These 1.4 million inmates are estimated to have 2.4 million children, many of whom are currently minors. It has been proven that youths who live in families where a parent is absent are twice as likely to be incarcerated sometime during their lives as compared to their peers who live in intact families. Thus our drug policy is creating a generational cycle of incarceration and dooming our children and through them, our nation's future. After two decades of fighting the Drug War, we have results. Drug trafficking is profitable.
Drugs are less expensive, more pure and more available than ever before.
Fifty percent of all high school graduates report trying an illegal drug before they graduate. Teenagers find illegal marijuana easier to obtain than legally regulated beer. More than two million children have one or both parents in prison for a drug offense. Unfortunately, these somber results have not warned policymakers to evaluate current programs and invest limited drug abuse prevention dollars in programs which have been proven to work. Instead, those implementing drug policy have dug in their heels and claim more money and more of the same policies will garner different results.