by Rick Fontes

Created on: March 08, 2009

The so-called war on drugs hurts everyone because its effects are generally negative and those effects touch each and every one of us. Whether you are a regular user of recreational drugs or are a person far removed from personal contact with them, your life is still impacted by the war on drugs.

You are impacted by the cost in taxpayer dollars being thrown at the problem, by the human misery inflicted upon victims of drug related crimes and by the loss of confidence in our elected officials to do their jobs effectively in controlling and enforcing laws along our borders.

The drug cartels are clearly winning the battle. When compared to these organizations, law enforcement is out-manned, out-gunned and out-financed. Those who produce and traffic in illegal narcotics have all the advantages. They are able to operate with relative impunity, not constrained by any set of laws, codes, regulations or rules of engagement. For every fallen "soldier" on their side, dozens more stand ready to join their ranks.

Those who would enforce the anti-drug laws have all the impediments of working within rules set down by various laws in several countries and, to further complicate matters, they must contend with a significant number of their own forces who succumb to the lure of easy money and become double agents.

As currently constructed, the war against illegal drugs is not winnable. There seems to be only two ways that the forces of ethics and morality (us) will ever defeat the minions of evil (them). The first is to remove the profit motive from the drug trade. if not for the untold billions of dollars to be earned, the illegal drug business would dry up and blow away. The second option is to restructure the cost-benefit ratio so that the cost of being in the illegal drug trade far exceeds the benefits to be derived.

To achieve the first we would have to legalize recreational drugs, control the distribution and keep the price levels low enough to discourage bootleggers. The proposed legislation in California, which seeks to place a $50 per ounce tax on marijuana, would encourage many to stay in the illegal trade.

While government control of recreational drugs has the potential to drive the cartels out of business, there are unintended consequences to consider. Currently billions of dollars are flowing into the coffers of various federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and these funds are jealously coveted. International treaties, such as the Merida Initiative, siphon off many billions more as a form of foreign aid. And thousands of jobs, in America and around the world,depend on the war on drugs for their very existence.

There is also the impact on the prison industry to consider. Overcrowding not only spurs construction of new facilities, it also results in permanent jobs in the corrections services. When you mention legalization to elected officials, they aren't looking only at the potential for ending the illegal drug trade, they are also considering the far-reaching consequences on the "good" side of the equation.

The second possible approach to controlling illegal drugs is to make the cost, in human misery, exceed that which the cartels can pay when recruiting workers. It would require draconian laws, perhaps as drastic as making involvement in the illegal drug trade, at any level, a capital offense.

While this second option might be possible in other parts of the globe, the American people would not stand for it and so we are back to square one. We either opt to legalize and control the drugs or we simply accept the status quo.

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