, wholesalers, transporters, and sellers. This business which you created can run on very little overhead. You pay no taxes, no benefits, no rent. You handle your own insurance and you take your own collections(Gray 13). The only problem that you face is someone in your organization being caught by law enforcement. If this happens though, there are plenty of people who can step up and take the persons job. Today the people involved in the business of drugs have gotten smarter. In Illinois it is a Class X felony to sell crack cocaine within one thousand yards of a church, school, or park, that carries a six to sixty year sentence. But the maximum you can give a juvenile is thirty days in the Audy Home (Gray 4). Therefore in Chicago a number of the people selling crack on the streets are under eighteen. Most people would agree that one thing they dont want to see children involved in is drugs. However, the current laws on the books create a system where it is beneficial for children to deal drugs, especially in urban areas with large minority populations. The drug war has driven people to harder drugs. As marijuana is a substance which is bulky and harder to transport than say cocaine. Therefore the DEA has been more successful in finding marijuana than say cocaine. This creates a shortage on the streets, following the law of supply and demand, this drives the price of marijuana up. This will invariably lead people to harder substances(Bertram 134). There are seventy million people in America who have used marijuana, ten million continue to use regularly (Buckley 1). Marijuana is the third most popular drug in America. It comes in only slightly behind nicotine and alcohol. However, it accounted for 695,200 arrests in 1997 (Norml). So a physically non addictive substance which does not cause its users to become violent is illegal. While two substances that are addictive and can cause their users to become violent are legal. This doesnt mak...
