The War Against Drug Abuse - Essay Example

College Drug abuse has been one of the lethal activities that are overwhelming many lives of people in the world. Consumptionof deadly drugs like cocaine, heroin, opium, marijuana and others are known to kill many people daily and others are hospitalized. However, war against this drug abuse has been put in place. This war against drugs has not been very effective since the time it was started. It has gone through many challenges that make it difficult in solving the problem of drugs. This shows how difficult it is to control the use of drugs in most of the communities in the whole world. United States has spent a lot of money on this war on drugs. It has cost the government billions of dollars yet this problem has not been solved. There are various ways in which problem of war on drugs affects many people in the world. The problem affects the people who use the drugs and also those whom their family members are addicted to the drugs. There are many ways that have been put in place to ensure that problem is solved. These methods will help in reducing the effects of drugs in the societies. War on drugs has been endorsed to ensure that drug abuse is eliminated but this war itself is becoming a problem in the society. The war is against the illegal drug trade that takes place in many countries. United States and other countries are supporting this campaign. This war on drugs has been there for the last 40 years but drug abuse has continued to kill many people. However, it is time to apply other techniques that can help to reduce drug abuse in the society (Roleff, 2004). Effects of drugs are experienced by many people, be it the users or those who do not use them. This is a problem that has been there in our societies for very long time. It has made it hard to win the war on drugs. This war on drugs has been made difficult due to the intensive use of the drugs in larger populations in the world. War on drugs has been experienced in many ways. The first people who experienced this war on drugs are those who are abusing drugs. These people experience the war in very hard ways. Most families have lost their treasured ones to prisons when they are got either selling or using the drugs. Many people have been jailed for many years since this war on drugs started. Most of the people who their family members have been imprisoned are against this war on drugs. Those who are got selling or doing drugs also have experienced the war on drugs in very harsh way (Inciardi, 2008). Some have been sentenced to lifetime imprisonment while others have lost a lot of money to the fines they are pay to courts during prosecutions. Many governments have also experience the war on drugs in some ways. Many countries have spent a lot of money when trying to reduce the drugs consumptions in their citizens. For instance, these governments have spent a lot of money in rehabilitating citizens who are addicted to these drugs. These governments have lost economic productivity through mass imprisonment. Therefore, the drugs users, families and the government experience the problems associated with trying to win war on drugs (Crier, 1995). War on drugs has been there for very long time. This war on drugs started in America. Many countries later tried to reduce drugs use by their citizens and they joined this war on drugs. The war on drugs started in 20th century when the drug market was not regulated properly. During this time, medical remedies that were made by using heroin or cocaine were given to patients without prescribing them. The consumers of these drugs were not aware of their effects. This war on drugs started in 1914 but it was declared officially by President Nixon in 1971. During Nixon administration, those who were found in possession of marijuana were sentenced to not less than 2 years. This was considered as the end of war on drugs but the use of drugs remains to be a problem (Simon, 2007). There many reasons that led to the introduction of war on drugs which later came out to be a problem in reducing drug abuse in the larger population in the world. In 20th century, the use of drugs was very high among the street families. The drugs markets were not regulated and the drugs that were meant to be used in the hospitals were now abused in the streets. This increased a major concern on the ways of solving this problem in the population and thus war on drugs was introduced. The number of drugs addicts also had gone very high. Many people had been killed by these drugs due to over consuming. Drug abuse had increased the number of gangs that were selling these drugs. These gangsters caused a lot of insecurities in the streets and many people were killed. Many cases that included children abusing drugs were also reported. Most of the school children dropped from their schools due to the addictions to these drugs. Others joined the gangs that were selling drugs. All these forced the government to put laws that will ensure drugs selling and possession was reduced (Falco, 1992). In the future, this problem concerning war on drugs will not be solved easily if proper rules are not put in place. The government should therefore look at the losses that are caused by this war on drugs. The negative effects that are brought about by the war on drugs are very many. It is very important to look at the ways in which drug abuse can be reduced in the population without fighting it directly. The