Possession of a little of heroin is legal!
The US state of Oregon recently relaxed its drug control measures, becoming the first state to legalize the possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and other street drugs.
Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota also voted to legalize recreational marijuana. The road to drug control in the United States once again faces challenges.
700,000 people died from overdose
700,000 people died from overdose In 2018, nearly 15,000 people in the United States died from overdose of drugs such as heroin, and more than 67,000 people died from drug overdose.
According to The Lancet website, nearly 72,000 people died from drug abuse in the United States in 2019, reaching a record high. The number of deaths due to drug abuse in the first half of this year is estimated to have increased by 13% over the same period in 2019.
According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, since 2000, 700,000 people have died from drug abuse in the United States.
Overuse of illegal drugs and prescription opioids has become the leading cause of death among people under 45 in the United States. The root cause of all this is that at the end of the last century, pharmaceutical companies assured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid analgesics.
Before drugs are highly addictive, they have been widely diverted and abused, and 4% to 6% of people who abuse prescription opioids will switch to heroin.
Drugs trigger violent crime
Drugs trigger violent crime Drugs and crime are often inseparable. According to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), nearly 1.56 million people were arrested for violating the drug law in the United States in 2019, and 86.7% of them were suspected of possessing drugs.
A U.S. report in 2019 showed that Mexican transnational criminal organizations are the main suppliers and producers of most illicit drugs smuggled into the U.S. They have been increasing their share of the U.S. drug market and establishing relationships with U.S. gangs .
U.S. drug control is nowhere in sight
U.S. drug control is nowhere in sight In the late 1960s, drug abuse became popular among young Americans, and drug users became the representatives of social rebellions during this period.
In 1971, then US President Nixon delivered a speech on “War on Drugs” and asked Congress to allocate 84 million US dollars for “emergency measures.” In 1973, the US Drug Administration was established.
The drug war expanded after 1981. In 1986, the US Congress passed the “Drug Abuse Act”, which required mandatory sentences for drug crimes. The number of people arrested for violating the drug law increased from 50,000 in 1980 to 40 in 1997. Million or more.
For more than 40 years, the anti-drug war has cost the United States about $1 trillion. However, the anti-drug war has also caused some social problems, such as unfair treatment of minorities.
The Cato Institute analyzed that blacks in jail for drug crimes were fined 13 times that of whites. Between 2003 and 2013, blacks in Virginia were fined for using marijuana The arrest rate has more than doubled, much higher than the arrest rate of whites. Drugs also breed serious corruption problems, and the road to drug control in the United States is difficult.
