A Problem of Drugs in Society

Abstract

The war on drugs hasn't just started, but the time is now to get it under control. The jails are becoming overcrowded, the crime rate is rising, families being divided, more rehabs are needed and smuggling needs to come to stop. Our plan is to use tax dollars, but it's not a good strategy so far. We need to clean up our streets first before we try to deal with anything else. Let's start with ourselves! Get the drug dealers off the street, get the drug users cleaned up and then there will be no money to buy the drugs from the other countries so it will slow down the smuggling. How can we come together to fight this war on drugs besides wasting tax dollars? Will building the wall on Mexico border help us out? Can we fix the broken homes by getting their family member(s) the  help they need?

THE WAR ON DRUGS

In 1980s drugs were released into the streets and took over one addict at a time. Drugs have damaged so many people lives and has yet to discriminate whether you're rich or poor. Drugs have divided homes, destroyed marriages, filled up rehab centers and jail cells. While drug dealers are out here raising the crime rate creating gangs to go against each other as far as killing for territory reasons. War on drugs has taken over and it's time to fight back!

The cost of money spent to prevent

To prevent the war on drugs will cost the taxpayers a lot of money. The drug war is responsible for trillions of wasted tax dollars and misallocated government spending, as well as devastating human costs that far outweigh the damage caused by drugs alone.Over the past four decades, federal and state governments have poured over $1 trillion the drug war and relied on taxpayers to foot the bill. Unfortunately, these tax dollars haven't solved the problems they were intended to solve.(Reference 8)

Import of drugs

Drugs are imported through the coastlines of America whether it's driven, flown or shipped in. It's getting in the streets of America and being sold day by day. We the people of America have witnessed drugs being seized. The latest big drug bust over a two month spans was $729 Million worth of cocaine from boats moving drugs from Central America to the US. (Giaritelli, 2008) Just imagine how many people would of been affected by these drugs let alone overdosed.

Coast guards have been put to work 2018. Seizing boat loads after boat loads of not only cocaine, but also marijuana. There's also the drugs they didn't stop that made it on to the streets where drug dealers will sell to whomever is ready to buy. I always wondered, do they realize that they are destroying people lives? Why sell drugs to kill and harm the body?

After doing research I came across the top 17 drug bust since the 1980s. Most of the top big drug busts come from the west coast. Here's the top 5 out of the 17 drug bust:

1. $6.9 billion, Sylmar, California in 1989. Authorities seized more than 21 tons of cocaine worth roughly $6.9 billion on the street sitting in a nondescript warehouse. When the main players had their cases go to trial, the warehouse owner received a life sentence, according to the Los Angeles Times.
2. $3 billion, Hayward, California in 1991. A month of surveillance and a coordinated law enforcement effort produced one of the biggest drug busts we've ever seen. A warehouse raid in Hayward in the east bay seized 1,200 pounds of heroin worth roughly $3 billion.
3. $1.2 billion, Colombia in 1984. Forget talking about just drug dealers, Pablo Escobar is one of the richest criminals who ever lived. He and his Medellin cartel cohorts made an estimated $420 million each week supplying 80% of the cocaine in the United States in the 1980s.
4. $1 billion, Harlingen, Texas in 1989. Authorities searched a house and discovered nearly 18,000 pounds of wrapped cocaine estimated to be worth $1 billion.
5. $350 million, Panama in 2007. A Coast Guard ship stopped and searched a container ship, and discovered more than 42,000 pounds of cocaine worth $350 million.(Rossi, 2018)

Ways  to prevent drug trafficking

The flow of drugs coming into the United States is an ongoing ordeal that will take a lot of brainstorming and time to figure out how to stop the drugs from coming in. One of the top options is building a wall for Mexico. It will slow do the trafficking down on heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl. I think it will be a good investment if they build a wall to crack down on drugs.

