael Levine worked undercover with some Colombian cocaine cartels and talked about what he learned: I learned that not only did they not fear our war on drugs, they counted on it to increase the market price and to weed out the smaller, inefficient drug dealers. They found U.S. interdiction efforts laughable. The only U.S. action they feared was an effective demand reduction program. On one undercover tape-recorded conversation, a top cartel chief, Jorge Roman, expressed his gratitude for the drug war, calling it â€Å"a sham put on for the American taxpayer† that was actually â€Å"good for business† (Lynch, 92). Prohibition of drugs continues to allow organized crime to raise their death toll and make massive profits. Further evidence on how prohibition can fail and give rise to crime is quite clear looking back to the attempted prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s in the United States. The Volstead Act and Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution banned the sale of alcohol and caused much unrest among the citizenry of the country. Widespread criminalShow MoreRelatedEssay on The War On Drugs1079 Words   |  5 PagesIn recent years the so-called â€Å"war on drugs† has taken over the streets and back alleys of suburban America. It has caused a problem that mirrors the prohibition days of the 1920’s and early 30’s. Politicians trying to play â€Å"tough guy,† are only contributing to more violence. Their laws have created an underground drug-trade, in which modern drug-dealers have taken the place of the bootleggers of old. The real question is whether or not this â€Å"war† is working. 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