Drugs, legal and illegal, are used and abused by all walks of life. The wealthy, the ever politically popular “middle class,” and the poverty stricken.
The wealthy who abuse drugs will eventually be discovered, either by their untimely death or their drug use will invade their work and come to light. Primary examples include, but are not limited to: River Phoenix, Jim Belushi, and even Michael Jackson (granted currently it seems his Doctor may have helped, but he was free to stop at any time, or at least recognize he had a problem – which he refused to do). Those still living can be found in the likes of Mackenzie Philips and her sudden departure from the 70s sitcom One Day at a Time, Robert Downey Jr. and his frequent visits to rehab, as well as many others. You know the names, they are in the news periodically.
The middle class are the people politicians constantly mention as the ones their legislation will help – but nobody seems to have the same definition of middle class. The middle class typically has sufficient funds to live comfortably and not paycheck-to-paycheck. Eventually, however, their drug use will migrate to drug addiction and then drug abuse. When it does, their world will also crash down around them.
The only class that abuses drugs that the government can attempt to have any sort of control over is the poverty stricken. If you do not have the money to feed your family, then you should not be wasting money on recreational drugs – including alcohol and tobacco! IF you are receiving subsidized income from ANY state, city, local, or Federal government entity, then you should be subjected to regulations designed to ensure funds are being used for their intended purpose.
Since it is impossible to follow each and every recipient around daily, the next best option is drug testing. Fail a drug test and you lose your subsidized income for a week. Fail again within a 6 month period and lose your subsidized income for a month. A third failure within a 3 year period results in permanent loss of government funded assistance.
This includes but is not limited to housing, food stamps, medial care, transportation assistance, and/or any other aid – financial or tangible – government benefit, that the recipient is receiving.
What would this do? Well, for those who refuse and continue drug use and abuse, it stops their use of government – read this as taxpayer dollars – to purchase their drug habit materials. Leave these funds for those who meet the rules and use the money to assist their families.
Since a failure of a drug test results in suspension or permanent loss, they cannot use which reduces the drug demand on the streets.
The drug testing must also be strictly followed. This means no wandering into a bathroom stall alone to pull something from a pocket in the privacy of the stall to fill the sample bottle. The military method of sample collection should be instituted. This is under strict supervision where the observer can witness the actual filling of the sample bottle. No tubes, no dipping into the toilet (which is filled with a food dye to give a visual indicator if it was attempted), and anyone caught attempting to cheat is automatically removed from subsidized programs for a month (they skip the week suspension due to the severity of their charge and a second charge results in total loss because this is a direct attempt to play the system).
What about their children? I can hear the outcry now. The children would have to permanently live with another family member and then the children would again become re-eligible for programs, however, if the children are returned to the suspended guardian, program suspension is immediate. Cruel? Consider this, if the parent(s) or guardians are using the drugs, what kind of home life are those children having any way?
Remove the problem by doing something about the demand. Crime should not occur because they cannot use the drugs. Home invasions, robbery, etc should not increase under this plan because again, if they get drugs and use them, they lose their subsidized programs. If they use the funds to buy drugs, they will be caught in the drug testing and suspended.
Eventually, this will drive the price up as demand decreases because drug shipments will be reduced in response. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. Initially prices will drop, but, as those excess supplies are snapped up, prices will rise higher.
Legalize the drugs? No! That is all we need. Somebody high on meth on the streets, behind the wheel of a car, etc.
These drugs are illegal due to their destructive and addictive nature. Granted – alcohol and tobacco are also addictive and destructive. There are many plans in place to assist those already. If anything the abuse of alcohol and tobacco products is a greater show of why the illegal drugs should be kept illegal.
There is no easy answer for reducing drug abuse in the U.S. The war on drugs is an attempt to remove the product before and after it reaches our borders. The plan proposed here attempts to do something to the market these drugs will reach once inside our borders. Remove the market and the peddlers will have to sell their wares elsewhere.