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 objec

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".

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.

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 t

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Approximate Word count = 1718
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)