Should the U.S. Continue its War on Drugs?

Recommend (2) Comments (7)

The US approach is bearing fruit. There has been an overall gradual decline in illicit drug use by American adolescents. According to the 2007 report of the national survey in the Monitoring the Future (MTF) series conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research: “The cumulative declines since recent peak levels of drug involvement in the mid-1990s are quite substantial, especially among the youngest students,” said Distinguished Research Scientist Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator of the MTF study. The proportion of 8th graders reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the 12 months prior to the survey (called annual prevalence) was 24 percent in 1996 but has fallen to 13 percent by 2007, a drop of nearly half. The decline has been less among 10th graders, from 39 percent to 28 percent between 1997 and 2007, and least among 12th graders, a decline from the recent peak of 42 percent in 1997 to 36 percent.

According to the PRIDE survey in the US in 2001-2002, student drug use reached the lowest level in nine years. This data shows that U.S. efforts to educate students about the risks of drug use has made an impact.

The public rejects legalization. A Gallup poll reported that over 80% of Americans held that legalizing drugs was a bad policy and a large majority feared legalization would lead to increases in addiction, drug overdoses, drug-related crime and drug use by children. Another study showed that 89% of the population is willing to pay higher taxes to support drug controls.