ts currently on the market give comparable effects.While the legalization of marijuana may improve people’s lives medically, it will also benefit society in the war on drugs. In 1997, roughly 695 000 people were arrested for marijuana charges, the largest in American history. 87% of the arrest involved less than an ounce of marijuana. These petty crimes cost society billions of dollars. The cost of the 1997 arrest alone approached three billion dollars. Many American’s complain about their current taxes. What is going to happen when President Bush decides he wants to dedicate more money to the war against drugs? He will have to raise taxes. As America keeps pumping money into the drug war, there are starving Americans living on the streets. What is the government doing for these people? The government is probably not working as hard to put these people in homes as they are trying to arrest the people giving the homeless the only thing that satisfies them, drugs. The war on drugs only has only one winner, the drug testing companies. The Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1998 provides federal funds to small businesses that want to impose drug testing on their employees. These federal funds must come from somewhere such as another tax or taking away from a needy cause. A decade ago about three percent of the Fortune 200 corporations tested their workers and job applicants for drug use. Today ninety-eight percent of the companies do. The pharmaceutical firms that handle these drug tests are fighting against laws that restrict an employer’s rights to test employees. These companies are making over 340 million dollars in annual revenue. This is not to the average American’s benefit. Drug testing does not show if a person is competent enough to perform their job to the standards set by the employer. It only reveals what the employee does while off the clock. This is not necessary because what one does away ...
