Drug Trafficking

The United States is the world's largest market for illegal drugs, with some 13 million Americans spending about $60 billion each year. In the past, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin were the most heavily abused drugs, but synthetic drugs such as amphetamines and "designer" drugs such as Ecstasy are claiming a larger share of the market. Methamphetamine is the cause of the fastest-growing drug problem in the United States.

Societies have tried to prohibit the sale and use of harmful drugs by prohibition laws, but these prohibition laws have been problematic in the past because often the targets of these laws are the only ones who are harmed; and the laws produce a perceived conflict between violation of statute and violation of free will. The use of addictive drugs by individuals is seen as enjoyable, and enforcement of the anti-drug laws is seen as more harmful to the individual law-breaker.

The difficulty of enforcing prohibitionist laws has been criticized as resulting in selective enforcement, wherein the enforcers select the people they wish to prosecute based on other criteria, resulting in discrimination based on race, culture, nationality, or financial status. Drug prohibition has been criticized as being a technique of social control of the "so-called dangerous classes."[ The first laws against the use of opium in the United States were enacted in San Francisco in 1875 when smoking opium was outlawed for Chinese immigrants; but taking liquid opium by mouth for white Americans was considered legal. Thus, the laws were based on the form in which the drug was ingested. This obvious discrepancy led many to think that the laws were basically a racist measure.

Laws prohibiting alcohol use in the United States were in place between 1920 and 1933. Although these laws resulted in a discernable decrease in alcohol-related diseases, such as cirrhosis of the liver, they were rescinded because they lead to high rates of violent crime, especially among drug runners and their customers.

Prohibitionism based laws have the added problem of calling attention to the behavior that they are attempting to prohibit. This can make the behavior interesting and exciting, and cause its popularity to increase.

In response to rising drug use among young people and the counter-culture movement, government efforts to enforce prohibition of drug use were strengthened in many countries from the 1960s onward. Mandatory jail sentencing laws in the United States have caused prison crowding and have lead many to question the used of jail time to curtail the use of drugs by non-violent drug users.

The former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, The Drug Czar, John P. Walters, has described the drug problem in the United States as a "public health challenge," and he has publicly eschewed the notion of a "war on drugs." He has supported additional resources for substance abuse treatment and has touted random student drug testing as an effective prevention strategy. However, the actions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy continue to belie the rhetoric of a shift away from primarily enforcement-based responses to illegal drug use.

Social conservatives have long advocated illicit drug enforcement laws. I ask my readers: Do you think we need these laws? Are they doing more good than bad? What is the solution to the character disintegration that comes from illicit drug use? Please comment on this blog post.