The so-called War on Drugs has criminalized drug use in the United States. Even so, drugs continue to be common. Some have compared it to Prohibition and the failed Eighteenth Amendment.

Prohibition was simply the banning of alcohol. Many of the same reasons for Prohibition are used for the War on Drugs: increasing public health, lowering crime rates and the like.

However, Prohibition failed completely. After only a couple of years, people were drinking anywhere from 60 to 70 percent as much alcohol as they had been before, so there wasn't a very good decline in use. Moreover, illegally produced alcohol often had a lower quality and a higher potency, so overdoses and alcohol poisoning were common.

Studies have been carried out to see which drugs are used most commonly across the United States, with results giving some indication of which drugs are most likely to lead to an arrest. In Wisconsin, it turns out that drug treatment centers most often deal with marijuana.

This is a common theme. Marijuana is also most common in Wyoming, Washington, Virginia, Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio, North Dakota, North Carolina, Montana, Missouri, Mississippi, Minnesota, Michigan, Louisiana, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana, Idaho, Hawaii, Florida, Colorado, Arkansas, Alaska and Alabama.

The second most-common drug listed by treatment centers was cocaine. This too was common, as cocaine often ended up second on the list. It never topped that list, but did show very high usage levels all across the United States. The closest it got to the top was in Washington, D.C., though it was tied with heroin.

A man who has a drug dealing conviction on his criminal record was accused of selling heroin in Green Bay. The Brown County Drug Task Force arrested him on a recent Thursday.

Authorities say that 33-year-old man committed 10 felonies in addition to a misdemeanor. All of his alleged crimes relate to Oxycontin and heroin, which police say he was hiding in smoke detectors. Police also say they discovered thousands of dollars in cash inside the tank of the man's toilet.

The Assistant District attorney highlighted the man's criminal background in court by telling the judge that he had multiple drug convictions on his record. In fact, he has at least three drug crime convictions on his record relating to buying and selling narcotics, including cocaine.

It's difficult to watch a co-worker suffer through a workday in pain. You might be tempted to alleviate his or her discomfort by giving your co-worker one of the pain medications you take for your bum knee; however, it would be a very bad idea and it could get you in serious trouble with the law.

Imagine your co-worker got stopped by the police on the way home from work -- perhaps because he or she took too many of the Vicodin you gave him or her. The police might decide to arrest him or her for intoxicated driving, and if they find your Vicodin, they'll want to know who gave them to him or her. Furthermore, if your friend gets into a serious car accident, gets injured or causes injury to others, you could be financially and criminally responsible for the crash.

There are more reasons -- aside from criminal and civil liabilities -- that should dissuade the average Wisconsin resident from sharing drugs with co-workers. Most importantly, it could result in you getting fired from your job. Most employers do not look favorably on employees who share drugs with co-workers at work, and for obvious reasons. Any pharmaceutical drugs possessed by someone who doesn't have a prescription is a violation of federal law.

In Wisconsin, drug charges are a very serious matter. Even as lawmakers are slowly introducing medical marijuana legislation that aims to loosen the restrictions against the drug, the penalties for possessing or dealing drugs or drug paraphernalia are still quite stiff.

If you received drug charges of any kind recently, you must begin building a strong, aggressive defense as soon as possible. The longer than you wait to build a defense and take action for your future, the longer that the state has to build its case against you.

Penalties for drug charges can completely derail your entire life, even if you avoid jail time. Depending on the severity of the charges, you may face thousands of dollars in fines, suspension of your license, increases in insurance premiums, and difficulty finding work or housing.