Where Would America Be Without Drugs Part Two
By Jay Goodman
Over the last 15 years of incarceration I have wondered many times where would American be without drugs? How much further advanced would we be? There is so much talent in prisons that’s been wasted because of drugs. What all would they have accomplished if they hadn’t come to prison? Make no mistake do United States number one enemy is drugs. It’s re-shaped everything about our country. Since the beginning of drugs use in our country there is nothing else that’s caused as much damage. When America saw what cocaine did in the 1980’s, I have wondered many times why more wasn’t done? Yes, the President of the United States at the time, Ronald Reagan, did declare “war on drugs,” but the war was focus more on tougher prison sentences on the American people. Why declaring war on drugs is a great idea, I believe the war should of been focused more on the countries that were bringing cocaine and other drugs here. I am not saying American shouldn’t of went to prison for breaking the law, but instead of focusing on tougher sentences on the American people they should’ve focus more on rehabilitation.
Let’s look at what Texas has done with building over 100 prisons, and using the get tough on criminals thinking. Has it solved anything? No. In fact, by not focusing on the real problem which is drugs, their entire prison system has been flooded ever cents. And it’s only gotten worse because the real problem across Texas and every other state has never been addressed. Remember what I already pointed out in my last chapter. 75% to 90% of all people incarcerated in the United States are in prison in one form or another because of drugs. Can anyone imagine for a moment how reducing the prison population across our country by 75 to 90% would have saved taxpayers billions of dollars? That money could be spent on so many other things like schools for one. Drugs have always been the leading cause of crime across our country, and as long as there is a drug problem it will remain the leading cause of incarceration. I wonder all the time what would the United States of America be without drugs?
From the beginning of the 1900s until the 1960’s, people that live here created cars, planes, Jets, and put the first man on the moon. That’s just to name a few things. There was a lot of pride amongst the American people, and the whole world knew that this was a great country to come to. But by the end of the 1980’s, crack cocaine had swept across the United States like a deadly cancer. We had never seen a drug at that time too so much distraction. Tens of thousands of people were sent to both state and federal prison. New laws came into a fact because of our president swore on drug policy, which gave a lot of people life in prison. Before almost every person he was sentenced to life was murderers. But with the new law the federal and state prisons were flooded with people never to leave again. Remember most of these prisoners were not violent people they were addicts. But crack left thousands of people dead on the streets, because different gangs would fight over areas. So, everyone that was arrested because of crack cocaine, was treated more harshly even though a lot of them we’re just drug addicts.
The beginning of the 1990’s crack cocaine was still sweeping across the US destroying lives in every state. It did more damage than any drug America has ever seen before it seemed like everything cracked touched it left its mark of destruction. People on crack cocaine lost their homes, jobs, their families. He would see people stay up for days or weeks at a time without any sleep at all. They lost so much weight they look like skeletons, are used to think they look like the walking dead.
Once again, America saw kids as young as 10, 11, 12, using drugs. Through the 1970’s most kids went to the 10th grade before dropping out of school. But since kids started getting high so young back in the 1990’s, they just stopped going to school by the 6th or 7th grade. And the exact same thing continued to happen to kids that did go to school on drugs, the teachers will pass them onto the next grade just to get rid of them. Also, at the start of the 1990’s, America started seeing a big decline in kids finishing high school.
In some parts of the U.S. public schools were lucky if half of the kids who started high school finished. When America had been leading the world in the industry age, math, Science, and other areas, we began to see other country start to take over in these areas. The drug use in the last two decades was beginning to show in every way across the United States.
Also, other drugs we’re starting to show up during the 1990’s. A new drug ecstasy hit the streets, this new drug was a mixture of LSD in speed and it quickly made its way around the U.S. Some kids went on bad trips and never came back, and a lot of kids died. Heroine started making a big come back in the 1990’s, people were doing heroin and then smoking crack. Some people would mix heroin and cocaine in a spoon and Shoot it up. Even doctors were getting into the drug business. A new pharmaceutical drug named oxy cotton took off like a tornado across the country. I mean it was as bad as heroin, people were getting addicted everywhere. Drug stores stop selling oxy cotton because people kept robbing the drugstores. I saw one doctor’s office in an upscale neighborhood have so many people visiting his office there was a line all the way down the block. People were driving hundreds of miles to see this doctor. Why? Because he would give them oxy cotton. Once the word spread that a certain doctor would write a prescription for oxy cotton people would show up by the hundreds, maybe thousands. Say this doctor charge $150 a visit and seen 100 people a day that’s $15,000. How could he see 100 people? Because he wouldn’t physically see most of the regulars, he would just call the prescription into the drugstore to try and hold down on some of the traffic at his office. And they would pay my credit cards, or some type of prepaid debit card. Now some of the big-time oxy cotton drug traffickers would pay dozens of people money to go to this doctor’s office to get prescriptions of oxy cotton. I even knew one guy who paid homeless people to go. People all over the United States were getting addicted to this drug. Drug overdoses were skyrocketing and a lot of people were dying. By the end of the 1990’s oxy cotton had people strong out by the tens of thousands.
At the beginning of the 2000’s, oxy cotton was still paving the path of destruction across America. Math has always been around but a new form of it showed up from Mexico, they called it ice. This stuff is coming to the United States 95% pure, and it was rocketing across the Country in record time. Another big difference between the drugs from the 60s and 70s was the potency. Marijuana from the past had lower THC levels, but by the start of the 2000’s, THC in marijuana had jumped to record numbers. The sad thing is that kids were doing drugs at a very early age, so by the time they were 18 or 19, it was easy to see how using drugs had affected them in every way.
Another study that was done that I read in a book said, if the kid start using drugs at 13 years old, let’s say he uses drugs for 20 years until he’s 33 and stops, he will still have the mind of a 13-year-old. Because by starting drugs at such an early age, his mind stopped growing. As I look around me inside these Texas presents it’s very easy to see that this Is true. A lot of people that were in their 30s, 40’s, or 50’s, still at light kids. Drugs have hurt our country in every way. I often wonder if anyone sees the overall damage drugs has caused? How many people have been sent to prison? How many children have been born addicted to drugs? How many children grew up without a mom or dad? How many people would’ve grown up and done wonderful things? How many families were torn apart? How many crimes were committed because of drugs? How many people lost their lives because of drugs? I could go on forever explaining all the damage drugs cause our country. There is not any part of America that hasn’t felt or seen the destruction of drugs has caused. Ronald Reagan declared war on drugs, but when is our government going to step in and take whatever means is necessary to stop the flow of drugs into this country? If someone doesn’t take the necessary steps soon this cancer will continue to grow until it is our country away.
