There has been a war for the past 85 years, a war that has yielded no results and no change. This war is the fight to uphold the laws of drug prohibition and to cease the demand and abuse of what we like to call illegal substance. For several decades drugs have been one of the major problems of society. There have been escalating costs spent on the war against drugs and countless dollars spent on rehabilitation, but the problem still exists. Some might say the drug related problems are on the rise, that drug abuse is a killer in our country. But every year the United States spends billions of dollars to destroy crops, labs and the drugs themselves. Everyday we arrest and punish the buyers and the sellers. It seems that no matter how hard we make the repercussions there are always people willing to take the risk to enjoy drugs in a recreational manner. Fourteen million of us Americans regularly use illegal substances despite the efforts of our government and our education system. We grow up knowing what the consequences are, but that's just not enough to halt the constant use of narcotics.
Many believe that legalizing drugs would lessen crime. They point out that the legalization of drugs would deter future criminal acts. They also compare and contrast Prohibition. This is not the first time we have battled with the recreational use of a substance. Back in January of 1920 the prohibition of alcohol came into effect, and with it came the birth of bootleggers, speak- easies and the growth of organized gangs. At first it seemed that the Volstead Act had achieved it's goal by cutting down on drunkenness and therefore reducing crime, but there was no way to stop the flow of alcohol into the states. With this sudden change in life came a huge explosion of crime. The pre-prohibition homicide rate was at 5.6 people (per 100,000 population) then it took a huge jump to 10 people (per 100,00 population) during prohibition.
