The war on drugs in the United States is one that has been unsuccessful since its beginning. Billions of tax dollars are spent every year to stop various drugs in society, yet the numbers in terms of users, distributors, and importers continue to rise. Of all the drugs the government has focused on, marijuana is the one that poses the least threat. It is not life threatening and has not been proven to be physically addictive. If it were to be legalized and distributed through the government than it would benefit the United States in numerous ways. For example, there would be more money to spend on education towards preventing the use of serious drugs, and because of this the number of users would likely decrease.

The United States of America officially began its war on drugs with the passing of the Harrison Act in 1914. Since this time the United States government has changed its policies and techniques at tackling this complex issue. The biggest changes took place in the 1980’s because the government began to realize the weaknesses of there approach (Caulkins, 9). The main drugs the government has focused on are marijuana, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine,

Beyond marijuana, most drugs that are currently illegal, for the most part should stay that way. Drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and LSD are extremely dangerous to society, and the person using them. They are highly addictive, and overdosing is always a realistic possibility. These are the drugs that kill people everyday, and cause a dependency unlike any other substance. The government needs to shift its focus completely towards these types of hard drugs, because these are the drugs destroying people of all social, economic, and demographic classes. It doesn’t matter who you are in terms of these drugs, if you develop a problem it could be a life long battle. They destroy families, affect employment opportunities, and deplete social drive if a problem is severe enough for someone.

It is well knows that the government has always spent a large amount of money on stopping drugs in the United States. From 1988-1995 there was an estimated $57.3 billion dollars spent on the war on drugs. Of that $57.3 billion, $38 billion was spent on cocaine, $9.6 billion on heroin, $7 billion on marijuana, and $2.7 billion on other illegal drugs and the use of legal drugs by those people without prescription (NIDA Internet Site). This money is coming out of the pockets of the American people through our tax dollars. The money is then distributed to the Criminal Justice Institutions to rid the United States of drugs. In recent years people have realized that the government might not be using all of this money in an effective manner towards its goal of ridding drugs. This is common sense if one ponders about it because if the amount of drugs and users in society has risen steadily over the battle years, than the money hasn’t benefited the war.

The United States government has developed odd jail sentencing patterns for those citizens that choose to not abide by current drug laws. It is difficult to understand the government’s reasoning of sentencing, especially in terms of marijuana. One fact that is startling is the average murder sentence in the US is approximately 6.3 years, while the average marijuana felony sentencing is 10 years (Van Bakel, 121). Also, prices of incarcerating these people range from $12,000 to $52,000 dollars per year (Goldberg, 10). The people being incarcerated for marijuana and small possession charges usually are non-violent criminals. Instead of incarceration, the focus should be shifted to helping the individual’s with professional help. The serious jail sentences should be handed to the actual drug dealers or those caught with large amounts. These are the people who pose the bigges

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