The United States should decriminalize drugs.

I. IntroIn the United States, drug abuse is a pandemic. Just about any substance available is suspect to abuse. In response, the government has cracked down hard in the past half-century, using prison time and criminal charges to deter use. However, despite millions of hours and trillions of dollars, the national addiction rate has stayed relatively constant, at 1-2% since 1970. It's time for change.II. Harm Principle Obviously, many drugs are outlawed in the United States. However, many people take and abuse mind altering substances that the government has deemed okay, while others use different substances that the government deems dangerous. This contradicts with British philosopher John Stuart Mill’s harm principle. The harm principle boils down to the idea that so long as the actions of one citizen do not cause harm to another, there is no reason to villainize such actions. If no negative externalities exist, under the harm principle, there is no reason for drugs to be criminalized. If, under the influence of a drug, an individual commits a crime, then clearly their actions must be punished. However, the drug itself should be freely ingested without consequence. There is a reason drinking alcohol is legal, but punching someone while drunk is not. It all boils down to one question: are you actively harming anyone else? If the answer is no, it shouldn't be illegal. III. Prison System Mandatory minimums (MMs) are common in the American justice system, especially for drug-related crimes. First we'll look at the theoretical merits to MMs. MMs beg the question as to a prison's purpose: "rehabilitation or retribution?" and suggest the latter. “To proponents, their certainty and severity help ensure that incarceration's goals will be achieved. Those goals include punishing the convicted and keeping them from committing more crimes for a period of time, as well as deterring others not in prison from committing similar crimes.” [1] In theory, this would deter users and dealers, while at the same time, keeping many of those people off the streets for a certain period of time. This would, therefore, achieve retribution, and likely deterrence as well. There are two problems with taking the retribution approach with drug crimes. The first is that in the case of retribution, you are punishing the person for the harm they caused another person or society at large. Drug users did not harm anyone, though. The second is that as long as they are independent from more egregious offenses, there is going to come a day these people are going to return to society. Both of these issues show that, in the instance of drug crimes, it makes more sense to prioritize rehabilitation. The current penal system does the opposite. A former LAPD Deputy Chief discusses this in HuffPost. Upon incarceration, users’ prospects of achieving a better life, as well as those of their families, plummet. They are criminals due to what they do to their bodies, but usually that's it. However, prison culture changes them. The longer they are in the system (due in large part to MMs) the less they stay in touch with life on the outside. In prison, life is violent. The longer the drug users are subjected to life where violence is a social norm, the more likely this is to translate to their behavior upon release. Recidivism rates are approximately 2/3, making it clear that one of the goals of the penal system, rehabilitation, is far from being achieved in the status quo.[2] This creates a problem, because The United States is also facing a prison overcrowding epidemic. This creates a positive feedback loop. MMs cause people to go to jail for extended periods of time. Going to jail for longer means there are fewer empty cells for a longer period of time. It also means you are more likely to recommit a crime, putting you back in prison and starting the whole process over again. If we were to stop this issue at the source, MMs, the problem would decrease dramatically. For drug use in particular, this would be the case, as the Economist points out that approximately a quarter of the US prison population is incarcerated due to drug use or other drug-related crimes. [3] Decriminalization would provide the benefit of reduced prison populations and better prospects of life for users. MMs are one of the most obvious obstructions of justice with relation to drug convictions. However, MMs beget other related problems, and exacerbate current ones. Prison overcrowding is a major issue in the United States. Put simply, the U.S. incarcerates too many people, and inmates jailed for drug charges are an unjustifiably large portion of the prison population. Adjusting such policies could easily remedy the matter. Prior to the war on drugs, our prison population remained mostly constant and low. However, due to policies created under Nixon that escalated the government’s efforts to get drugs off the streets, the prison population has risen dramatically. According to The Daily Kos, after Nixon started and Reagan escalated the drug war, our prison populations increased by 500%. In 1980, under 50,000 people in the United States were incarcerated for drug offenses. Today it is half a million, and the “land of the free” has the world’s largest prison population. [4] The Economist [3] estimates drug crimes constitute roughly a quarter of our incarcerated population. If we decriminalized drug consumption, (assuming about 80% of the people imprisoned for drug crimes are for usage) and applied this retroactively, about 1/5 of our inmates would no longer be behind bars. This would help solve some major issues. The biggest issue this would address is prison overcrowding, which has become a national pandemic, with some prisons at over 200% capacity. Due to lack of space in cells, there are instances of prisoners being put up in gymnasiums, crowded into the small walkways their cots created. Other documentation of California prisons has shown that in some instances when no mental healthcare is accessible, a suicidal prisoner would be locked in a cage the size of a telephone booth, due to lack of bathroom access would be forced to urinate themselves, and had no choice but to stand in his or her own waste for nearly 24 hours. Crowded conditions raise questions with respect to the 8th Amendment, and the atrocious conditions in the instances of suicidal prisoners definitely violates the rights guaranteed to all American citizens. This is evident of a major issue with the current system under which our penal institutional operates, and must be addressed effectively and quickly. The incredibly simple solution to this is major issue to decriminalize drugs, and retroactively reduce or end sentences. This would dramatically reduce the prison population and quickly alleviate the overcrowding so much of the nation is facing. Furthermore, it would reduce future incarceration rates, as those who would currently be jailed for low level drug offenses, and therefore prone to high recidivism rates. They would never re-enter the system because they would not enter it in the first place. One of the major issues society at large has with this idea is the notion that there will be a major uptick in drug usage following either of the paths of action. A case study of Portugal disproves, and this will be expanded upon later. Either way, users will be treated as what they are: addicts, not criminals, and their prospects of being able to change their habits will dramatically increase. Ultimately, drug sentencing harms inmates, their families, and society at large, and must be changed. IV. Sources [1] https://www.rand.org... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [3] http://www.economist.com... [4] https://www.dailykos.com...