America's War on Drugs vs. Legalization

The United States has spent over 30 years fighting the war on drugs. Americans have paid a heavy price financially. The drug enforcement budget is now $40 billion. A lot of time, effort, and money go into America's attempt in eliminating trafficking, dealing, and the use of illegal drugs. Many believe that this is a war worth fighting, while others feel that America will never conquer the war on drugs. The latter suggest legalization as an alternative plan that will help save the country millions of dollars. In this paper, I will examine the history of the drug war as well as the arguments for and against fighting the war on drugs.

Illegal drug use dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. At this time two to five percent of the entire population of the United States was addicted to drugs. Times were very different then though. There are two main reasons for the high rate of drug addiction in the early 1900's. The first was the use of morphine for pain relief in patients that had just gone through a medical operation. The patients were given the medication throughout the surgery as well as throughout their recovery time in the hospital. Thus after spending an extended amount of time in the hospital, they would leave with a repaired body along with an addiction to morphine. The addiction was so prevalent among soldiers during the Civil War that it became known as the “soldier's disease”. 1

The second reason for the high drug addiction rate at the beginning of the 20th century was due to the audience that it was targeted to. Along with the soldiers, women made up a large portion of the population that was addicted to morphine. It was sold over the counter in the drug stores and was handed out to help women deal with all types of ailments. They were given the drug without knowing what they were taking. In fact, addictions to morphine were largely due to lack of knowledge on the drug. The addiction was the result of accidental use and insufficient information on its effects.

Drug addictions were increasing and something had to be done to help the situation. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was the single most effective law passed to help alleviate the effects of improper drug use. The Act accomplished three things:

1) It created the Food and Drug Administration in Washington that must approve all foods and drugs meant for human consumption. The very first impact of that was that the patent medicines were not approved for human consumption once they were tested.

2) The Pure Food and Drug Act said that certain drugs could only be sold on prescription.

3) The Pure Food and Drug Act requires that any drug that can be potentially habit-forming say so on its label. "Warning -- May be habit forming."

These three requirements on drug use and distribution greatly decreased the amount of people that formed ...