Modern day America has seen a growth in many problems including hard drug usage and problems with the border. Despite these pressing issues, it seems Americans decide to try and solve problems that aren’t ares to fix.
For example, the government has sent money to help in wars like the Russo-Ukrainian War and Israel-Hamas war. Between 2022 and 2024 America has sent 75 Billion dollars to Ukraine in support of the war. A whopping 300 Billion has been sent to Israel from 1946-2023 including a recent requested aid of 14.3 billion dollars.
However, these wars are not only the focus of the government, but also the American people. A recent trend of boycotting has come from certain companies that support Israel in the war. Some of these boycotts include companies like, HP, Chevron, Hydunai, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and Burger King. Boycotts like the one on McDonalds was started after the Israeli owned franchise was donating to Israeli troops. Although McDonalds could be seen as neutral, many activists do not see it this way.
Instead of focusing on problems in other countries, America needs to focus on their own. For example, the known war on drugs that has been going on for almost 53 years, has failed. In fact, the drug-involved Overdose Deaths have increased significantly from 1968-2021 according to the CDC. The war on drugs has been seen as a policy failure. America needs to focus on getting a better system for current problems like the war on drugs.
One solution is finding a better system for rehabilitation instead of throwing addicts in prison. Another solution is stopping the addiction at the source, big pharmacies. According to drugabusestatistics.org, 96.6% of opioid misuse use prescription pain relievers. They also stated that the national opioid prescription rate peaked in 2012 with over 255 million prescriptions, that’s 81.3 prescriptions per 100 persons. Although this number has declined to 51.4 prescriptions per 100 persons in 2018, the number is still alarmingly high.
The reason issues like these get neglected so much by the public is because it’s not something to fight about. For example, in wars people can choose a side of who they think is right and who is wrong, similar to a party system like Democrats vs Republicans.
I think that our time would be better spent working together to solve America’s issues like the economy and inner city drug usage. Many Americans neglect the fact that the USA has its own problems or address it and do nothing about it. Instead of being angry at one another, we should be angry with the government. In the end no matter how strong your opinion is, the government is always making the final decisions.
