. Of the people that are arrested and jailed for using drugs, eighty per-cent go back to using again once they are released. The government should not be allowed to prosecute non-violent offenders for consensual crimes committed in their own homes thus complying with the U.S. Constitution.It seems that our government is in the business of drugs. The Iran/Contra affair showed how deeply involved we are in the illegal drug business. Even President Clinton, Vice-President Gore and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich have admitted to experimenting with marijuana and presidential hopeful George W. Bush, Jr. has been said to have used cocaine not to mention ex-mayor Marion Barry of Washington D.C. It seems the government is saying one thing and doing another. If such a negative attitude of drugs is really what the country wants why then drugs should not be glamorized by celebrities and politicians. Perhaps the criminal justice system wants to keep collecting fines and politicians kickbacks for building new prisons. Capitalism is not known to turned down easy money such as would be created by legalization. If the government believes it can win the war on drugs then it has failed to provide hard proof.Should drugs be legalized, we can expect several immediate results. First, the government will be forced into taking a look at the real issues. For too long policy makers have used prohibition as a smoke screen to avoid addressing the social and economic factors that lead people to use drugs. Most illegal and legal drug use is recreational. Poverty and despair are at the root of most problematic drug use and its only by 6addressing these underlying causes that we can hope to significantly decrease the number of problematic users. Opponents believe that deterrence will do the trick, but drug use continue...
