On September 14th, 1986, President Ronald Reagan declared a war that would spiral out of control, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. This was no war fought on foreign soil. This would be a war that we are still fighting today, convinced by its moral purity. This war was a war on drugs. The War on Drugs wasn’t a battle fought between society and drug users and abusers. The War on Drugs was a costly expenditure that resolved nothing that indiscriminately targeted minorities. However, President Reagan wasn’t the first (or the last) president to take federal action against drugs. Contemporary drug criminalization dates back to President Nixon, who in 1973, through an executive action established the DEA, or Drug Enforcement Administration. We, as a society, have been taught to resist drugs for they are an evil and malicious substance. That’s an exaggeration, but in it there is an element of truth. Illicit drugs are conducive to health risks. Drugs are a societal health risk. However,  is our drug policy effective? When evaluating it, we have to look at three important factors. Is drug illegalization sourced in rational thought? No, it comes from a history of racism. Is drug illegalization effective in fighting crime? No, it has actually helped criminals. Has drug illegalization made drugs safer? No, it has only made them more potent. All of these reasons are why drugs should be legal.

When President Nixon created the DEA, he was not trying to get drugs off the streets. The sole intent of this was to polarize and condemn political opposition groups. As one of his key advisers John Ehrlichman explained, “You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war[Vietnam] or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.” in a CNN interview. Drugs were never meant to be enforced, so much as utilized as a resource against minorities throughout the U.S. Richard Nixon was a flawed man, and he pursued unhealthy drug policies. However, he wasn’t the first. For instance, after the Spanish-American War, Mexican immigrants flooded into the U.S. They brought with them the practice of smoking the cannabis leaf. This spread as a practice throughout the U.S. It wasn’t until President Herbert Hoover that this became a problem. During the Depression, Hoover took advantage of the racism of his time and he blamed the economic crisis on Mexican immigrants. To maintain popular support, he thus chose to nominate Harry J. Anslinger as the  head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Harry J. Anslinger was an interesting historical figure. When he was asked why he was so passionate about marijuana legalization by a reporter, he had this to say: “Reefer[Marijuana] makes darkies[People of color] think they’re as good as white men.” The burden of drug illegalization is a responsibility passed onto each and every generation. Too many generations have failed to ask why it is as it is. It’s racism. By definition, it’s an abuse of power for the U.S government to unfairly and unjustly hold it’s citizens accountable for not consuming drugs.

Like any large expenditure of taxpayer money, we have to ask ourselves if the Drug Enforcement Administration is an effective use of money. If the Drug Enforcement Administration’s goal is to decrease the amount of drugs and drug consumers, then it is a complete and total failure. The DEA’s budget is $2.98 million dollars. The idea is that that money is spent on officers and agents who fight drugs at their source: drug dealers and drug producers. In addition, on a federal level, almost all drugs are illegal. The problem is that this is the greatest possible thing the U.S government could have done to the illicit drug industry. Markets work through competition. In a perfect world, the company that creates the best goods at the lowest price in the most efficient way gets the most consumers. If people want to buy something, they will want the best possible version of that. The drug market works entirely differently. Instead of consumers being able to choose from a list of options and being able to compare the various goods, the illegality of drugs insures that people can’t just ask around for drugs. A consumer is unaware of their options. This is why drugs are expensive. Drug dealers can rack up prices and their consumers have no choice. Someone can’t just ask around for cocaine. This has a very important effect. Specifically, it funds organized crime. Large price increases mean large profits. Instead of the DEA criminalizing drugs and thus hurting the organized crime which accrues profits from drugs, it handed organized crime a contract worth $245 billion dollars. No party wins from this situation. The government loses by enforcing a costly monopoly that funds gangs. Furthermore, drug consumers lose because they have pay for goods that have are unnecessarily expensive. Gangs aren’t even the worst group gaining from this arrangement. Why? Because the money generated through drug trafficking goes to the groups that sell those gangs the drugs. Those groups tend to be terrorists. For instance, the Recovery Village found that approximately 90% of the heroin in the world tends to be made in Afghanistan. Drugs are the perfect product for illegal non-state actors, especially terrorists because it insures a constant income, it pays in cash, and all it requires is land and time. It doesn’t matter an individual's thoughts on drugs, because all anyone needs to support their legalization is a dislike for crime. As long as we keep drugs illegal, we give the criminals and terrorists of this world a source of financial independence and support.

 According to a UN report, over 200,000 people died of illicit drug abuse in 2012, and there  is no evidence that this number has declined in the last five years. Drugs are some of the most dangerous and combustible compounds created by humans. Drugs can and will shorten a user's life. This is one of the most important reasons why drugs should be legal. Think about it. For instance, if a person wants to sell raw meat, the government has the responsibility to insure that that piece of raw meat is clean. This makes sense. Everyone gains because no one has to be worried about dying or getting sick from food they buy. Drugs don’t work like this. A drug cartel can put whatever they want into their drugs. This doesn’t have to be purposeful. Drug cartels don’t get more money by killing their customers. However, an important consideration is how they move the drugs. Narcotic producers can’t move their products through traditional means. They have to use third parties. The issue is that none of them are accountable. Unlike a meat producer, you can’t sue them for health issues that result from consuming their product. By integrating drug producers into the formal market, society can diminish a serious health risk. Unlike some of the other issues, this is a problem that is very real. People die from this, and what for? Were those 200,000 people who died worth it? Plain and simple, no. 

Drugs have been illegal in various forms in the United States for over a hundred years. Have less drugs been consumed? No. Have gangs been apprehended and intimidated out of the drug business? No. Has the welfare of society been improved? No. So then what further motivation do we have to continue to criminalize them? The best way to get drugs off the street is to get them into the market. Only through this can we properly mend the wounds we’ve inflicted by our drug policy. Only through accepting that the War on Drugs has cost the public can we ever move forward. It allowed for drugs to be made more potent, it has aided gangs, and it is founded in explicitly and blatantly racist ideas. How much longer will it take to recognize this?

                                                                 Works Cited
"The Drug Addiction Pipeline: Who Supplies Drugs to America?" The Recovery Village Florida Drug Rehab Center. The Recovery Village, 04 Nov. 2016. Web. 18 Dec. 2016.

Insulza, Jose Miguel. "The Drug Problem in the Americas." Organization of American States4.3 (2016): 43-99. Web. 17 Dec. 2016.

Rebecca.wabwoba. "United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime." Drug Trafficking. UNODC, 2016. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.

Zill, Oriana, and Lowell Bergman. "Do the Math: Why the Illegal Drug Business Is Thriving."PBS. PBS, 2014. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.

LoBianco, Tom. "Report: Nixon's War on Drugs Targeted Black People." CNN. Cable News Network, 24 Mar. 2016. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.

"The Devil Weed and Harry J Anslinger." The Devil Weed and Harry J Anslinger. Common Sense for Drug POlicy, 2010. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.