Dear Future President,

In America people go to jail all the time for drugs. Whether it’s drug use, selling, or distributing. In 2010 a man named Bernard Noble was arrested for 2 “joints” worth of marijuana. While this may not seem like a big deal, Bernard was arrested for 13 years and no chance of parole. This punishment to me seems far to extreme for just to joints.

In America there has been a raging drug war, and police are trying there best to crack down, on users and dealers. The problem with this is users of drugs like heroin and cocaine aren’t getting the help they need in prison. This is partially because since these drugs are illegal, then they are just thrown in jail, and not treated for their problem, according to opensocietyfoundations.org, “jail is the worst substitute for drug treatment”. He goes on to say jail aggravates the situation, does not make it better.

I believe the best course of action is to legalize all drugs, for these reasons, black markets increase violence, attack on civil liberties, and the US is spending a lot of money on prohibition, which could be used for something different like getting people help, instaed of sending them to jail. If all drugs were to legal it would allow more people to get the help they need, and reduce the violence over drugs, and the countless lives lost over the drug war.

Overall I think drugs should be legal in the US. I hope you come around to reading this letter, and really consider the proposal. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Henry Wood

Picture from USA Today