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Drug legalization means that responsible adults may legally acquire, possess, and use a particular drug, there may be some regulations to it but legal acquiring and using is what drug legalization actually comprises of. Legalization of drugs also means that government sets standards for purity, age limit, controls manufacturing and distribution and forbids its use in certain places and conditions for example while driving, in hospitals etc.
Statistics: People’s support for drug legalization is growing, in 1969 only 10% voted in favor of drug legalization but now support is 52%. Most of the opposing people said they would be bothered by the public use of drugs and if done at home, they won’t be concerned at all. About 69% people believe that Alcohol is more dangerous to human health than drugs.
We have example of Portugal, they abolished all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. People said it would be a drug tourist country and drug people will become worse but what we saw was drop rate in all drug related activities such as teen drug rate dropped, HIV infection rate dropped, illegal drug among 7th to 9th grade dropped from 14 to 10%, Deaths by Hard drugs dropped, and the number of people seeking treatment for addiction doubled.Portugal’s drug usage rates are now among the lowest in the EU for virtually every substance.
Marijuana is United States largest cash crop, and if that is legalized like Tobacco, Government will be able to generate massive revenue from it. Marijuana Testing and standardization should be formed and universally accepted standards should be established. Drugs are used for medical purposes too, by criminalization we have blocked a massive research on drugs and who knows what kind of cure a drug might be hiding.
Half of drug users use drugs for recreational purpose, and another half uses it because of poverty, by addressing poverty, one can eliminate problematic users. If drug standards are regulated, then all drugs can be safe and one can use them for any purpose and putting Portugal’s example in front, with drug legalization we will be increasing number of people who want to get rid of drug addiction problem.
War on Drugs is a failure, DEA seized about 1.3billion grams of cocaine from 86-2007 but DEA authorities believed that about double of it was illegally used without their knowledge. Now if you look at statistics, about 49% people have accepted that they have tried drugs in their life. If that 1.3billion gram was taxed then government could’ve gained some serious benefits from it. People should be free to do anything under controlled environment and if one is not on liberty to use something, then we really are not free. Nowadays every child knows what’s good for him and what’s not, so letting people decide what they want to use or smoke or intake will not only reduce crime but will help government raise funds and reduce expenses on war on drugs. About 10,000 deaths in United States annually are because of drug criminalization. Once drugs are decriminalized, their prices will fall and drugs will no more offer an escape to poverty and it will attract lesser people to business with drugs. Ending the war on Drugs can result in injection of 76.8 Billion dollars annually in United States Economy. Value of illegal drug market as of 2010 was 300$ billion! History has shown that probation reduces neither use nor abuse, and it is 100% correct if we talk about drugs.
Psychological effect one should remember that most of the drug-related activities are here because we have criminalized it, once you start thinking of reason why something is banned, it grows a psychological interest to check/taste it.
Proposals: proposals for drug legalization include quality control and warning/medical labels. Just like Cigarette’s, there are so many smoking-free zones, so many restrictions on cigarette quality, but cigarette industry is one of highest tax payer of all time throughout the world. Some of proposals by Drug Legalization supporters are
- Licensed sale and purchase for high-risk drugs
- Restrictions on advertising, Restrictions on Age groups, restrictions on home growing of high-risk drugs
- Restriction on the amount being purchased and restriction on driving under influence of drugs and restrictions to use in specified areas
There are also Drug Decriminalization supporters who are of view that personal use of the drug should be decriminalized and drugs related punishments should be replaced by fines. Spain, Italy, and Portugal have drug decriminalization and their drug-related problems have decreased to a considerable limit.
Conclusion: everything has its harmful impacts, but we cannot address everything by its harm. Drug criminalization is not a cure to the problem of drugs, and illegal drug market is about the root of half other illegal markets. One should try to understand the drugs instead of hating them.
References
Husak, Doug and Peter de Marneffe. The Legalization of Drugs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
