America's prison crisis and drug crimes

By Javier

It is not reasonable to treat drug trafficking and drug use as a crime. Drug prohibition makes the state focus on searching for and apprehending drug users who are not normally violent or criminals in any sense. It also increases the state's expenses in the judicial branch because prosecutors and judges have to spend their  time processing these offenders. This, obviously, also means that the state has to spend more money on its prison system. More sentences for drug crimes mean more immates, and more money for taxpayers to contribute. The article "Fixing America's Broken Prisons" asserts that, today, taxpayers spend more than $80 billion a year on the prison system. It also shows that the increase in prison sentences began with the response of lawmakers to the high crime rates in the 1970s and 80s. To face this problem, congressional representatives decided to pass laws imposing mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.


Finally, the most important reason to claim that there is no justification for drug prohibition is that consuming or selling drugs doesn't neccesarily involve harming others. These people (consumer and dealer) usually interact with each other peacefully. In that case, it is the state that becomes a criminal for punishing people involved in "victimless crimes". Although some people contend that drug crimes are violent, and use as an example the violence caused by drug trafficking in producing countries like Colombia or Mexico, the truth is violence is not caused by the selling of the product itself, but by the fact that it is illegal and has to be distributed in a black market. It is not the product, it is the prohibition that is causing this violence and deaths.