The United States has the largest prison population on earth. This was not always the case though. America today has three times as many prisoners as it did in 1980. The legislation that followed in the wake of the crack scare in the 1980s is responsible for this. There needs to be a change in the basic drug laws in the country and a larger push toward treatment (which has been proven to work) rather than incarceration.

The war on drugs in America has been around, in various forms, for almost as long as the country itself but the first major stroke the government took against drugs was on January 16, 1920. On this date the Eighteenth Amendment was enacted and all importing, exporting, transporting, manufacturing, selling and of intoxicating liquor was put to an end. This was called Prohibition.

Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol, and by doing so, reduce crime, poverty, death rates, and improve the economy and the quality of life. Instead the crime rate only skyrocketed.

“In large cities the homicide went from 5.6 (per 100,000 population) in the pre-prohibition period, to nearly 10 (per 100,000 population) during prohibition, nearly a 78 percent

This was really only the beginning of the war however. Starting during the late 1970s on till the present the U.S. has seen an increasing flow of cocaine coming into the country from Mexico and Columbia. Because of the giant markup in price Columbians could get in America it made the drug trade very profitable.

To confront this political debacle, Nixon’s administration decided to test all retuning soldiers for heroin use. The fear of being caught made most soldiers quit the habit. “Only 4.5 percent of the GIs showed up "positive." Here and at home, treatment became widely accepted.”(PBS, Frontline, The Drug Wars)

Most of These inmates are non-violent offenders, meaning they pose no physical harm to the society and community. The laws that have placed them in incarceration were enacted merely to satisfy public opinion during a drug scare. The conditions, which called for millions of people to be imprisoned, no longer exist. There fore congress should repeal its minimum sentencing laws. Prohibition has shown us that outlawing a substance will only create more criminals. Methadone clinics have shown us that Treatment is the answer.

The number of men and women behind bars in the U.S. at the end of 1999 was more than two million and the rate of incarceration had reached 690 inmates per 100,000 residents. The unyielding war on drugs still to pulls masses of drug users into the criminal justice system: in 1998 alone 1,559,100 people were arrested on drug charges; also that year approximately 450,000 drug offenders were confined in jails and prisons. The Department of Justice says that, 107,000 people were sent to state prison on drug charges in 1998, representing 30.8 percent of all new state admissions. Drug offenders constituted 57.8 percent of all federal inmates. (Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: United States)

Prohibition ended, after failing, in 1933 when the new President, F.D. Roosevelt was elected, the Congress passed the 21st

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