The War on Drugs

             The War on Drugs: A War Against Economics
             The United States of America has been engrossed in a so-called War on Drugs policy since the mid-nineteen seventies. Since the founding of the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1973 under then President Richard Nixon, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Reagan in 1988, the United States has found themselves in a winless war and in debt a tremendous amount of money. The reason that the United States has found themselves in this current state is due to one simple thing: the failure to respect the basic concepts of economics. The United States failure to realize the simple concept of demand and supply has found the nation digging itself a hole and only going deeper. The United States has spent countless amounts of money in trying to prevent the use of illegal drugs and has since faced many repercussions in doing so, leading to more taxpayers money being spent on a winless cause.
             A simple look into the basic economic laws of supply and demand will clearly show why the current War on Drugs is a battle that cannot be won. Prices in a free market are determined by supply and demand. This includes anything from cars, to televisions, to illegal drugs. The natural forces that drive these products result in a graph that will show the supply, demand, and price for the products that are being sold. When the supply for a product is high, and the demand for it low, the price will be low, and vice versa. The intersection between these two lines shows the prices at which the product will be sold (See Graph One). According to the Office of Nations Drug Control Policy it is the national governments goal to eliminate the supply for illegal drugs through the use of customs agents and border patrols, while decreasing the individuals demand for drugs through various treatment and education programs (Lynch 2). This goal of the national governments has required billions of taxpayers'...

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The War on Drugs. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 05:47, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/72490.html