Economic Impacts Of Drug Abuse

Combatting drug abuse and use from a law perspective is challenging, expensive, and time consuming. With the narcotic division and homeland security, the patrolling of drug use is the main function of those divisions, along with keeping the law abiding citizens safe. Paying for the costs of assistance to persons with drug problems raises many questions, including that of the role of the public and private sectors. Many drug abusers are unable to pay the costs of care by themselves and have no insurance or other means to pay when health care is primarily provided by the private sector (Bewick, Bell, Crosby, Keenan, Marshall, Saava, & Eaton, 2013). The cost picture is made more complex by the nature of the existing health care system. Bewick

Between 1990 and 1999, individuals who were convicted of a drug crime rose past 100,000, which accounted for 20 percent of our nation’s increased prison population (Lurigio, 2008). Between 1995 and 2003, the number of drug-related offenders constituted the largest increase of criminals in our nation’s prison population (Lurigio, 2008). In 2004, approximately 50 percent of state prisoners were known to be substance abusers or have drug dependency (King & Pasquarella, 2009). During these years, drug offenders were crowding dockets, prisons, and nearly the entire criminal justice system (Lurigio, 2008). Due to the expensive cost of handling such cases and the difficulty of changing the habits of drug abusers, community based programs were introduced to slow the drastic increase of drug-related incarcerations (Lurigio, 2008). According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans owed nearly 32 billion dollars toward criminal justice expenses, 31 billion dollars toward lost productivity, and three billion towards property damage in 1998 (King & Pasquarella, 2009). These chain of events built the foundation for Drug Treatment Courts (DTC) here in the United States. The origin of the first-ever drug court was located in the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County, Florida in 1989 (King & Pasquarella, 2009). DTC programs maintain

The War on Drugs is one cause for the mass incarceration that has become apparent within the United States. This refers to a drastic amount of people being imprisoned for mainly non-violent crime (“Mass Incarceration” 2016). In addition to people who are not an immediate threat to society being locked up for a substantial duration of time, the economic consequences are costing states and taxpayers millions of dollars. Specifically, every one in five people incarcerated is in prison due to some

We jail a grand amount of the population most times, who don’t necessarily produce any harm or those who have not committed violent crimes. Most arrest, convictions, and sentencing are a product of drug related issues. “Sentencing policies of the War on Drugs era resulted in dramatic growth in incarceration for drug offenses” (The Sentencing Project, 2016, p.3).

The number of people incarcerated in America has steeply risen since the beginning of the War on Drugs. In 1980, about 300,000 individuals were in jail. (Alexander, 2010) In 2000, the number rose to over one million, and at the start of 2008, there were 2.3 million adults in prison in America (Pew Center on the States, 2008). These increases in the rate of incarceration are traceable to the War on Drugs (Nunn, 2001). “Convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration in the United States (Alexander, 2010).” Drug offenses account for two thirds of the rise in the federal prison population between 1985 and 2000 (Nunn, 2001).

With California jails and prisons still struggling with finding a reform for non-violent drug offenders the states recidivism rates continue to reach unprecedented numbers. Between 1983 and 1998, drug admissions to state and federal prisons increased sixteen-fold, from over 10,000 drug admissions in 1983 to almost 167,000 new prison entries for drug offenses in 1998 (Worrall et al, 2009). This has been a direct result of our legal system incarcerating offenders who have substance abuse related issues instead of providing a way for treatment or rehabilitation outside of incarceration. Through public policies regarding criminal justice interventions that address drug use and crime, an initiative was created to provide treatment services

If you have ever seen the movie The Wolf on Wall Street, there is no doubt you have seen the effects drugs can have. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays a high-strung stock broker reliant on a multitude of illegal drugs to keep up with his hectic life style. His addiction gets so severe that at one point in the movie, he is lying on the floor, unable to move due to the drugs’ effects on his body. Even though the movie is set in the 90’s, a decade infamous for its use of drugs, today, drug usage and abuse has never been more of an issue. According to Alice Park (2016), “More people died of drug overdoses in 2014 in the U.S. than in any other year” (p.49). What people fail to realize is that drug abuse effects more than just the individual that uses them. The loved ones trying to support the user, the community the user is in, can all be affected by drug abuse. In fact, all members of society are affected by the abuse of drugs. In short, no one benefits from drug abuse. In the words of the Nation Institute of Drug Abuse, “Drug abuse is a major public health problem that impacts society on multiple levels. Directly or indirectly, every community is affected by drug abuse and addiction, as is every family. Drugs take a tremendous toll on our society at many levels” ( Magnitude, 2016).

