Today more than one hundred years have passed since the United States first enacted a ban on the domestic distribution of drugs. Since that day most of the world has followed in their footsteps. But even though the amount of drug restriction laws and the funds spent on drug control have been increasing steadily, has there been no significant decrease in the rate of drug abuse.

In 2001, Portugal decided to try a different policy by becoming the first country to decriminalize all drugs, from marijuana to heroin. The crucial step in their change of policy, however, was not the decriminalization, but the decision to take the money earlier spent on punishing and cutting the addicts off and instead spend it on reconnecting them with society.

The aim of this series

I will in this series analyze the results of two different drug restriction policies; the prohibition policy of the U.S., referred to as the “War on Drugs”, and the Portuguese decriminalization policy. I do this in the aim of testing the hypotheses that a system that does not punish addicts, but reconnects them with society is superior to the more widely used prohibition system. I will also examine the underlying reasons for addiction, in order to bring forth further evidence for the hypotheses.

This is an important subject for me, since I feel that the prohibition policy used in most parts of the world is counter effective. I also think that addicts are already suffering enough, and do not need further punishment.

For many of you it might seem obvious that helping addicts reconnect with society is a superior way of restricting drug abuse, than punishing the addicts for not being in control of their lives. But because almost the whole world still uses the prohibition policy, I decided to write this series to bring forth evidence for, and explain why the decriminalization policy is superior to the prohibition policy.

This series serves as a critical analysis of a collection of academic articles, studies and web pages on the matter of addiction and restriction policies.

The different parts of this series

Since this will be quite a long text I have decided to divide it into a series with 3 parts.

• Part 1: The "War on Drugs".
• Part 2: Portugal's decriminalization policy.
• Part 3: Why do people become addicted.

Part 1 will be posted below and part 2 and 3 in separate posts.

Part 1: The "War on Drugs" - A Prohibition Policy

How did the War on Drugs start?

The term “War on Drugs” was first established by President Nixon in the late 1960's, even though his drug war was little compared to what was still to come. Nixon emphasized the importance of drug treatment and, during his presidency, a major part of the federal drug control budget was spent on the treatment of addicts.

"America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive." - Nixon, June 17, 1971.

This rehabilitative approach got a punitive shift under Ronald Reagan’s Presidency (1981-1989), when he declared drugs one of the gravest problems facing the United States. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 serves as a marker for the beginning of a full-scale War on Drugs, resulting in the establishing of mandatory minimum sentences for all drug offences, including possession.

One of the most drastic changes in the new drug policy was its decision to emphasize on the prosecution of low-level drug offenders.

Ronald Reagan's speech to the Nation on September 14, 1986. Youtube video posted by MCamericanpresident

The drug policy was toughened further during George H.W. Bush’s Presidency (1989-1993) and from then on remained quite stable with few modifications until the beginning of Obama's Presidency.

Results of the War on Drugs

What are then the results of the War on Drugs? The following data were published in the Journal of Crime and Justice (Mitchell 2009: 32:2.4-11).

First of all, it is important to notice the increase in the federal drug control budget, which grew from $4 billion in 1985 to roughly $18 billion in 2001. Two-thirds of these funds were allocated to domestic law enforcement and supply reduction strategies.

With the toughened drug control followed a sharp increase in drug related arrests: In 1980 a number of approximately 581,000 drug related arrests were reported to the FBI while this number increased to 1,362,000 by 1989.

An increase in arrests for possession offenses could also be seen, with possession being the reason for 68% of the arrests in 1989 and 82% in 2007. Of these arrests 29% and 47%, respectively, were for possession of marijuana.

This illustrates the law enforcement’s emphasis on low-level drug offenders. The number of drug offenders prosecuted in federal courts had a 147% increase between 1984 and 1999.

Even though the amounts of homicide, theft and burglary has been steadily decreasing since the 80's and 90's in the USA, the imprisonment rates in 2008 where still higher than ever.

Source: “The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences,” The National Research Council, 2014.

The intended consequence for the War on Drugs was to reduce drug use and drug related violence by cutting down the availability of drugs and punishing drug offenders.

However, few to no studies show that the availability of drugs would have decreased since before the drug war. Drug prices have dropped substantially and the extent of drug use in 2005 was basically the same as it was in the mid-1980's, according to the key national measures of drug use (i.e. the Monitoring the Future study and the National Survey of Drug Use and Health).

The only aspect of the War on Drugs that has shown relevant evidence of effectiveness is drug treatment.

Other parts of the series:

• part 2: Portugal’s decriminalization policy.
• Part 3: Why do people become addicted.

Thank you for reading this far!

Please do comment and feel free to upvote and resteem if you enjoyed the post!

I would also appreciate any comments concerning flaws in the language since English is not my mother tongue.

mialinnea