We live in a democratic society that is supposed to value free speech and individual rights. Citizen's civil rights are rapidly dissolving in favor of police investigative powers. Of course, the problem lies in the fact that in consensual crimes, such as drug usage, neither party has any complaint and so it is up to the police to seek out (through lawful means) and arrest those guilty. As a result, the power to search people and property after a minimal threshold of suspicions has been cited as necessary part of law enforcement protocol. Activities, such as phone tapping, were considered "dangerous and unwarranted practice[s]" by the legal authorities of the alcohol prohibition era. (www.ottawacitizen.com) There was even a time when undercover police officers selling drugs to would-be buyers was called entrapment. Times have changed, however, and Supreme Court judges have, over the years, cleverly ruled constitutional exemptions for the police in order to allow drug investigations to go on unhampered. (www.ottawacitizen.com) At the same time police forces are arming themselves to combat the superior armament of criminal organizations that use drug dealing to generate profits. In America today, 89% of all police departments have paramilitary units. Although the most common use is serving drug related warrants, more than 20% of police departments now also use these units to patrol urban areas. (www.csdp.org/factbook/military) This armament of police should be extremely frightening to people as war in the literal sense can now being mobilized against the people. Given the proper suspicion a swat team could be breaking down your door and pointing guns at your family. While this may seem like an unlikely event, power corrupts, and an institution with lax guidelines and blind public trust is an accident waiting to happen. Another, perhaps subtler, degradation of civil rights due to the drug war is corporate drug testing. This practice is unfair and somewhat pointless for several reasons. First, a positive drug test doesn't tell the employer whether the employee has used drugs on the job or how often they use drugs, which really makes the conclusion irrelevant for any practical analysis of productivity. As well, it has been found that poor performance is most often not drug or alcohol related anyway, but rather "severe fatigue and illness". It's not surprising then that a study found "drug testing programs do not succeed in improving productivity". One company put the cost of finding a positive drug test result at $20,000, which is hardly an economical price to locate a person who may not even be performing less than other employees. (www.csdp.org/factbook/drugtest.htm) Civil rights loss, through increased intrusion into our lives is being pioneered by the war on drugs. Once used in only the direst of circumstances, many invasive investigation procedures are now routinely practiced by our police forces. Removing the justification for further invasion into our personal affairs by power hungry institutions that once respected the constitution is a compelling reason to legalize drugs.

The legalization of drugs has never been more necessary. As the world rages on around us we are told that the western countries are more civilized more peaceful and on the road to a drug free utopia. It is obvious that authorities have used the vision of civility and peace as a method to sell the public on the wonders of a drug free world

Some topics in this essay:
, Supreme Court, Canada United, drug users, civil rights, drug market, organized crime, drug related, Mexico Columbia, war drugs, drug laws, criminal organizations, injection drug, legalization drugs, legalized drug market, positive drug test, injection drug users, human health wellbeing, international organized crime,