Conservative Talking Points views illegal drugs as a cancer that is crippling our country. Though the "war on drugs” has done little to curb either our consumption nor the war-like import operations, we must strive to win on both fronts to save ourselves and our children from the evils of drug abuse.
It Starts At Home
· When parents talk to their teens on a regular basis about the dangers of drug use, they are 42% less likely to do drugs compared to others that don't. (Source: TeenDrugAbuse.us)
· One survey estimates that 25% of high school seniors use an illicit drug once a month; 20% use weekly; 10% use daily. (Source: Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education - Dec 1996)
· The break-down of teens that have smoked marijuana are: 19.9% of 8th-graders, 34.1% of 10th-graders and 41.7% of 12th-graders. (Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse - May 1996)
Liberal Celebrities Dead From Overdoses – Horrid Role Models
· Corey Haim
· Michael Jackson
· Amy Winehouse
· Heath Ledger
· River Phoenix
· Brittany Murphy
· Anna Nicole Smith
Gateway Drugs
· "Since marijuana is legal and widely available in the Netherlands, studies clearly indicate that marijuana serves as a gateway for use and abuse of other addictive drugs in adolescents, whose central nervous system is still not fully developed." (Source: Fred J. Payne, M.D., M.P.H., - Feb - 2008)
· Adolescents who use marijuana are 85x more likely to use cocaine than their non-pot smoking peers. And 60% of kids who use marijuana before age 15 later go on to use cocaine. (Source: The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University)
· Teens that drink alcohol are 50x more likely to do cocaine compared to alcohol-free teens. (Source: TeenDrugAbuse.us)
Many Offenders On Drugs
· Six times as many homicides are committed by people on drugs or those who are stealing money for drugs. (Source: United States DEA)
· 16% of convicted jail inmates committed their offenses to get money for drugs. (Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics - 2000).
· The FBI in 1999 reported 1,577,100 arrests for drug abuse violations. (Source: FBI - 2000).
· 33% of state prison inmates reported being under the influence of drugs at the time of their crime. (Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics - 1997).
· In a test sample of offenders in Albuquerque and Chicago 30% of males arrested and 40% of females arrested in 1999 tested positive for more than one drug at the time of arrest. (Source: National Institute of Justice - 2000).
· The summary conclusion of the White House Drug Policy states: "The evidence indicates that drug users are more likely than nonusers to commit crimes, that arrestees frequently were under the influence of a drug at the time they committed their offense and that drugs generate violence". (Source: WhiteHouseDrugPolicy.gov)
Drug Border Wars
· As of June 2012, Mexico’s drug-war death toll surpassed 50,000 since President Felipe Calderon began a militarized crackdown on organized crime in December 2006. (New York Times – July 2012)
· A 2008 report revealed that Mexican drug traffickers can be found in more than 230 U.S. cities. (Source: Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center - Dec 2008)
· Mexican cartels are not only the top foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine, but also now bring in about 90% of the cocaine consumed in the United States. (Source: DEA - 2009)
· With over 370 cases of kidnapping last year alone in Phoenix, Arizona, it has been named the kidnapping capital of the USA and #2 in the world due to the Mexican drug cartel activity on our side of the border. (Source: LA Times - Feb 2009)
Legalization Potential Disaster
· Due to the long and weary War on Drugs campaign, overall drug use is down by more than 33% in the last 20 years, with cocaine use down by 70%. The good news is that 95% of Americans do NOT use illegal drugs. Would legalizing drugs help those numbers? (Source: United States DEA)
· In America, drugs are involved in 80% of child abuse cases and around 100,000 babies a year are born addicted to cocaine. What would happen and how worse could it get if drugs where legal? (Source: Newsweek - 1994)
· After Holland legalized marijuana, heroin addiction levels tripled. (Source: United States DEA)