By their consumption of illegal drugs by the American public, Mexican citizens die each day. The people of the United States seem to be oblivious to the fact that it is their consumption of drugs, such as marijuana and cocaine, that has made a charnel house of the interior of Mexico. Since 2018, over 30,000 Mexican citizens a year have died because of drug violence. That would mean over 180,000 deaths. Since 1971 the United States government has spent over $1 trillion (about $3,100 per person in the US) in combatting the illegal drug trade. And yet, despite the spending of such vast sums, the demand for drugs from the American people has only increased.
Types of Drug Abuse in the United States
The most abused used drug in the United States happens to be alcohol, which accounts for most of the social damage done to American families. Some 28.3 million American citizens report struggling with alcohol addiction. Despite the damage that alcohol does to society, alcohol is legal. The Volstead Act of 1919, after the legislature overrode President Wilson’s veto, outlawed establishments that served alcoholic beverages. The Act ushered in a decade of violence, combined with increased unemployment because of the shuttering of drinking establishments, as well as depriving the states revenue from the sales tax on alcohol.
Some 23.6 million Americans struggle with their addiction to nicotine. Smoking claims the lives of 480,000 American lives each year, as well as costing millions, if not billions, of dollars in medical treatment and lost productivity. And yet this deadly drug is legal and taxed by state governments and the federal government.
Marijuana, which is slowly becoming legal at the state level, is the third most used drug in the United States. Despite the many assertions that using marijuana can cause lung cancer, no definitive study has shown that to be the case. In a study conducted in the 1930s, The LaGuardia Committee found after 5 years of research found 13 salient points about the use of marijuana:
- Marijuana is used extensively in the Borough of Manhattan but the problem is not as acute as it is reported to be in other sections of the United States.
- The introduction of marijuana into this area is recent as compared to other localities.
- The cost of marijuana is low and therefore within the purchasing power of most persons.
- The distribution and use of marijuana is centered in Harlem.
- The majority of marijuana smokers are Blacks and Latin-Americans.
- The consensus among marijuana smokers is that the use of the drug creates a definite feeling of adequacy.
- The practice of smoking marijuana does not lead to addiction in the medical sense of the word.
- The sale and distribution of marijuana is not under the control of any single organized group.
- The use of marijuana does not lead to morphine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no effort is made to create a market for these narcotics by stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking.
- Marijuana is not the determining factor in the commission of major crimes.
- Marijuana smoking is not widespread among school children.
- Juvenile delinquency is not associated with the practice of smoking marijuana.
- The publicity concerning the catastrophic effects of marijuana smoking in New York City is unfounded.
This study was done in the 1930s and the demographics on the use of marijuana has changed dramatically. The use of marijuana among European Americans is now more than that by Latin Americans and African Americans.
Yet even after this study was published, films about “Reefer Madness” abounded, and spread unfounded and undocumented information of the alleged gateway drug marijuana. At the same time, the United States allows the sale of cigarettes to the public legally, which kills 480,000 Americans a year.
Opioids
Some 2.7 million has reported problems in the use of opioids. While it may be surprising that opioid use is on a lower level than other drug issues, it is however a deadly addiction as some 100,000 Americans died from this drug in 2020. Many of these who died had legal prescriptions for the opioids. Few of those that died obtained this drug illegally.
Cocaine
Cocaine is a white crystalized powder made from the cocoa leaf. Cocaine stimulates mesolimbic pathway in the brain. It is used as a recreational drug for its euphoric and rewarding effects. It is illegal to use in the United States, much the same way alcohol was illegal during the Volstead Act. Abuse of any drug can lead to addiction, and people have become addicted to cocaine. Alcoholism kills some 180,000 Americans every year.
U.S. Drug Policies Are Insane
The War on Drugs is over, and the United States has lost it. President Nixon in June of 1971 declared America’s war on drugs. And since that time trillions of dollars have been spent fighting the war on drugs, and still drug use has increased. This is just insane. The only sane policy that is left is to remove marijuana and cocaine from the federal proscription list as a Tier 1 drug. Then let the states decide to either legalize these drugs or to prohibit them.
To emphasize the disparity of the effects that alcohol and smoking have on the American people. Some 660,000 Americans die from the legal drugs that Americans have access to. The deaths of Americans due to an overdose of marijuana use, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency, is 0. The number of Americans who die from the use of cocaine is on the rise in the United States. However, upon closer inspection most of the 27,569 who died in 2022, involved the additional use of opioids, so no real figure is available.
Tax the Drugs Such as Marijuana and Cocaine
Of course, the Federal government would impose an entry tax to these drugs and the individual states may tax these two drugs and regulate them. The proceeds from these taxes could then be used in an outreach program to assist other drug users to help then escape the addiction of other drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. The added bonus of legalizing marijuana and cocaine would be the end of innocent Mexican civilians being killed inside of Mexico.
