War on Drugs
Drug prohibition does more to make Americans less safe than any other thing, including terrorism.
Americans are 8 times more likey to die at the hands of police, or as a resault of a drug raid gone bad, as they are from terrorism.
Alcohol prohibition brought us Al Capone and the mafia, drug prohibition has given us the Mexican drug cartels, the inner-city gangs, and drive-by shootings. History shows that the murder rate went up almost 70% during alcohol prohibition, and subsequently returned to its previous levels after prohibition. Since the War on Drugs began, America's murder rates have doubled. Prohibition is putting innocent lives at risk. The black market created by drug prohibition has caused drugs to cost many many times more than they would if legal. This puts far too much control into the hands of the drug kingpins. That money is used to buy automatic weapons, fuels the murder of government officials in Mexico, which spills over into our borders. It also causes addicts to rob and burglarize property in order to pay for their habits. If they were legal, those that are addicted would be less afraid to get help. They won't ask for help now because they would be put in a cage.
I want to end the drug war because I don't want my kids to get drugs. I also don't want the drugs that are available to be made in impure facilities or to be of unknown purity. When was the last time you heard of someone robbing a convenience store to buy beer, or Mr. Jack Daniels getting into a shoot-out with Mr. Coors? Today, school kids can get hold of pot or meth easier than they can buy beer or even tobacco products. This is because there is no massive underground market for those products and the sale, manufacture and distribution of those products are legal for adults and regulated. The police and prison resources that would be freed up by not putting non-violent people in jail can be used to secure the border, prosecute murders, rapists, robbers and violent criminals, and patrol our streets.
The United States consumes over 45 billion dollars of illegal drugs a year, and that is when it is illegal. This isn't just your neighborhood crackhead that is doing it. The Constitution doesn't provide for the federal government to restrict drugs. Why did prohibition against alcohol require a constitutional amendment yet drug prohibition does not? This is an issue for the states. I support ending federal prohibition and returning the matter to the states. I also support the efforts of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
The drug war has cost countless billions, harmed families, ruined lives, crowded our prisons, wasted police resources on victimless crimes, inspired violence, and above all; failed to eliminate drug use.
I believe in personal responsibility. Anyone who harms another person should be held responsible for that action. So if anyone commits a crime whether on drugs, legal or not, or on alcohol or not, they should be held accountable. With law enforcement freed up from having to regulate the possession of substances, they will be able to focus on making people accountable for the actual harm they cause. The extra room in prisons will allow us to hold violent felons for their entire sentences. For instance: sentences seldom mean what they say. Fewer than one out of every four violent felons serves more than four years. But there are persons in prison for more than four years that have done nothing except use or posses a substance at home while not harming anyone else.