The so-called “War on Drugs,” as declared by the Nixon administration in the signing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, marked the beginning of the current era of mandatory minimum sentencing, racism, privatized prisons, and a powerful constituency that profits as a result of the prohibition of drugs. Psychoactive substances have been apart of the human experience as long as humans have walked the earth. There is little hope that drug production will ever be curtailed, so long as there is a demand; a demand that has remained steady even though it has been forty years since the beginning of said war. As Judge James P. Gray from the Superior Court of Orange County has so plainly put it: “Where did this policy come from? Unfortunately I have conducted an inquiry into this and I have determined that drug prohibition laws came for reasons of racism, empire building, and ignorance.”(Booth)

The War on Drugs is politically motivated as a means of profiting. One may ask them self how government can financially benefit from such policies. In fact, they benefit in a myriad of ways. The government spends an exorbitant amount of money in an attempt to combat drug production and drug usage. The U.S. government has spent over a trillion—that’s right a trillion—dollars in its attempt to eradicate the drug problem. With so much time, effort and money there should be something to show, right? Wrong. Today drugs are more prevalent, more potent and cheaper than they ever have been. Even the drug czar of the United States, Gil Kerlikowske, admits that the current policies have not worked. "In the grand scheme, it has not been successful. Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."(Mendoza) It seems that this would signify a need for a shift in current policy. However, more money than ever has