Under the United States Constitution the federal government is charged with the
responsibilities to protect our individual, as well as collective, rights to
life and liberty. Often times this charge leads the various branches of the
federal government to create, implement, and enforce policy that is designed to
protect society from itself. Noble in it’s ambition the result although not
apparent initially, sometimes does more to hinder the rights of the citizens it
is attempting to protect, and/or the cost of doing so becomes a higher price
than that of the cost that is being avoided. In this case it is necessary to
re-evaluate the situation and explore any alternatives that may offer a more
fathomable solution concerning both protection of rights as well as the cost of
so doing.  Introduction In the late 1980’s the United States
government made such policy and today the results have done little to resolve
the problem and have left the country closer to the danger it sought to prevent.
The policy is known as the “ War on Drugs”. Initially the drug prohibition
was, however idealistic, a valiant attempt to rid the country of this terrible
“enemy”. The objectives were simple; to impose stiff penalties on those who
use drugs outlined to be illicit, quell all to trade and commerce of such
substances, and even to go as far to prevent countries with in our general
border vicinity from producing and exporting these substances. The illicit drug
market, pre-drug war, is estimated to be a hundred billion dollar a year
business. The federal government, since the beginning the war of drug, spends
approximately ten billion dollars a year on drug enforcement agencies and
programs, and another estimated one hundred and ninety billion dollars a year on
investigating drug related crimes, prosecution of alleged drug activities, and
enforcing punishments and/or imprisonment. That adds up to be a staggering cost
of two hundred billion dollars ($770.00 per person) to attempt to prevent one
hundred billion dollars worth of illicit drug use. (Evans and Berent) Another
consequence of this questionable war lies in Opportunity cost. Opportunity cost
is defined as the cost of opportunity lost in pursuit of another option. This
cost analysis is relevant in the case of the drug prohibition policy in that the
resources use to implement the policy are limited, police and prisons. The law
enforcement used in this “war of drugs” has their time nearly monopolized by
the approximate thirty to forty million people yearly who purchase and use
drugs. This inherently leaving various law enforcement agencies with less
ability to confront other crimes. Then there is the problem of prisons. The
space in the prisons is extremely limited, and the cost of keeping a person in
prison is astronomical in caparison to the prevention being provided in
reference to drug prohibition. The issue of limited prison space gains
significance greatly when you consider an estimated sixty-percent of prison
population is serving time on drug conviction. In 1994 some seven hundred and
fifty thousand people were arrested in drug related events. Of the seven hundred
and fifty thousand people arrested, six hundred thousand of them were charged
with minor counts of possession. (Wink) Other indicators that can be easily
observed such as the rise in illicit drug use by teens and children reported the
Drug Enforcement Agency. In fact only twenty-eight percent of teens used illicit
drug compared to a whopping forty percent in 1996. (DEA/CDC) The misallocation
of resources is totally exhausting and paralyzing the entire legal system that
could be better targeted on a more productive agenda. What does the policy of
drug prohibition actually encourage? The statistics show a rise in crimes
concerning personal property; drug abusers in hopes of supporting their drug
habit committed seventy-five percent of all property crimes such as burglary and
robbery. Studies have shown that out patient drug programs or programs that
offered drugs for a lower cost drastically reduced the amount of crimes
committed. (Duke) As of 1992 an estimated sixty million people have tried and or
used marijuana and there has yet to be one recorded death attributed to
overdose. While it is estimated that ten thousand people die from overdose of
alcohol annually. This would lead one to acknowledge that maybe our opinion
drugs may be based in fear and social standard rather than in solid facts.
