Within the last several years, there has been much debate concerning drug use and how various legislative bodies approach the decriminalization and legalization of drugs like cannabis. At the same time, many are concerned about the risks of such allowances as well as the dangers of medically legal drugs such as opioids and stimulants such as Vicadin and Adderall respectively. Many people have strong opinions about drug use that gravitate around moral concepts that can be void of understanding concerning the social implications of both drug use and prohibition. For example, many people would probably not hold issue with receiving a prescription for Oxycontin, but would at best rebuke and at worst report an individual offering them cannabis to treat their symptoms. While its always good advice to take into account the knowledge of an individual on a matter (As a physician is probably more knowledgeable than a random pedestrian or even a friend), its also important to do your homework on any drug you ingest. You might think that a legal prescription is by default safer than an illicit drug, but consider this: "Of the 15,000 American deaths caused by prescription painkillers each year (a number far higher than the deaths caused by illegal substances), approximately 1,000 are attributed to Oxycontin. On average, it has been estimated that on a global scale,100,000 people die from Oxycontin abuse per year." (Castle Medical 2016). While at the same time, "If you inhale 3 puffs of marijuana smoke and get high, then you would have to take 120,000 puffs of marijuana smoke to be fatal. In this sense, it is nearly impossible to die from an overdose of marijuana." (New Health Guide 2016).

If you're surprised as to why we are allowing such a deadly substance to be utilized and a much safer one is illegal, you need not much look further than 1971, when President Nixon began the War on Drugs, where he expanded the size of federally run drug agencies, enforced harsher punishments for drug possession, and made cannabis a schedule one drug, meaning it could not be tested for scientific or medicinal application (Drug Policy Alliance 2016). Of course, the stigma towards use of certain drugs has been around much longer. There was the relatively brief prohibition of alcohol in 1920 (History 2016) and cannabis was banned through Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 (Drug Policy Alliance 2016). The term "Marijuana" was used as opposed to Cannabis (Short for Cannabis Sativa, the scientific name of the most common Cannabis plant, of which the leaf is well known) because it was associated with Mexican immigrants. This racist undertone helped fuel fear towards it, just as a dislike of Catholic European immigrants helped fuel the movement for the prohibition of alcohol. I much prefer using the scientific binomial nomenclature, and so will avoid using the term marijuana. Though this of course is not the only drug that has had a war waged on it. There are a multitude of drugs that exist with myriad properties and applications that are illegal and that have caused a lot of damage for society. But can we put all of the blame on the drugs, even the really dangerous ones? We have been shown examples of countries that tried methods besides a militant approach to quell civil unrest, lethal overdoses, and dangerous smuggling. During the 1980's, Switzerland was experiencing a health crisis as heroin use lead to massive spikes in the number of people infected with HIV (Reuters 2010). Rather than simply arresting the users, Swiss authorities used a method called Harm Reduction. It aimed to rehabilitate heroin users by providing them with methadone (An opiate often used to treat opiate addiction to wean he user down) as well as clean needles. The program also provided safe injection rooms, social services, housing, and prison work (Klean Treatment Centers 2013). The Swiss government heralds this method as a success as around 70% of users are receiving treatment and rates of HIV infection and deaths caused by overdoses have been cut in half. "The difference is, 'whereas in the mid-1980s drug addicts were largely viewed as marginalized people responsible for their own fate, today they are generally seen as ill, dependent people who are victims of a personal predisposition or outside circumstances'. This offers a win/win approach for all." (Klean Treatment Centers 2013). That is the most important thing to consider when addressing drug use. When someone is addicted to a substance, whether it be tobacco or alcohol or heroin, they possess a neurological dysfunction that requires treatment. No amount of punishment will beat it out of them. It shows us that even though the drugs are a problem, how we choose to handle the problem can cause just as many issues and inflame matters even more so.Portugal understood this and experienced similar success to Switzerland when it decriminalized all drugs in 2001, which has resulted in a sharp decrease in drug use and abuse (Mic 2015).

Now let's look at how the United States has handled its War on Drugs. The Drug Enforcement Agency possesses a success rate of less than one percent as in 2005 they confiscated $477 million dollars in drugs even though the estimated value of drug sales in the United States is nearly $46 billion dollars, while the country spends over $40 billion dollars a year to fight the War on Drugs (Mic 2014). Despite America's whole emphasis on freedom and liberty, our war on drugs has turned us into a prison state. Despite the fact that the United States possesses less than five percent of the world's population, we possess a fourth of the world's total prison population (Drug Policy Alliance 2016). This is largely due to the mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders. Part of Nixon's initial attempts to deter drug use was enforcing stricter punishments on drug offenders, and those stipulations still exist. Its part of a vicious cycle that exists within our country that starts and ends with drug use and trafficking. Within certain economically disadvantaged regions like urban slums, dealing in drugs is much more lucrative than going to a minimum wage job. Think about it: Would you rather work for many hours a day, every day, for less than eight dollars an hour (The current minimum wage is $7.25/hour), or not have to work as hard an potentially make a few hundred dollars in a single day from a major shipment and sale? Especially when you consider that drugs like heroin are addictive and in street prices can cost up to $200 dollars a day to maintain an addiction ($15-$20 dollars a gram) for one person, and cocaine sells for an average of $100-$200 dollars a gram (Rehab Center 2016). This will lead to an individual being imprisoned for drug possession and/or trafficking. After the individual does their time, even in the best case scenario, they will have it on their record, making it very hard if not impossible to find a legal form of income no matter how hard they try. Since they can't find a legal way to sustain themselves, they will most likely go back into drug dealing as its their only viable option. You must remember that the drug trade is essentially just a business that operates outside the law, meaning gangs and cartels cannot access the legal system to deal with disputes or disagreements, and so resort to violence. With the drug trade being so lucrative its no wonder there's so much violent competition. In fact, this violence is actually more pervasive than "conventional" wars like those in the Middle East. A United Nations study showed that while 103,000 people died in Afghanistan and Iraq combined between 2007 and 2014, 164,345 people have been victims of homicide in Mexico in that same period of time (Frontline 2015). Though not all of these deaths can be linked to cartels, considering how between 2009 and 2014 Mexican authorities seized 104,850 firearms intended for sale across the border, we can assume the War on Drugs plays a major role (National Public Radio 2016). Drugs flow north into the United States, and guns flow south into Mexico, resulting in tens of thousands of casualties on both sides.

Its quite apparent that the rigid methods of the United States against drug use are not working. We are wasting billions upon billions of dollars and are incarcerating and killing millions of people both inside and outside of the country with our senseless strategies. I will not claim to know exactly what the answer is to America's drug problems, but as Switzerland and Portugal demonstrate, there are much better alternatives. We need to remove the stigma of drug use and focus on rehabilitation over correction. We also need to look into the medicinal properties of non-addictive and non-lethal drugs like Cannabis, and how they can replace or at the very least supplement more harmful pharmaceuticals for both physical and psychiatric conditions. We are wasting both monetary and human resources to fight a war that cannot be won. If we put those resources into strategies that actually work, imagine how different the world would be, and how many people would stand to benefit.