Friday, December 30, 2011

Legalization of drugs.. Bad for America!

Since Ron Paul has come onto the national stage in the Republican debates with his less than sane views on a lot of things, some people have really taken to him, mostly because his views on economics, but other views as well. One of the big debates that Congressman Paul has stirred is whether or not drugs should be legalized, and then be managed by the states, taxed and so forth. I wanna throw some stats at you and by the end lets see if you think that legalizing drugs would help or hurt America.

One of the biggest arguments is that the drug war is not working and it is costing us a fortune to continue fighting it. Lets look at the stats shall we! In 1979 14.1% of Americans had used an illicit drug within the last 30 days. In 2006 that number had dropped to 8.3%. That same survey showed that 16.3% of teens ranging from 12-17 in 1979 used an illicit drug within the last 30 days. In 1992 that number had dropped to 5.3%. It did rise however to 10.2% in 1999 but dropped down to 9.2% in 2006 and the vast majority of those were marijuana users. In 1979 the number of kids ages 12-17 who had EVER used illicit drugs was at 32% by 1992 it dropped to an astounding 15.1%. During the Clinton years this problem was put on the back burner and it rose back to 23% by 1997. I think this shows that the war on drugs is working. People laughed at Nancy Reagans just say no initiative but it seems to have been helping along with strong leadership.

Now for some more stats.
In 2006 20.4 million people used an illicit drug. 3.8 million were addicted. That's a rate close to 20%. Cocaine users were addicted at a rate of about 75%. Heroine users were addicted at a rate of 95%! What if the same number of people who tried alcohol tried cocaine. In 2006 125 million had tried alcohol. What if that was cocaine? Instead of 1.7 million addicts we would have 94 million! What if it were heroin. Instead of 323,000 addicts it would be 117 million.
How many times do we here about drug addicts killing an innocent person or stealing to get more drugs? There are roughly 2 million people addicted to cocaine or heroin can you imagine the crime rate if there were 100 million. To say that we should legalize drugs is absurd. Drugs tend to interfere not only with the users but also people around them and also tax payers. Currently drug and alcohol users are 5 times more likely to file workers compensation. They incur 300% more healthcare costs, are 1/3 less productive and are absent from work 3 times more than non addicts. All this costs money! The total monetary cost to society is about 97 billion a year. Half of that falls on the gov't to pay. That is nearly 100 billion dollars wasted a year on only 10% of the population.

So all you Ron Paul fans out there, here is what you will be getting..