Compare And Contrast The Liberal And Liberal Views On The War On Drugs

Liberal and Conservative Views on the War on Drugs Drug use has been an ongoing problem in our country for decades. The use of drugs has been the topic of many political controversies throughout many years. There has been arguments that are for legalizing drugs and the benefits associated with legalization. Also, there are some who are opposed to legalizing drugs and fear that it will create more problems than solve them. Conservatives and liberals often have different opinions for controversial topics such as “the war on drugs,” but it is necessary to analyze both sides in order to gain a full understanding of their beliefs and to decide in a change in policy is in order. The purpose of this essay is to interpret the views of conservatives
Sasha Abramsky, writing in the liberal magazine, the Nation, uses California as an example in which getting rid of the harsh drug policies would be a huge benefit to the economy. In the article titled “The War Against the ‘War on Drugs,’” Abramsky finds a correlation between the drug policies and incarceration rates. Abramsky writes about how some of the state’s political figures are finding that the war on drugs is “responsible for the spike in prison populations over the past thirty years” and they agree that the California’s drug policies “are not financially viable and no longer command majority support among the voting public” (18). Abramsky then goes on to discuss in the article how liberal politicians, Betty Yee and Tom Ammiano, are pushing for a bill to change the drug laws and legalize marijuana. Yee wants to excise “fees on business owners applying for marijuana licenses, impose an excise tax on sellers and charge buyers a sales tax” and if that is done the right way, she believes that the state could gain “about $1.3 billion a year”
Timothy Lynch, writing in the conservative magazine the National Review, writes about how the drug war has not made very much progress and has essentially failed. Lynch writes about how voters in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Alaska, and Maine that have rejected ideas to improve the war on drugs and instead they “approved initiatives calling for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes” (40). Lynch also writes that “the supply of drugs has not been hampered in any serious way by the war on drugs” (41). This supports the conservative’s claim that the war on drugs is not making any progress to stop the supply of drugs coming into America. Conservative writer for the magazine National Review, William Buckley, shows his outrage towards the Council on Crime in America for their lack of motivation to change the drug policies that are ineffective. Buckley asks, “If 1.35 million drug users were arrested in 1994, how many drug users were not arrested? The Council informs us that there are more than 4 million casual users of cocaine” (70). Buckley goes on to discuss in the article, “Misfire on Drug Policy,” how the laws set up by the Council were meant to decrease the number of drug users, not increase the number of violators. Richard Lowry writes an article for the National Review, quoting a Council on Foreign Relations report on drug eradication policies