Does the majority of the public care about The War on Drugs?
A main reason the “War on Drugs” has been absent from the 2012 Presidential election is that there is a lack of public interest. According to the post read on Chicago School Reviews. In two separate polls conducted by CNN and Fox News, the poll surveyed issues that were important to Americans when voting. The result stated that the majority of Americans voted “Jobs & economy” as the most important issue when making their vote: the CNN exit polling[1] came out to show 60% of people chose “Economy” as the most important issue; Fox News online poll revealed 17,145 voted “Jobs & Economy” as the most important, while social issues receive only 4,350 of the votes[2]. It is clear that if the majority of the public does not care about the “War on Drugs”, then there is no reason for the candidates to spend time and energy on the issue and to make it a major platform on which they run on. So it is up to us, the people, to make the “War on Drugs” an issue so that when the next election rolls around, the candidates are forced to talk about it.
More so, with unemployment rate at 7.9 percent,over 12 million people unemployed[3], people are far more concern with their economic situation than worry about social issues like the War on Drugs. In addition with the federal debt over 16 trillion, the drug budget and spending is 1 cent to a hundred dollar in comparison. Programs like defense and social securities is far more costly than the War on Drugs, with over one trillion tax payers money going into both programs each year, which account for 40 percent of all federal spending.
Reference
[1]Cnn.com
[2]FoxNews.com
[3]Google.com Public Data
[4]Center on budget and policy priorities
Current States with Medical Marijuana laws In the U.S as December 9, 2012
There are 18 states and Washington, District of Columbia in the United States that has law which legalized marijuana for medical uses. Those stats included Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.[5]
Three States Pending Legislation to Legalize Medical Marijuana, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Sixteen States that has failed to passes Medical Marijuana Bills in 2012, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.[6]
Two- Colorado and Washington are the only two States that legalized marijuana for recreational use sage.[7]
Reference
[5]http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002481
[6]http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000881#DC
[7]http://www.drugpolicy.org/our-victories