 The Goal The optimal goal of any policy is to protect our rights while
encouraging all the ideals of the society. The problem occurs in the fact that
is fairly impossible to regulate individual contributions (positive or negative)
to the nation in any broad legislative sense. To more accurately explain the
complexity of the issue of drug prohibition it is pertinent to understand the
difference of positive and negative liberty. Positive liberty is a liberty that
forces the government to provide a service to its’ citizens such as
maintaining a military or a national treasury. A negative liberty is the type of
liberty we most often refer, such as our first amendment rights. Negative
liberties prevent the federal government from interfering with certain rights
for example freedom of speech and freedom of press. Drug Prohibition is most
closely classified as a positive liberty because it forces the government to
provide services to create and enforce a drug free America. The difference
between the two types of liberties is significant. Positive liberty calls for
the federal government to fulfill a more substantial role in individual lives
thus it is believed for that reason the federal government should not give
itself too many liberties of this type. (Peterson) Finally one must step back
and objectively ask, “should we retain our current policy stance concerning
illicit drugs, or is the current drug prohibition policy ineffective and counter
productive?” United States Judge William W. Schwarzer once said, “…ending
drug use is useless if in the process we lose our soul”.  Evaluation
The first step in changing a policy is to evaluate it effects both positive and
negative. To begin to evaluate a policy, one must be able to define the
parameters of the policy being examined. The parameters of the drug prohibition
policy that will be investigated are the Untied States prohibition of drugs
christened the war on drugs of 1989. This will include examining the effects
this policy has had on society, on personal rights, the cost of implementation
(monetarily and other wise), and of course the success and/or failure of drug
prohibition policy.  The Policy United States President George Bush
officially began his "war on drugs" in September 5, 1989. President
Bush gave the first prime time address of his presidency, on which he delineated
the federal government's scheme for eradicating drug use. This plan would call
for a nearly eight billion dollar budget from Congress, which added over two
billion dollars to over the previous year’s budget. Of the nearly eight
billion that Bush asked Congress to allocate, the plan outlined that seventy
percent would go to law enforcement, which also included a billion and a half
for jails. However, his proposal only allocated thirty percent to prevention,
education, and treatment. The Bush administration sought to focus the brunt of
his anti- drug campaign in the United States, which, to Bush, meant attacking
and arresting the drug user, rather than focusing on prevention, education and
treatment, or interdiction. Since the federal government has very limited police
resources, it would have to enlist the combined cooperation of the states to
achieve success. States that did not comply with the Bush plan would be
penalized with a reduction in funding from the federal government. (Treaster)
 Effects on Society The effects on society are not miniscule like the
government would have you believe. Crime has risen exponentially since the 1989
when the “war of drugs” was first introduced. In the early 1900’s before
the prohibition of so called illicit drugs heroin and aspirin both were sold at
about the same price. In contrast today the price of heroin has sky rocketed to
a price of fifty dollars per gram compared to a mere twenty cents per gram, the
cost of aspirin. (Cundruff) This type of surge in price of illicit drugs have
not reduced the need of users to consume various illicit drugs, but has in turn
encourage them to rob, steal, and kill for them. Today there is approximately
1.7 million people imprisoned and our murder rate is close to twelve per one
hundred thousand people. That is highest rate of imprisonment and one of the
highest murder rates in the world. These are significant numbers considering
that sixty percent of the prison population has been jailed due to drug
violations. In the 1980’s casual drug use was mainly in the middle and
upper-classes. Around 1985 that rate dropped a staggering twenty-two percent
among the two classes, but rose exponentially in the poorer class. The invention
of drugs such as crack cocaine, a cheaper version, began to race through the
streets of the poor neighborhoods. The sudden influx of cheaper drugs led to
creation of drug cartels, a rise of the number of gangs, and a contributed
greatly to the general further destruction of inter- city sub divisions. The
rise in gangs and drug-lords, that recruit people from as early as childhood,
tempt them into the high yield world of drug sales, promising them a high level
of living. These circumstances then encourage children and teenagers in these
poor neighborhoods to neglect or totally drop out of school, which leaves a mass
group of people uneducated, unskilled, and committing crime. All of these
factors only precede poorer communities  Personal Rights Prohibition at
its’ root is an assault on the rights of the citizens on which it is
inflicted. The ‘war on drugs’ is no exception. At the most basic of these
rights are our inalienable rights to life and liberty.