I’ve written two talks on drugs & prisons but I could write two hundred talks on drugs & prisons. Let me remind you--60 % of the people in our federal prisons are there because of drug offenses--and the total number of people in federal prisons, state prisons & local jails is 2 million people. Two million people. One out of every 125 Americans is in prison -- and we are not including those out on parole, or probation, or awaiting sentencing. One estimate I read says that there are 5 million such people people. That would mean that one out of every fifty people in America is either about to go to jail, is in jail or just got out of jail. One in fifty. Unbelievable.
But I said I could write two hundred columns about our messed up jail system. As we throw more & more people into prison -- and as we throw them in for longer periods of time--we are creating unforeseen, and yet obvious, problems. Not only is America greying -- more old people -- the prison population is greying, growing old -- and that means higher medical costs. One estimate is that one healthy prisoner costs us $25,000 to $30,000 dollars a year. An old an infirm prisoner costs between 40 thousand and 75 thousand dollars.
To quote from an article in The Wall Street Journal “Mandatory drug sentencing laws have imprisoned large numbers of intravenous drug users, and may of those prisoners are infected with HIV. More women are serving time because of those same drug laws, forcing prisons to add gynecology & prenatal care to their medical specialties.” How stupid can we get? Who are we punishing, them or us? We are sending sick people to prison and giving them free medical care -- and we foot the bill. We are sending poor women whose only crime is taking drugs, to prison -- and we are footing their mdical bills too. We are sentencing people to prison for life--and as they grow older & more infirm we are footing their medical bills too. Socialized medicine is alive and well in America--but you can only get it inside a prison.
I hope all of you remember that the root of the problem is drugs. As somene said long ago, the society creates the crime & the criminal commits it. In our society it is criminal to take a drug or sell a drug. It is perfectly legal to do all this in Amsterdam -- but it is illegal here in America -- and because it is illegal, we are housing, feeding, caring for a huge number of Americans. We have declared their behavior criminal -- and because we think they are behaving badly, we give them free room & board & medical care. In some cases it is cradle to grave socialism. They start a life of crime early & we talke care of them most of their life.
This is stupid. We are stupid. We need to rethink our behavior. We tried prohibition of alcohol. It didn’t work. We repealed prohibition. We are trying to prohibit drugs, we have declared a war on drugs. It isn’t working, we aren’t winning the war -- and like the War in Vietnam, this war is taking the lives of many of our citizens -- and for what -- for an unwinnable war that is costing us a fortune.
It is time we declared this war to be over. End the prohibition on drugs -- and let’s focus on real criminal behavior: robbery, rape, murder, assault. The war on drugs is a stupid war that hurts monetarily & hurts financially. Let’s end this war.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein