Question

Read the article by Grossman (2016) and analyze the factors contributing to the current heroin epidemic that has been particularly devastating in rural areas. What are the implications for potential policy-making that might curtail drug use and addiction?

Answer 1

The period from the 1980s to the present has witnessed a lively and unsettled debate concerning the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other illicit substances in the United States.The present situation is especially grim. The United States spends approximately $26 billion a year on its war on drugs, whose aim is to apprehend and punish drug dealers and users. Ten percent of all arrests are for nonviolent drug offenses. Forty percent of drug arrests are for possession of marijuana. Twenty percent of those arrested are juveniles, and the actual number of youths arrested rose more than 80 percent between 1993 and 1997. Drug offenders account for 25 percent of the U.S. prison population. Largely because of the war on drugs, the per capita number of prisoners more than doubled between 1985 and 1997. The U.S. imprisonment rate for drug offenses (149 per 100,000 population in 1995) exceeds the rates of most Western European nations for all crimes (for example, 95 per 100,000 population for France in 1995). Almost all drug offenders in U.S. prisons committed nonviolent crimes. Although racial patterns in drug use do not differ markedly, nonwhites account for almost 75 percent of drug offenders in prison. 1 These costs of the war on drugs have been compounded by the spread of HIV and AIDS among intravenous drug users