The “war on drugs” has been so horribly ineffective that it begs questions about its true motivations. Even a dog can eventually learn from an electric fence, so why not the United States government? Is the goal really to reduce drug use, or is it to segregate society and vilify the disadvantaged? A combination of mandatory minimum sentences and other unjust laws has led to a huge increase in the prison population in the United States. Under these laws, 60 percent of the federal prison population consisted of nonviolent drug offenders in 1999. In 1997, approximately twice as many people were arrested for drug offenses as for felonies. violent. As a result, the incarceration rate in the United States is now six to ten. Indeed, in 2000, the United States surpassed Russia to become the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. One of the side effects of this huge prison population boom has been an increase in spending on prison construction. Since it is primarily college-aged youth who end up in these prisons, fiscal planners have reasoned that the most logical place to acquire the funds needed to build prisons is through higher education. . In fact, there was a direct trade-off in spending: in 1995, federal funding for university construction fell by $954 million, to $2.5 billion, while federal funding for Prison construction increased by $926 million, to $2.6 billion. These numbers are huge. They reveal that in one year, the federal government reallocated more than a quarter of total spending on university construction to prison construction. The laws are unjust in other ways, too: They disproportionately target minorities and the poor while turning a blind eye to the rich. . On paper, these laws... middle of paper ... is a cost-effective approach to the war on drugs. It may not be a coincidence that the percentage of U.S. citizens who smoke marijuana is twice that of Amsterdam citizens who smoke marijuana, even though marijuana is legal in Amsterdam. The criminalization of drug use has placed its regulation in the hands of corrupt forces. who are above the law. The same law that puts the arrested drug dealer in prison empowers another drug dealer by suppressing his competitors and strengthening his control over his territory. As long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be a supply. The problem with criminalizing drugs is that it does nothing to address the demands of addiction. It must be recognized that drug use can be reduced without resorting to imprisonment, that waging a war on drugs is the surest way to lose all government control over drug use..