Drug abuse is shown to be connected to all different kinds of crime in the United States, and in many circumstances, crime is inspired by drug abuse and addiction. In fact, 80% of criminal offenders abuse drugs or alcohol (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Also, 60% of those who are arrested test positive for illicit drugs when they are arrested, and 60-80% commit another crime, typically drug-related, after leaving prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). And, even after these individuals put in the time in prison that would allow them to go through the uncomfortable process of detoxing, 95% of them will chose to go back to drug abuse after prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Given these overwhelming statistics, it is clear that drug abuse, and repeated or continued drug abuse, are a serious problem facing the criminal justice system.

The United States has the world's highest incarceration rate. With five percent of the world's population, our country houses nearly twenty-five percent of the world's reported prisoners. Currently there are approximately two million people in American prisons or jails. Since 1984 the prison population for drug offenders has risen from ten percent to now over thirty percent of the total prison population. Federal prisons were estimated to hold 179,204 sentenced inmates in 2007; 95,446 for drug offenses. State prisons held a total of 1,296,700 inmates in 2005; 253,300 for drug offenses. Sixty percent of the drug offenders in prisons are nonviolent and were purely in prison because of drug offenses (Drug War Facts). The question then arises,

The drug war is responsible for hundreds of billions of wasted taxes dollars and misallocated government spending, as well as devastating human costs that far outweigh the damage caused by drugs alone. The United States’ unrivaled incarceration rate is a constant financial drain, causing an immeasurable loss in workforce productivity, and puts a strain on scant legal and law enforcement resources. While the federal government spends, billions trying to reduce the demand for illegal drugs through prohibition, treatment consistently proves to be a more effective, cheaper and more humane way to lower the demand for illegal drugs.

Illegal substance abuse and addiction can have far-reaching negative impacts that affect not only the people who abuse drugs but also their friends, family members, the community, and government resources. Substance abuse can lead to domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, crime, automobile accidents, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and unwanted pregnancy.

The insidious cycle of criminal justice must come to a stop. Too many people move through this unhealthy cycle of crime imprisonment in the United States. The United States prison population is the highest on earth: 1% of its adult’s population is behind bars (Monibot, par.3). The United States police force looks directly into arresting people immediately for the smallest issues even if they are only a few years away from legal age. Research has shown that drug users, especially those who are most severely addicted, are responsible for many of these crimes (“Drug use…”, par. 3). From people using drugs and making decisions afterwards while not in the right mind set get arrested and don’t get help until later on in their imprisoned sentence.

It is common knowledge that America has the world’s largest population of prisoners, and in 2008, a study was completed by the Pew Charitable Trusts which indicated that half of the inmates in jail and prison are serving time for nonviolent drug charges (http://www.pewstates.org/news-room/press-releases/new-pew-study-finds-36-percent-increase-in-prison-time-served-85899394970). Since the “War on Drugs” approach about forty years ago, the criminalization of the addict has done very little to address the problem of substance abuse in society. While there is no one clear cause of substance abuse, there have been patterns identified in substance abusers, that may be the underlying factors that lead to the addiction. Some of these factors include mental health and biology.

Illegal drug use and abuse remains a pervasive social issue despite significant efforts to quell its existence. In fact, a recent report released by the RAND Corporation (2005) notes that drug abuse has become such a prominent social issue that substantial increases in prison populations all across the United States have been attributed to the tougher sentences that have been put in place for drug users. With the realization that current social policies toward reducing drug abuse are not working—only serving as the basis to promulgate overcrowding in America’s prisons—there is a clear impetus to examine the issue of drug abuse in a larger social context and determine the necessary social changes that are needed in order to

Drugs have always played a role in our society from the present to the past they have been used for both medical uses and personal use. Though some drugs may help people who are suffering, for many they are misused and cause economic and social problems for our society. Because the negative effects of drug use not only affect the user but also many aspects of our society, drug control policies have been implemented throughout our history to try and control these issues. From the Harrison Act to the Prohibition in the 1930’s, to the 1970’s “War on Drugs,” the government has played an active role in controlling drug use, misuse, and the trafficking of drugs into our country because of the strains it brings to our economy. It harms the user,