Facts vs Fiction
One of the biggest myths involved with the War on Drugs is that our society would benefit greatly from the "evil affects" of drugs. You are led to believe, through politically motivated anti-drug ads, that the everyday person in our society is the main benefactor in the War on Drugs but this is not the case however. Judge Jim Gray spoke on the six groups of people who benefit from drug prohibition and I'm willing to bet that the average American does not fit into his list anywhere...
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Drug Prohibition Beneficiaries
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Myths
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Facts
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Peter Christ is a retired police captain with 20 years experience in law enforcement and is also co-founder of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). He appeared on a news broadcast in Buffalo, New York, where he debunks a lot of myths surrounding the War on Drugs. According
to Christ, the issue is about crime and violence, NOT drugs. He also states that the War on Drugs is a huge failure because we have been fighting it for over 40 years yet drugs are more available, of purer quality, and cheaper than they have ever been on the streets of America. Christ mentions that the mass incarceration of drug offenders has ruined more lives than the drugs themselves because they receive felony convictions and are then denied education and job opportunities. In response to people who think that punishing drug offenders hard enough will eliminate the problem, Christ states that we have one of the largest and most efficient prison systems on the planet and within this huge prison system, there is not even one drug free prison in America. "If you cannot even keep drugs out of prison, then who would be delusional enough to think that you can keep them out of free society." Christ believes that we will never completely eradicate drugs from our society and poses the question: who do you want to run the marketplace? gangsters, thugs and terrorists who have young children selling on street corners? or a regulated,
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controlled marketplace? One part of the interview that stood out to me was when Christ and the two anchors were talking about how the way to stop the drug problem is through education and not prohibition. The male anchor states that it is basic capitalism, as long as there is a demand for drugs in society, someone is going to supply them. He then asks the female anchor if heroin were legal, would she go out and try it and she responds with a no because she is aware of the effects of it. Christ quotes the Drug Czar saying that "this drug issue in America is fundamentally a health care and educational problem". He then goes on to wonder what other "health care and educational problems" that we should use the criminal justice system as our main approach to because he can't think of any. To highlight the point that drugs are not seen as that dire of an issue, Christ recounts only two instances in his 20 years of service of a parent turning in their child to the police. Once was a father who turned in his son for rape and the other was a mother who turned her son in for committing burglaries but not once did he ever see a parent turn their child in over drugs. He doesn't believe that out of the 80,000 inhabitants in his jurisdiction, no parents found a little baggie with drugs in it in their child's sock drawer. He said that this happens all the time but the last thought on the parents mind is turning it over to the police, instead they found other ways to deal with it. Peter's main idea is that the government and law enforcement are trying to outlaw something that he states was given to human beings by god at the time of creation and that is, FREE WILL.