Conservative commentator Brandon Brice,
writing in the Common Sense Conservative community pages of The Washington Times, notes the economic cost of the war on drugs:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently stated that the nation’s
unemployment fluctuated between 7.8 and 7.9 percent in the last quarter,
but rather than releasing resources and liberating the economy,
Washington fights a war at home against Americans, leaving a swath of
devastation through an already fragile economy. The question for most
Americans becomes, where are our priorities? The million black men in
prison don’t count as unemployed. Is the drug war a clever way of
keeping black unemployment down?
It does not make sense to think the drug policy is being carried forward to enable the government to publish more favorable unemployment numbers. (The political benefit of reducing black unemployment numbers doesn't seem to be worth the dollar cost in local, state and corrections expenditures that politicians have to account for.) After all, the millions with drug convictions who are not in prison may still be trying to find work, and when they can't, they are counted among the unemployed. Prisoners serving sentences for drug offenses (or incarcerated for having violated probation or parole by relapsing and using drugs), number about 400- to 500,000 on any given day. They don't contribute that much to the unemployment rate.
But the underlying point is critical: people with drug convictions are unable to fully participate in the economy of the nation. If you have a pension fund, a 401(k), a mutual fund, or any other kind of investment, the investment is worth less than it could be because of our drug policy's effect on automobile sales, housing sales, retail sales, and reduction of property values in "drug-infested" neighborhoods.
Ending drug prohibition is a wonderful issue in a political sense -- it is neither conservative nor liberal nor libertarian -- it is common sense.