Drugs coming in from Central America would take time to come up with a strategy, that's not something that can just be stopped. We receive fruit and goods from Central America and along with the fruits and goods there's the drugs packaged inside. There's really not much America can do about the drugs coming from Central America. They only advice at this point is the work harder and smarter.

Gangs

Once the drugs hit the streets the selling begins. You have gangs in competition based on who have the best drugs and who make more money. All they care about is territory and getting the drugs to buyers with no problems. Once the gangs bump heads the start sending threats and go far as to killing each other for respect.

Gang members take selling drugs with pride. They get their team members and they are ready for the battle. In bigger cities there's so many drug gangs and they are hard to track down and control. Gangs in fast based cities have the most problems because the become greedy. The faster the drugs sell, the more problems created. Jealousy and envy comes about and that tend to cause gang wars. It's bad enough we are fighting to keep it out the United States and their fighting to sell it. All they see is the money not the affect their causing to the families their selling the drugs to.

Drugs causing crime

Dealing with drugs is a crime whether you're smuggling, selling or buying it. Why risk your freedom for something that is out to destroy people? Well the money and high is good for the moment until you're hauled off to jail. Then it's should of, would of, could of or all the why questions.

The drug crime rate is rising year by year, but it seems like the more drugs they send the more people go to jail. There were 1,572,579 drug arrests in the U.S. in 2016. The total number is up roughly 5.6% from the 1,488,707 arrests for drug crimes in the country in 2015.(Angell, 2017) You would think the numbers will decrease when they see others go to jail, but they still chance it.

The increasing drug bust rate stands in contrast to the public-health-focused rhetoric from Obama administration drug officials who consistently tried to move away from war on drugs terminology.Locking people up for minor drug offenses, and especially people with substance-use disorders, is not the answer, Michael Botticelli, then Obama's White House Office of National Drug Control Policy director, said in a 2015 interview. It's cruel. It's costly. And it doesn't make the public any safer.

In a PBS appearance last year, Botticelli, commonly referred to as the drug czar, called treating substance misuse as a crime inhumane and said, we can't arrest our way out of the problem.Similarly, he told 60 Minutes: We can't arrest and incarcerate addiction out of people. Not only do I think it's really inhumane, but it's ineffective and it cost us billions upon billions of dollars to keep doing this. (Angell, 2017)

Filling jail cells

With the population of other crimes mixed in with the drug criminals there's really not enough room for everyone. Not to mention also enough tax dollars to tend to all the inmates. Now these days it has become very common to just through them in a drug program, give them probation or house arrest to free up space. The jails have become over populated and there's only so much the tax dollars can do to make sure the inmates are in good standards.

Back in 2010 The Fair Act Sentencing (FSA) was passed by Congress to release inmates who was incarcerated before 2010 on crack/powder cocaine charges. The FSA reduced the sentencing disparity between offenses for crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1. The scientifically unjustifiable 100:1 ratio meant that people faced longer sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine than for offenses involving the same amount of powder cocaine.(The  American Civil Liberties Union, 2018)

The drug addicts

Drugs has becoming an addiction to the users over the years. They get high until they pass out and that's what they usually aim for. They become so numb to the world and they have no worries until the drugs wear off. Some go for more and some only use it when needed. They go through life needing it and if they don't get it they start to hallucinate. They lash out and tend to hurt people they love the most before the target a complete stranger.

Drugs has ruined people mentally, physically and emotionally. Sometimes it's just too late for them to find help after they have overdosed. Just imagine getting home after a long day of work or school and find your family member lifeless because their drug addiction. This happens everyday and some people don't survive an overdose.

They use drugs to cope with their everyday life issues and fall short to drugs. Some drug addicts lose everything even their mind until the point they don't know if the coming or going. Some just give up on life and all they know is to run to drugs it'll solve it all. Drugs really have damaged our streets, our people and most of all families!

