Dear Next President,

I would like to congratulate you for your accomplishments, and how far you’ve come to be able to call yourself the leader of this great nation. It’s very brave to put yourself in such a high position of power knowing the risks, and how you life is completely changed to serve our country. Our society isn’t perfect, we know this, but it’s arguably one of the closest in the world to being perfect. “In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs.” (According to https://web.stanford.edu) President Nixon was the first of many presidents to declare war on drugs. This is an outdated mindset, blaming a mental issue on the person. We shouldn’t be focusing on punishing those who do drugs, but instead start the war on addiction, and give help where help is needed. We already have places where people can get help, rehab, but we need to emphasize the importance of lives, and not criminalize those in need. It’s not a secret that the war on drugs was a catastrophic failure. The cause and effect from this act has caused countless of lives lost and ludicrous amounts of money wasted. “Number of people killed in Mexico's drug war since 2006: 100,000+” (According to http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-statistics) To avoid deaths, wasted money, and a better future, we should model Switzerland. “Due to the severe drug problem in Switzerland in the early 1990s, (rising number of injection drug users, visibility of open drug scenes, AIDS epidemic, rising number of drug related deaths, poor physical health, high criminality) the Swiss made a fundamental shift in approaching the problems caused by heroin addiction. The Swiss offer treatment-on-demand. Of an estimated 22-24,000 addicts (dropping 4% per year) 16,500 are in treatment and 92% are given daily doses of primarily methadone at conventional clinics.” (http://www.citizensopposingprohibition.org/resources/swiss-heroin-assisted-treatment-1994-2009-summary/) What’s being done is durastically cheaper, and is yeilding results that the U.S.’ war on drugs will never be able to catch up to. Let’s follow their example and make the U.S. a better, safer place.

Sincerely,

Andre Period 1