LEGALIZATION OF CERTAIN DRUGS COULD REDUCE HIGH U.S. INCARCERATION RATES

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2008 over 7.3 million
people were on probation, in jail or prison or on parole at the year's
end.

That means that right now, at any given time, about 3.2 percent of all
U.S. adults are under correctional supervision. Out of that 7.3
million, about 2.5 million are prisoners.

The U.S. has 2.5 million people locked away at this moment. In fact,
when you look at comparisons to other developed countries, you notice
that it's a lot of people, not only by the number of prisoners, but
also by proportion of the population. The U.S. has the highest
incarceration rates in the world.

It wasn't always this way. In fact, the incarceration rate has more
than quadrupled in the past 30 years. That's right. There were only
500,000 prisoners in the U.S. in 1980.

What happened to the land of the free?

Despite what the 10 o'clock news tells you, our nation hasn't
developed more dangerous societies. In fact, the number of violent
crimes has been fairly steady over the years. The large majority of
crimes that contributed to the rise of incarceration were mostly nonviolent.

One of the big reasons this happened is changes in policy. That is to
say, there are more things that are considered a crime, and there are
harsher penalties for crimes in general, such as longer time served.

A big part of this change in policy is the so-called "War on Drugs."
Nixon coined the term back in the 1970s, and it has been generally
used ever since. The 1980s saw the first real push towards harsher
drug legislation and enforcement. The Obama administration has shown
signs that it no longer wishes to use the "Drug War" analogy, which is
admirable. For all practical purposes however, the war mentality
towards drug use is still the pervasive norm in our government.

The numbers don't lie -- 20 percent of incarcerated Americans are
serving time for drug offenses. In case you are wondering what a drug
offense is, it's basically this: if you buy, sell, or make any type of
drug, you're going to serve some time.

"Well that's good!" you might say. "Those creeps deserve to go to
jail. Besides, drugs lead to other crimes." You're right; drugs can
lead to other crimes. In fact, a quarter of the property crimes
committed in this country are done in order to get money for drugs.
But the felons don't break into your car because they are high; they
do it because the price of drugs is hugely expensive. By making a
product illegal you limit the supply, thus making it less attainable
and more expensive. Opening a meth lab can be a risky business
decision, so the entrepreneur is going to cover his costs.

What about alcohol? It leads to a lot of crimes too, especially
violent ones -- in fact more so than drugs. A large number of
homicides, stabbings, attempted rapes, and wife battering crimes are
done under the influence of alcohol. So why don't we ban alcohol,
especially since it leads to even more severe crimes?

Well, we tried to do that, and it accomplished nothing. The only thing
prohibition really accomplished was raising the price of alcohol,
increasing the amount of moonshine, and creating organized crime.

By legalizing drugs, we would have less people in prison, less crime
and protection under the law for those who wish to make a personal
choice of consuming a drug. Imagine if people could have the law on
their side while making a transaction involving drugs. There would be
no incentive to use violence to coerce someone to pay you the money
that they owe you. You could simply settle it in court, like normal
people. Wouldn't that be something?