Poverty and Drugs

Drugs and Poverty

In the United States today, one of the most overlooked aspect that would decrease poverty would be drug laws pertaining to the criminalization of drugs and the incarceration of users. Before discussing how to change these laws, it must be made clear that the focus of this argument is not the people who use drugs and their role in society; but rather, how the government chooses to deal with these people. The United States has a system plagued by inefficiencies of antiquated laws as well as bureaucratic tape. The two problems are embodied in the systems that regulate current drug laws as well as drug education. In order to fix these problems and ameliorate poverty, the United States must rewrite current drug laws pertaining to marijuana as well as rewrite the curriculum pertaining to drug education programs. If the United States acts accordingly, then the level of poverty in the United States will greatly decrease.

Before discussing how we should rewrite current drug laws, let's analyze the current system which is common in most states. When an individual is arrested for possession of marijuana, he must go to court to be sentenced. After this, that individual will have to pay fines, court costs, as well as any other related expenses. When considering the problems of poverty and the inefficiencies of dealing with it, the implications of current drug laws becomes clear. Current drug laws present a two-fold burden on the local, state, and national governments of the United States. The primary burden is that of time. A great deal of time is wasted as people wait to be convicted of their drug-related offense, get processed through the legal system, and then comply with all requirements set forth by the judge such as probation, community service, and random drug testing. All of this takes valuable time away from the government. The second burden occurs when the convicted is incarcerated; the prison system takes up additional resources in that they become directly responsible for the well-being of the prisoner. By taking on these prisoners, the prison system as well as the court system must waste valuable resources to deal with them. The problem is that the increased number of cases or time being used to deal with these offenses has accounted for "over 80 percent of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995" (DrugPolicy.org 09/21/06).

Another aspect of current drug laws that must be considered is the discrimination they uphold for "poor" drugs and "rich" drugs. Poor drugs refer to drugs such as marijuana, crack, and alcohol; whereas, rich drugs refer to cocaine, ice, ecstasy. Basically, poor drugs do not cost nearly as much as their rich counterparts. Drug laws tend to be more penalizing for poor drugs than their rich counterparts. According to a recent study, "sentences for crack offenders are roughly two to six times as great as sentences for powder cocaine offenders distributing equivalent quantities of drugs" (Narconon 09/23/06). Because people who are impoverished tend to buy "poor" drugs, the penalties they face are higher than the penalties their better-off counterparts would receive. Even though "poor" drugs result in longer prison sentences and higher fines, they should not be decriminalized. This paper only contends that marijuana should be decriminalized.

Coinciding with all this is the U.S. government's drug education and prevention program: DARE. The purpose of this program is to educate America's youth about the dangers of drug use and how bad drugs are. It is essentially supposed to scare kids away from using drugs. There is one main problem with this program: either you use drugs and fail at life or you don't use drugs and you succeed at life. Its either black or white for this program. There is no gray area. Studies indicate that "D.A.R.E. has a limited to essentially non-existent effect on drug use" (USATODAY 10/11/93). The current DARE program, which can been around for at least a decade, has provided no benefits to the communities it serves in terms of drug use: it must be changed. If the United States wants to reduce the number of impoverished, then it must rewrite the curriculum of this program to teach drug responsibility. If it does not teach this, then the program is completely blind to the fact that millions of Americans use drugs.

In dealing with drug laws that fine or incarcerate individuals for drug possession or drug use, the sentences must be reduced as well as the monetary consequences. How can we have a legal system that gives the harshest sentencing and fines for drug possessions to the poorest of Americans? In the state of Virginia, an individual caught with less than half an ounce of marijuana can be sentenced to jail for 30 days and assessed a $2,500 fine. If the individual has more than that amount, he may face up to 20 years in jail and fines up to $1,000,000. If the United States were to legalize marijuana use and possession in small amounts, then these burdens would not add to the number of impoverished in the United States. The United States could even levy a small tax on those who are caught with small amounts to have a source of revenue; but this is insignificant compared to the benefits of decriminalizing drugs. By decriminalizing possessions of these drugs in small amounts, the United States would lift a heavy burden off of its judicial and prison systems. The courts would no longer have to deal with processing individuals convicted of possession and or use of controlled substances. Prisons would no longer have to be responsible for individual incarcerated due to drug related offenses. More importantly, the laws aimed at keeping the impoverished in debt would no longer exist. An individual would no longer be responsible for high legal fees or have to deal with the stigma of finding a job after being incarcerated. The time and money saved from this decriminalization can be used to enact social programs that can better combat poverty.

Compliant with the decriminalization of drug possession and use should be legislation that does not discriminate against different types of drugs. As mentioned before, crack cocaine penalties are more sever than their cocaine counterparts. Why should