The Government is Creating Criminals and Profiteering Off of Their Destroyed Lives

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

~ Thomas Jefferson

The above quote is one of my favorite pieces of literature from the founding fathers. It sums up the position we find ourselves in quite well.  This article explores the penal system of the United States and the failure of the government to use tax funds appropriately.

In the United States, narcotics have been in a state of full prohibition (as in the case of heroin) or partial prohibition (drugs like oxycodone, amphetamines, etc.)  for over 100 years. At present, the United States detains 2.2 million individuals, with almost half comprising non-violent drug offenders, individuals awaiting trial due to inability to pay bail, and those arrested for minor infractions leading to insurmountable debt or the inability to pay exorbitant fines.

The picture only gets bleaker when we account for people who were first introduced to the penal system for drug-related offenses.  Comparing the United States to other nations, we find that the U.S. imprisons more people than any other nation in the world, with less than five percent of the world’s population but nearly 25 percent of its incarcerated population.

One in four prisoners in the world is serving their time in the United States

Why is this? Are people who live in the United States more likely to be criminals? Well, yes, but why is  this? Is it because we are more rebellious? More criminal by nature?

No. 

It’s because our government has created tens of thousands of laws, and with those laws come opportunities for them to arrest, charge, and imprison the population. They have made it illegal to grow plants, and they use this to violate the rights of thousands of people every day.

Each person who gets convicted of a nonviolent drug-related offense is then subjected to inhumane levels of scrutiny. They are given sometimes only an hour’s notice to urinate in a cup, or sometimes no notice at all if their probationary/parole officer decides to pay a visit to their home or place of work. There are a variety of fines levied upon the unfortunate soul who gets caught with narcotics. Most of these drugs are organic, have less side-effects than the medications that pharmaceutical companies sell, and if the purity is known, they are usually quite safe*.

Let’s explore what happens to the typical person who is caught with drugs:

• They will be arrested.
• If they’re driving, they will likely lose their driver’s license for one or more years for a first offense, which can be a terrible blow to people’s livelihoods and family life.
• They will either be fined or imprisoned depending on the jurisdiction and the particular substance involved.
  • If they’re imprisoned, they will be exposed to more hardened criminals.
    • Some will be assaulted
    • Some will be raped**
    • Some will be exposed to harder drugs
    • Some will come out of prison as real criminals
• They will be subjected to ridiculous levels of scrutiny – urinalyses to determine what they’ve been doing in their free time, questions about where they work, with whom they associate, where they live, who their family members are, who their friends are, how much money they have, what they spend it on, what time they get home from work, church, etc, and more.
• They will no longer be able to work certain jobs, regardless of the disposition after the charges, or if they get their record expunged.
• They will be forced to jump through sometimes insurmountable legal hurdles for years, pay fines, attend classes, and more to be free of the government’s prying eyes.

Most of these problems can be made to disappear with the right amount of money. However, the majority of people who are charged with drug-related offenses are middle-class or impoverished and, as such, can not afford to hire a private attorney.

The average tax rate is 14.9% (25.9% for top earners and 3.3% for the lowest income bracket). The gross domestic product (GDP) last year was $27.360 trillion.  Taking the average tax rate of 14.9%, we find that the United States government took in about $3.8 trillion dollars in tax revenue. Of that, the federal government spent almost $39 billion on the so-called “War on Drugs” – a misnomer at best, as it’s not the drugs that are locked up or killed. It’s the people who are victims of their own government – they suffer the consequences of this war on human nature. As of the time of this article’s publication, the national debt is almost $39 trillion. That’s just shy of double the Gross Domestic Product of the entire nation (you can read our proposal to tackle this crippling debt here).

In summary, our government:

• Taxes us at ridiculous levels while blaming the wealthy for their failure to balance the budget – Pay your “fair share” is their go-to line. How much is fair? 40%? 50% 70%? The reality is that no amount of money will fix this issue until we make some changes to our legal policies.
• Routinely violates our right to privacy with urine testing, by spying on us, through lying to us, and locking us up for having naturally occurring substances
• Uses our tax dollars to arm themselves and persecute us.
• Borrows money from our enemies to continue the charade

We need to re-evaluate our relationship with them. It’s high time for change.   

*The vast majority of overdoses are unintentional and caused by consuming an unknown quantity of the intended substance. In recent years, this can be seen most clearly with fentanyl. 

**Rape in prison is an underreported crime, especially among the male prison population. However, it occurs more often than heterosexual rape.