What makes our police and the Government think that drug war is lost? History of prohibition of all kinds in American society tells us about the process of taking control over illegal substances. The Harris Act in 1914, Volstead Act in 1919, Marijuana Tax Act in 1937 were passed and have limited success until the Controlled Substance Abuse of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Control Act was passed. Granted, the majority of all methods that have been used to restore legal control over traffic, selling, buying and consumption of illicit drugs turned to be virtually ineffective. Very few positive results were achieved during law enforcement , according to the statistics provided by Arnold S. Trebach in his interview to Peter Dorenhoff for Law Enforcement News "Roughly one in four Americans used an illegal drug within past 12 months" (Trebach) this way we are looking at 25 percent of American people being directly involved into drug war. And let us not forget that Statistics Services may not obtain the 100 percent accurate information due obvious reasons that not all of the drug users may answer honestly in surveys, therefore real numbers can be much bigger than the ones Statistics Services can provide. This statistic may look terrifying, however, "The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Household Drug Survey, the nation's most extensive assessment of drug use, reports that from 1979 to 1994 the number of current drug users (those using within the past month) has dropped from 24.8 million to 13 million, marijuana users from 23 million to 10 million and cocaine users from 4.4 million to 1.4 million. The number of hard-core addicts has held steady at around 6 million, a situation most experts attribute to the unavailability of treatment and the large number of addicts in the pipeline" (Califano. p7) The drug war is not lost yet, there are many ways to control and eventually eliminate the drug use among Americans. But new ways and methods have to be found in order to do so. Lee P. Brown, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in his speech on the conference in Atlanta, May 15, 1995 said that "drug use among Americans reduced by more than half. In 1993, Americans spent $49 billion on illegal drugs, down from $64 billion in 1988." (Brown. p628) Also the problem of treatment of drug users is one of the most important in this issue, according to rough statistics about 11 million illegal Drug users are kept in prisons, what makes them totally overcrowded. It stands clear that imprisonment is not the right way to treat such serious desease as drug addiction. One of the most efficient ways to treat drug addicts is to establish special medical law enforcement hospitals that can provide necessary help on the professional level. Drug addicts are very different type of criminals, unlike others, they often harm themselves more than anybody else, but this statement cannot be applied to the people who committed crimes because of drugs.

Moral aspects of this problem are far more complicated than it seems. Legalization of drugs will make them available for everyone who is eager to use them. It means that your child will have total access to the deadly substances that can ruin his and your life in no time. Some followers of the idea of the legalization say that drugs will be age restricted product like tobacco and alcohol, but reality opposes it, we all know that even though some products are age restricted minors still have access to substances that meant to be prohibited for their use. Even though it is needless to mention the harm drugs can cause to the physical and mental health of the human being, forbidden is still extremely attractive to everyone who is not stable enough to understand the simple truth that drugs kill. We have to protect our lives and the lives of our beloved ones and the legalization of drugs appears to be the direct threat to what we value the most.

Along with many others there is a very common misconception that drugs legalization would reduce social problems and crime in particular. According to the experience of some European countries where drugs have been already legalized, reduction in drug-related crimes was very brief and short-termed. "The U.S. Department of Justice reports that criminals commit six times as many homicides, four times as many assaults and almost one and a half times as many robberies under the influence of drugs as they commit in order to get money to buy drugs" (Califano. p7) Strongest system of organized crime would be out of the particular business (traffic and selling drugs) if legalization will ever occur but it will not keep them out of crime! Organized crime would find other ways to make money on the health and security of the citizens. Huge amounts of drugs will be accumulated in the private hands, competition will lead to the price reduction. This way America with its legal and cheap drugs will become one of the major suppliers of drugs to the world. The percentage of young users will raise dramatically in very short period of time. "Nor should we overlook that the stigma of illegality has been important in discouraging kids from experimenting. In separate studies, 60 percent to 70 percent of New Jersey and California students reported that "fear of getting in trouble with the authorities was a major reason why they did not use drugs." Another study found that the greater the perceived likelihood of apprehension and swift punishment for using marijuana, the less likely adolescents are to smoke it." (Zuckerman. p68)