Dividing homes

Most drug addicts cherish drugs over their family and this has caused so many issues. Homes have become divided, children are left behind, the perfect love stories has ended, stealing money or valuable items to get money for drugs and the list goes on. Drugs has turn family members to enemies, hate built up into innocent kids growing up knowing their parents let drugs get in between and a silent death leaving family members broken.

Drugs have separated innocent children for their parent(s), some since birth. Do these innocent kids deserves this? No. Do their parent(s) care? Some. 25% of American kids grow up in households where substance abuse is present.  (American Addiction Centers, 2018) Some of the kids struggle in school dealing with substance abuse problems in their home.

Children who have been left behind tend to struggle in life. They go through an emotional roller coaster feeling unwanted or blame themselves for their parents drug addiction. They beat themselves up trying to figure out why me?!. When it's actually not their fault and it's out of their control because their parents turned to drugs.

Then you have the perfect love stories that turn into divorces and sometimes abuse. You have people who've been dating for years and never had an idea their partner were on drugs until the couldn't hide it anymore. Their addiction for drugs have become so strong they can't hide it anymore and sometimes their partner join in with them. You also have, the couples who fight for their love and battle drugs at the same time causing their relationship to become abusive. Some couples end up killing their spouse if they get to the point where their tired and they've had enough of the abuse. TheThe best thing to do before you reach the abusive stage is to either get a divorce or seek help.  best thing to do before you reach the abusive stage is to either get a divorce or seek help.

Rehab centers

Finding help isn't the issue, wanting help is the issue. Most addicts think they can help themselves until they find themselves running into the same problems that led them to drugs. In the United States, more than 14,500 specialized drug treatment facilities provide counseling, behavioral therapy, medication, case management, and other types of services to persons with substance use disorders. Along with specialized drug treatment facilities, drug abuse and addiction are treated in physicians' offices and mental health clinics by a variety of providers, including counselors, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and social workers. Treatment is delivered in outpatient, inpatient, and residential settings. (National Institute on Drug Abuse,2018)

The drug addicts who enter rehab programs is court ordered by a judge or a family member is tired of dealing with the issues they have to deal with in their home. Some people quit and some don't. There is no standard definition of rehab, so there is no standardized way to measure the success of addiction centers. Many base their success rates on unreliable metrics, such as:

• Completion of the program
• Sobriety rates immediately after treatment
• Client interviews
• Internal studies(National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2018)

In conclusion

As of now it look like America will continue fight the war on drugs because the plan we have has yet to work. The plan we've been using has but taxpayers dollars to waste, the crime rate continues to grow and the smugglers are still smuggling. I think if we clean up our streets first and give higher sentencing to teach others a lesson it'll probably help. We need to open up more rehab programs to help the drug addicts get off the drugs to stop buying then eventually the wouldn't be able to buy supply to restock because nobody is buying. No money coming in, no drugs coming in!

References

1. Giaritelli, A.. (July 2018). Coast Guard seizes $729M worth of cocaine from boats moving drugs from Central America to the US. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/coast-guard-seizes-729m-worth-of-cocaine-from-boats-moving-drugs-from-central-america-to-the-us%3f_amp=true
2. Rossi, J..(September 2018) 17 of the Biggest Drug Busts in U.S. History Are Worth Billions. Retrieved from https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/biggest-drug-busts-in-u-s-history.html/
3. Angell, T..(September 2017). Drug Arrests On The Rise In US: New FBI Data. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2017/09/25/drug-arrests-on-the-rise-in-us-new-fbi-data/amp/
4. The  American Civil Liberties Union. (2018). FAIR SENTENCING ACT. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/drug-law-reform/fair-sentencing-act
5. American Addiction Centers. (October 2018).Guide for Children of Addicted Parents. Retrieved from https://americanaddictioncenters.org/guide-for-children
6. National Institute on Drug Abuse.  (January 2018). Drug Addiction Treatment in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment-research-based-guide-third-edition/drug-addiction-treatment-in-united-states
7. Drug Policy Alliance. (2018). Making Economic Sense. Retrieved from https://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/making-economic-sense

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