The recent use of the TOR network as a honey trap to install a tracker on people’s computers and the shutdown of the Silkroad with arrests made all across the western world are one of the only few results that the war on drugs has shown. In 40 years, the only results that can be shown are an increase in hard drug use throughout the western world, an increase in purity of cocaine, an increase in the THC content of marijuana, and a massive increase in the prison population due to almost zero tolerance throughout the judicial system in terms of drug offenses. Though drug use may be considered bad by some, the effects of such a “War on Drugs” are much worse considering all effects of a less drug tolerant society.
The increase of hard drug use can be attributed to many different factors including the increased popularity of methamphetamines and the fact that many drugs are much more addictive than they used to be due to higher concentrations of active chemicals. In general though, the availability, though much less than pre-World War I (morphine was a popularly abused drug during that time), has grown to make most any sort of drug easily accessible to the general population.
The drug policies which were more sharply enforced due to the increase in funding for the pursuing of drug offenders the population of prisons rose to include a bit more than 1% of the adult US population and up to 3% of the population under probation of some sort (this includes incarcerated people). This massive increase in the prison population has led to the viability of private prisons which force prisoners to work under almost slave labor conditions.
The few benefits of the war on drugs can be seen as the increase in purity of drugs, the increase in availability of drugs and in the end, the growth of all private industries that have to do with the system such as private prisons, providing slave labor for companies such as Jostens and Walmart, though both have come out and stated that they have changed their providers (to companies based outside of the US where the products are made outside of the US).
Costing taxpayers about 50 billion dollars a year, the “War on Drugs” as declared by Nixon in 1971 has been a failure in terms of stopping drug use in the US and has shifted production of drugs outside of the US. The prison system has been corrupted by private prisons who not only want to make money from the state, but also want to make money by using the prisoners as slave labor. Proponents of the “War on Drugs” are only those who get money from the system, private prisons, police (who get funding from the federal government), the CIA and military who help in certain operations and companies who make the equipment that is required to continue the fight. In all, it can be concluded that the “War on Drugs” is a complete failure due to its inability to stop drug use, to stem the flow of drugs and to create a system based around drugs that benefits only those who care nothing about the people who ultimately have to pay for the fight, the taxpayers.
- http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/110345-pirates-trapped-by-file-sharing-honeypots
- https://www.msu.edu/~chuyuwei/harddrug.pdf
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States (see references at the bottom of the page for more details)
- http://www.alternet.org/drugs/price-illegal-drugs-dropping-purity-increasing-and-global-war-drugs-failing (read through the journals to find the correct one)
- http://www.alternet.org/drugs/price-illegal-drugs-dropping-purity-increasing-and-global-war-drugs-failing
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison (sources on bottom of page again)
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-macaray/prison-private-business_b_2234243.html
- http://www.vice.com/read/whos-getting-rich-off-the-prison-industrial-complex
- http://www.policymic.com/articles/20186/war-on-drugs-how-private-prisons-are-using-the-drug-war-to-generate-more-inmates
- http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock
- http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-drugs/index.html