way in which war on drugs is conducted should be changed in the future to ensure that its effects do not continue causing more harm than good (Roleff, 2004). War on drugs has caused many problems rather than solutions to drug abuse. In the past, many interventions have been done to ensure that this problem of war on drugs has been reduced. Winning war on drugs is not very easy. Many suggestions that have been given will ensure this war is won although not all suggestions guarantee victory. One of the suggestions given was to legalize the regulation of narcotic substances. This suggestion would not help the effects of drugs drastically but it reduced the violence and crimes that were caused due to the use of these drugs. These legalized drugs could be regulated by the government later they are taxed. The billions that could be wasted by the government through fighting the war would be used to stimulate the economy since new markets will be opened. From this idea, it was suggested that the money from the taxation will not be wasted through war on drugs but will be used to educate the public on the effects of drugs and also to treat those who were addicts already. The idea of legalizing drugs was compared with how Netherlands have legalized the use of marijuana. It was noted that, the use of marijuana in Netherlands is lower than that in United States. In addition, the cases of homicides are extremely low in Netherlands than in U.S.A. This idea of legalizing drugs brought many controversies. This is because legalizing these drugs will lead to more use of drugs in the society. Many critics on legalizing these drugs were made and most of the critics suggested that the use of drugs would increase at very high rate. This discouraged the idea and no drug was legalized (Inciardi, 2008). There are other solutions that came in when President Barack Obama became president of United States. He had promised to solve this issue of drugs ones and for all. He came up with very many objectives that will help in solving this problem. First, he did not want to call problem war on drugs. He said that people should stop calling it war. He proposed to use $15 million on treated people who were already addicted to drugs rather than fighting the war on drugs itself. In his administration, he focused on stopping the drug policy. Drugs were considered as a disease with diagnosable features that can be treated. Treating this disease will help in avoiding the war on drugs. All the money proposed was to be used to improve prevention efforts on the drug abuse and to help educate school children on the effects of drugs. It was found out that treatment half the price of incarceration. This treatment is better than fighting war on drugs which has been there for the last 40 years. Taxpayer’s money has been wasted on trying to win this war (Reznicek, 2012). Policies have been shifted from punishment to the treatment. This has been found to be more effective than the punishment. Many treatment programs are now carried out. These programs include the access to focus in recovery and the drug courts. These programs focus on the causes of drug addictions and they help in determining the best treatment required to reduce or avoid these addictions. When a healthier population is cultivated effectively, the demand of drugs will go down drastically. This will also reduce the supply sine the market will be diminishing with time. The new generations of the population will try to avoid these drugs since they will not find many people using the drugs. This is achieved by educating the young people on the effects of drugs through many programs. These young generations will grow up knowing the negative effects of drugs (Wilson, 2012). These solutions will have some weaknesses. The process will take very long time to eliminate the drugs from the society. Treating the addicted population will take long time since it involves long time rehabilitations. These solutions will not be realistic since we cannot eliminate drugs in our society completely. They will only help to reduce the effects of drugs on the ones we love and to avoid the extension of these effects to the new generations in future (Wilson, 2012). References Roleff, T. L. (2004). War on drugs: Opposing viewpoints. San Diego, Calif: Greenhaven Press. Crier, C., ABC News Productions., & ABC News. (1995). Americas war on drugs: Searching for solutions. S.l.: ABC News Productions. Falco, M. (1992). The making of a drug-free America: Programs that work. New York: Times Books. Eldredge, D. C., Riggenbach, J., & Blackstone Audiobooks. (2007). Ending the war on drugs: [a solution for America]. Ashland, Or.: Blackstone Audiobooks. Bernards, N. (1990). War on drugs: Opposing viewpoints. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press. Inciardi, J. A. (2008). The war on drugs IV: The continuing saga of the mysteries and miseries of intoxication, addiction, crime, and public policy. Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. Reznicek, M. J. (2012). Blowing smoke: Rethinking the war on drugs without prohibition and rehab. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Simon, J. (2007). Governing through crime: How the war on crime transformed American democracy and created a culture of fear. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, H. T. (2012). Annual editions: Drugs, society, and behavior 2011/2012. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Read More