The war on drugs has been heavily criticized over the years due to its incompetence in reducing drug use. This is probably due to the fact that we have never fought the “war on drugs as we have fought other adversaries”, as Charles B. Rangel writes in “Why Drug Legalization Should Be Opposed”(288). However, in “Should Drugs Be Legalized?”, William J. Bennett contends that “every civilized society has found it necessary to exert some form of control over mind-altering substances”, which justifies the importance of the war on drugs (292). In “We’re Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works”, Hodding Carter III says that “hard drugs are estimated to kill 4,000 people a year directly and several tens of thousands indirectly” (290). Gary E. Johnson states in “The Case for Drug Legalization” that “2,000 to 3,000 people died in 1998 from abusing cocaine and heroine” (285). I deem drug legalization unnecessary because drug use is already decreasing. Furthermore, legalizing drugs will also result in the actions of imposing harm onto others.
Firstly, legalizing drugs is uncalled for because the
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Law enforcement may believe that once legalization of drugs has come into effect, they would be relieved of an unnecessary burden. This is because in a legalized scenario, the law would not need to apprehend anyone in possession of drugs or who have used them. This would result in the killing of innocent people simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sounds fair? No! That is why if you are found under the influence of drugs, one should be apprehended. This primarily ensures the safety and security of the community and also your loved ones. The price we would eventually pay to relieve law enforcement of ‘trivial’ arrests by legalizing drugs is simple: the deaths of innocent civilians. Are we actually willing to pay the
The cost of marijuana prohibition is gigantic. Including policing, court appearances, and incarceration, the bill on taxpayers is endless and a large amount of this money is for cases of simple marijuana possession. Daniel Egan and Jeffrey A. Miron estimate that, “[L]egalizing marijuana would save...$8 billion per year in prohibition enforcement costs”(Budgetary,17). This is a huge amount of money that could make its way elsewhere into the infrastructure like drug awareness and prevention. Not to mention the priceless amount of time given back to the police forces to peruse more harmful crimes. In their report the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs finds “[A]pproximately 50,000 drug-related charges in 1999.... Overall, 54%... were for possession [of cannabis]”(Cannabis,130). As far as budget costs for any part of the judicial system go, a 54% reduction in anything would go along way. The legalisat...
I base my support of the decriminalization of all drugs on a principle of human rights, but the horror and frustration with which I voice this support is based on practicality. The most tangible effect of the unfortunately labeled "Drug War" in the United States is a prison population larger than Russia's and China's, and an inestimable death toll that rivals the number of American casualties from any given war, disease or catastrophe.
Marijuana, also known as cannabis, is a plant that is consider one of the many illegal sustains. Marijuana is a plant that clams to make people addicted like other drugs like meth, cocaine, and other harmful sustains. Marijuana has been refer as pot, grass, reefer, weed, herb, mary jane, or mj by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). (34) When mentioning of this plant, it cause sirs among the public about the dangerous use of the plant. The news media portal marijuana as harmful plants that changes people for the worst. For the past years, states has proposal to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. While other states has taken the actions of making the plant completely legal. With the change of the laws changing, marijuana has been the subject of debate if marijuana should be legalize or not. The United State people are divided from the supportive uses of marijuana uses, while other are against the use of marijuana. For example, nowadays most young people are in the favor of marijuana use for either the benefits or the fact that they have easy access of the drug. By a group of young people that are supportive with the legalization of an illegal drug, there a sign of support that U.S citizens are in favor of legalizing of marijuana. While the older generation, who are oppose with the use of marijuana, shows disagreement of marijuana use due of believing that it will bring more harm than good in their society. Whatever the case might be, the supporters are in favor of legalizing the plant, while the oppose people are not interested of legalizing it. Since some states are election for the legalization of medical marijuana uses, it recommend to the public that they should vote on the legalization of medical marijuana uses. ...
A “drug-free society” has never existed, and probably will never exist, regardless of the many drug laws in place. Over the past 100 years, the government has made numerous efforts to control access to certain drugs that are too dangerous or too likely to produce dependence. Many refer to the development of drug laws as a “war on drugs,” because of the vast growth of expenditures and wide range of drugs now controlled. The concept of a “war on drugs” reflects the perspective that some drugs are evil and war must be conducted against the substances
Many feel today we are loosing the war on drugs. People consider legalization unnecessary. They feel that it will increase the amount of drug use throughout the world. They state that in many cases, drug users who have quit quit because of trouble with the law. Legalization would eliminate the legal forces that discourage the users from using or selling drugs. They also say that by making drugs legal, the people who have never tried drugs for fear of getting caught by the law will have no reason to be afraid anymore and will become users (Potter 1998).
A 2012 poll showed that 58% of Americans are in favor of decriminalization of drugs like Marijuana, as opposed to 12% back in 1969. [1] Many Americans feel that the war on drugs has failed, and that our police officers and other federal institutions could be making better use of their time, effort, and fiscal resources. The cost of this war on drugs has become so great. Not only does the war cost billions to enforce, but countless lives are lost as the cartels become more violent in their pursuit of power.
