The House I Live in

For some reason, this movie seems to have opened a can of worms so to speak.. So many people, with so many opinions.  None of them are right or wrong.. most are formed from our personal experiences or our upbringing.

The House I Live In, brought up a subject I didn't realize prior to watching the movie, that I had a lot of opinions on.  "The War on Drugs", is such a touchy subject for so many people.. but the truth of the matter is that the system is flawed.. people are being subject to extremely long prison sentences while to me more serious crimes carry a lesser sentence.  The movie has points about social class, ethnicity and inequality all playing a part in the persecution of "druggies" which is leading to the  overpopulation of our prison system.. The government, politicians and the media putting spins on the perception of drugs and the devastation they seem to think it causes to society.  While the war on drugs was in essence started to eliminate immigrants from living the "American Dream"  and taking jobs from white americans,  it was also used as a platform that was fueled by the media to elect Presidents or reelect them..

The system has to be changed.  We as a society are now electing and voting in favor of marijuana legalization.  This in itself should be enough for government to sit back and rewrite the laws.  The world is changing and as it changes and things become more acceptable so do the laws that prohibit them need to change..   I don't believe we should be locking up individuals for years and years.  We need to create a system that looks into and treats the reasons for these behaviors.. We don't lock up drunks just because they are walking down the road carrying a six pack.  The same should hold true for the war on drugs.  We should subject offenders  a way to come clean, to learn how to deal with life and the difficulties they face, to treat depression and to work with the families it affects.  I'm not saying that should they kill someone while high they shouldn't be imprisoned, just like a drunk driver.
However, something needs to change, its a broke system and if what was stated in the movie and police are profiling and spending their time arresting drug offenders, in order to get a quick bust, rather than spending weeks and months trying to solve a murder, there's a problem.  When the government is spending millions on fighting the "war", with not much success and corporate america is making big bucks off of the overpopulation of prisons, there's a problem