The unwinnable war on drugs

The drug epidemic in the United States has been a worsening issue for the better part of the last sixty years. Despite the government investing billions of dollars into enforcing drug prohibition and programs that are supposed to lessen the scale of the problem, drug usage, and overdose rates in the country are at an all-time high. The majority of the country understands that the government’s approach to the current issue is not working. Most critics focus on the racial element of the War on Drugs, or even the class oppression that comes with it. Despite the merit to these criticisms, they are only products of an even larger problem that is prolonging the drug epidemic in America and making it worse. The following research thesis entertains a new, purely economical, criticism of the War on Drugs. Through my historical research on similar prohibitions in American history, and by applying basic principles of economics to the issue, I have discovered the true reason the War on Drugs has continued for as long as it has. The groups involved in The War on Drugs such as the Law Makers, Law Enforcement, and the Public, each suffer from unique their own sets of knowledge and inventive problems. These knowledge and incentive problems create an economic market that promotes the sale of black-market drugs in the United States, instead of curbing their use and production.