Essay/Term paper: Why drugs should be legal

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Alcohol and Drugs

America is wasting it"s money and resources. It"s trying restrict something on which restrictions don"t have any effects: drugs. People who don"t use recreational drugs don"t do so because of the health risks; people who do use drugs would whether or not they are legal. The fact that they are illegal makes little difference. Nevertheless, $15,000,000,000 goes directly into drug prohibition every year, and has very little effect. Very much money is spent to pay police narcotics officers, fund the D.E.A., and house drug-offenders in prison. The prisons are full of drug-related criminals, and violent offenders go free earlier because of this. Which would you prefer walking the streets, a rapist, or a potsmoker?

Legalizing recreational drugs does not mean making drugs accesible to all people. The drugs that are legal today, alcohol and tobacco (nicotene) aren"t available to just everyone; they are regulated. Only certain people are allowed to buy them. Since the drug trade is unregulated, drugs are sold anywhere they can be (e.g. schools), allowing children to have access to them. If these drugs were illegal, than that trade would stagnate, and children wouldn"t have such easy access to them. It makes sense… do you ever see people in schools selling beer or cigarrettes? Also, the usual cause of drug overdose is the fact that a person cannot know the potency of the drug he/she is taking. There are no standards because the trade of drugs is illegal in the first place. If they were legal, there would be a standard of quality for all drugs, regulated by the FDA.

The state of Georgia has the highest excise tax on liquor of any state. It also has the lowest tax on gasoline (which is good especially now with gas prices the highest ever). If drugs were legal, the government could place such an excise tax on them. In addition to freeing up money used for their prohibition, this extra money could fund the real problems of America, and eliminate our national debt quite quickly.

Doing drugs is dangerous, yes… but so is tanning, smoking, drinking, chewing tobacco… the list goes on and on. People are still free to do these things, notwithstanding the fact that they may be stupid acts. The ratio of deaths from tobacco versus drugs is 425:1, and that of alcohol versus drugs is 50:1. Drugs are less dangerous than both of these legal things, and people are still free to do them and not free to do drugs? Shouldn"t people be free to do what they want, as long as they aren"t harming anyone else directly?

Eighty percent of all crime in America, organized and unorganized, is a result of prohibition. This is for two main reasons: inability to afford drugs, and organized drug sales. Drug dealers are often affiliated with gangs. Their territory is the area where they sell their drugs, and anyone impinging on that territory is a loss of money for them. This is the reason for many killings and drive-bys. Since they set the prices of drugs (they are the few who are willing to risk selling them), they are often too high for some to pay. People who are addicted to drugs can"t always afford them. To support their habits, they resort to theft (and sometimes, murder in the process) to get money to pay for them. In addition, drugs usually come in from foreign countries. The money made by the cartels that supply the drugs is sometimes enough to control the economy and government of these countries.

In conclusion, the prohibition of recreational drugs makes little sense. The war on drugs is lost, and that is agreed on by people on both sides, from the far right (William F. Buckley, editor of "The National Review) to the far left (Jesse Ventura, governor of Minnesota). The money saved and made could be used where it is really needed. The crime rate would drop drastically, and organized crime and drug cartels in foreign countries would be devastated. Prisons would not be overcrowded with non-violent offenders, and violent offenders would have to serve their time rather than be released due to this overcrowding. Drugs would be less accessible to underage persons, and would be regulated as not to be so dangerous to the users, but most of all, people would be free to do what they want with their free time, and this may include going out and getting a sack, some smack, or a rock of crack. Doesn"t it make more sense?