Drug use has been an ongoing problem in our country for decades. The use of drugs has been the topic of many political controversies throughout many years. There has been arguments that are for legalizing drugs and the benefits associated with legalization. Also, there are some who are opposed to legalizing drugs and fear that it will create more problems than solve them. Conservatives and liberals often have different opinions for controversial topics such as “the war on drugs,” but it is necessary to analyze both sides in order to gain a full understanding of their beliefs and to decide in a change in policy is in order.
being corrupted and molded from birth into an adult the had not choice but to become, it becomes abundantly clear that the “war on drugs” is simply a variable in the problem, not the problem itself. Critics may shout the exact opposite, facts are facts, though. The United states has been struggling for a very long time, with the debt that it owes to other countries, with civil unrest, racial disparities, extreme poverty, drugs, and much more. The U.S. is sick, and those that are fighting only certain issues must understand that it is futile to fight the symptoms of a disease when those efforts could instead be focused on developing a cure to fix the problem in its
The business of buying and selling drugs comes with high transactions costs. The dealer cannot risk being caught or scammed so he buys a gun to defend himself from the police and other dealers. The buyer of the drugs does not to be killed for his money if the dealer gets greedy so he buys a gun for himself. Now we have two people that if it came down to it, would kill for their crack rocks. Also, if a buyer got a bad crack rock or got less than he paid for, he cannot go the police or file a complaint. He must take matters into his own hands resulting in violence. If drugs were legalized, they would be safer in the sense that the crack-head that needs his daily crack rock would not have to deal directly with dangerous drug dealers and criminals and risk getting shot for his money. Instead, he can go down to the local “drug store” and get his drugs safely.
Recreational drug use has been controversial for years. Government has deemed the use of certain drugs to be dangerous, addictive, costly, and fatal. Governmental agencies have passed laws to make drugs illegal and then have focused a great deal of attention and money trying to prohibit the use of these drugs, and many people support these sanctions because they view the illegality of drugs to be the main protection against the destruction of our society (Trebach, n.d.). Restricting behavior doesn’t generally stop people from engaging in that behavior; prohibition tends to result in people finding more creative ways to obtain and use drugs. However, just knowing that trying to control people’s behavior by criminalizing drug use does not work still leaves us looking for a solution, so what other options exist? This paper will discuss the pros and cons about one option: decriminalizing drugs.
Against Marijuana Legalization Should Marijuana Be Legalized? In society today, many people look for a feeling of freedom. Many people go on vacation and spend money. The most common escape for people is drugs. Our American society is facing a tremendous drug problem.
With America’s war on drugs being highly focused on the increased use of marijuana, there is not much time for officers to focus on crimes of greater importance. Crimes related to illegal marijuana use are becoming more problematic due to drug deals that go bad, occasionally ending with murder. It has been estimated that one marijuana-related arrest is made every 42 seconds. With marijuana being illegal, keeping crime related activities under control cost the United States approximately twenty billion dollars per year (Sledge). According to Brian Bremner and Vincent Del Giudice, “A 2010 study by the libertarian Cato Institute, forecasted that states could save $17.4 billion annually from reduced drug enforcement costs and increased tax revenue, assuming marijuana production and sales were legal nationwide” (11). Several law enforcement hours are exhausted with pursing, questioning, and arresting citizens that are in possession of or consuming marijuana. There would be a decrease in the number of misdemeanor possession cases that are pending hearing. These cases would be dismissed, decreasing costs affiliated with each case. There are excessive numbers of people who remain incarcerated for nonviolent crimes related to illegal marijuana use. Legalizing marijuana would allow these people to be released, opening jail space for the true criminals. Legalizing marijuana would free up law enforcement officers from focusing on illegal marijuana use and allow focus to be put on more serious
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?
Leading to an increase in drug experimentation by the youth and an increase in crack houses, where most laced drugs are produced. There is a reason why these drugs are illegal and it 's because of their harmful effects and the damage they cause the human body. Drug users, are often recognized as people who commit crimes, murder, rape, and other violence including burglary. With drug laws, it creates a fear in people of getting in trouble with the law and is a major reason to not use drugs. The legalization of drugs would not lower crimes rates as there would be more and more addicts as well as large black markets for drugs. Although these drug users commit crimes to obtain these drugs, it is obvious to see they would still be committing these crimes to obtain the drug even if it is legalized. Either way, a crime is still being committed they just have an easier way to steal the drug from someone. Which means the crime rates would start to rise, leading to the population of prisoners increasing, which also leads to the government spending more money on organizing jail facilities to hold these prisoners. One state in particular where marijuana is now legal, has started to come to the realization that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to leaglize this drug. Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Florida and President of SAM points out that,
First of all, marijuana can have many positive effects on crime. Legalizing marijuana can actually decrease crime rates in the U.S. This past year, it was counted that 6.9 million people are inside the American’s jails and prisons. 60,000 of these individuals were there for marijuana according to one study. With the legalization of marijuana, it would cut the amount of tax we pay for these jails and prisons, costing us a total of 1.2 billion. Last year a total of 7 to 10 billion dollars was used towards arresting and processing against marijuana. The big picture here is that 90% of those arrests were just for possession. It is crazy that as a country we spend most of our time trying to stop the biggest drug in America when it is just wasting our money. There are less arrests on violent crimes than marijuana charges combined. These “violent crimes” consist of assault, rape, robbery, and murder. How awful is it that we waste our time on this drug when there are so many other bigger problems we could be solving or people to be saved. Cocaine and heroin arrests have actually decreased by 1/3 from 1991 to 2000. While marijuana has more than 700,000 people are ar...