== Harm Principle ==
My primary contention in this debate regards the idea of liberty to act based on our choices, as long as there 's no harm to anyone else. That 's why the government exists -- to enforce the law, a set of rules that ensure liberty. There 's no reason for the law to exist except to maximize benefit and to minimize harm. Government policy is decided on the basis of utilitarianism, and the sole justification for government is to allow people to gain pleasure if there 's no suffering. The idea is best articulated by John Stuart Mill 's "harm principle," which rests on a distinction between "self-regarding acts" and "other regarding acts." It holds that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member
…show more content…
They harm nobody except the user of the drug. The user of the drug takes immense pleasure in their usage, and harms no one in the process. To win this debate, Con has to show me how the drug would harm others, rather than the users of the drugs. If Con fails to do that, I win because of the harm principle and government legitimacy.
== Benefits ==
There are multiple benefits to legalizing drugs, and harms to the status quo that legalization solves. Some of them are given below.
Children. When drugs are illegal, drug trade happens via the black market. In a place where drugs aren 't legal, therefore, there 's no regulating body for who consumes the drugs; there 's no legal way to ensure only certain people get drugs. This means, through drug dealers, people under the age of 18 gain access to "street drugs" and start using them. In contrast, when drugs are legalized, the black market goes out of business. This probably will be the case because, historically, criminal enterprises haven 't been able to compete with legal business (e.g. due to 80-90% less price). [2] As such, drugs can be regulated with an age limit and ID requirement, etc., ensuring that children -- who aren 't mature enough to make such a decision -- don 't get access to recreational drugs. Drug legalization in the United States has demonstrably reduced drug access to children.
…show more content…
These cartels often fight with competitors, increasing violence, armed robbery, homicide and similar crime. Legalizing drugs will put cartels out of business, thus reducing crime significantly. [6]
Lives. In the Mexican Drug War, as a result of US intervention, around 1,000 children, 58 reporters, and 511 American civilians have been killed. [7] [8] If the United States stops intervention in the Mexican Drug War, and pressures Mexico to legalize drugs as well, around 20,000 lives can be saved annually. Legalizing drugs will also stop the existence of American cartels, and US business can compete against Mexican drug cartels, thus significantly reducing the latter, and perhaps ending the Mexican Drug War.
Economic benefits. First, $16 million has already been spent this year on the pointless "War on Drugs," so ending it will save a lot of money. In 2010, $15 million was spent the whole year on it. [9] Second, taxing drugs using "sin taxes," similar to taxes on tobacco and alcohol, will give the government a lot of revenue. Assuming similar rates to tobacco and alcohol, that means $46.7 *billion* could be made annually on such taxes. [10] Third, legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion in government expenditure to enforce drug laws annually. [10]
== Conclusion
Legalizing the use of soft drugs would help bolster the U.S. economy, partially because the government would have the ability to tax these drugs. This includes marijuana used for medicinal purposes, which, according to a 1995 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, can “counteract the toxicity of chemotherapy, treat migraines, minimize pain, and treat moderate wasting syndrome in AIDS patients.” The economy would also benefit from the legalization of drugs because fewer drug offenders would crowd the prisons, and the government could spend the money they saved from this reduction in prison populations on other public expenses. With drug busts running at 750,000 cases a year nationwide, (mostly for marijuana,) prisons are bulging, and those imprisoned for drug-related crime account for only a fraction of America’s drug users. In Elliot Currie’s essay, “Toward a Policy on Drugs,”...
This past decade Mexico has been known for having its massacre era, where civilians have been killed or marked by the drug cartels excessive power. The United States have been affected by having an increase of drug use and violence due to the Mexican cartels. The power of the cartels has stretched to the United States, where now the U.S. government has noticed the impact the drug war in Mexico is having over their country. With the hope to stop the war in Mexico, the U.S. has tried aiding civilian, capturing the kingpins in control, and legalizing marijuana to stop the violence.
Our economic statue tells us that a supply rapidly grows up to meet a demand. But if the demand is widespread then suppression is useless. It is harmful to society because since by raising the price of the drug in question, it raises the profits of middlemen, which gives them an even more powerful drug to stimulate demand further. The vast profits to be made from cocaine and heroin, which would be cheap and easily affordable, even by the poorest in affluent societies if they were legal. Besides, it is well known the illegality in itself has attraction for youth already inclined to disaffection.
the only way to make money. Minimum wage salaries can not compare to the huge
The war on drugs failed. The government spent billions of dollars fighting drug use to no avail. Statistics shown in The Boston Globe state overall drug use among children ages twelve to seventeen had actually gone up from 5.7% in 1993 to 9% in 1999(Health Central). Other statistics reveal areas of decreased usage; however, the same statistics do not show the vast numbers of addicted people abusing Methamphetamines or popular club drugs like Ecstasy. Ending drug usage is likely impossible. So why are we spending billions of dollars on a lost cause? Legalization of drugs would decrease tremendous amounts of wasted money, money that could be spent on treatment for addiction. Although many people feel that legalizing drugs would increase the amount of use, marijuana should be legalized because it will reduce massive amounts of money spent on enforcement, increase our country's revenue, and provide some relief from chronic pain caused by diseases like multiple sclerosis and others.
However, legalization will be profitable to global economies in two ways. It will allow for money spent on drug law enforcement to be spent more wisely and will increase revenue. There have been escalating costs spent on the war against drugs and countless dollars spent on rehabilitation. Every year in the United States, ten billion dollars are spent on enforcing drug laws alone. Drug violators accounted for about forty percent of all criminals in federal prisons (Rosenthal 1996).
The good clearly outweigh the bad effects of legalizing marijuana. Other drugs? Definitely not. The health and social ills pose too great of a risk to society to legalize those kinds of drugs. But marijuana on the other hand helps people with health issues, produces tax revenue from states and takes drug money off of the streets. In my own opinion I believe marijuana should be the only dug legalized. It’s inevitable that the drug trade will always be a problem to the society and it’s the government’s responsibility to reduce it and actually make a profit from drug legalization.
The legalization of marijuana has the potential to bring our economy back to life if it were to be legalized. There are a number of ways in which legalization could improve the economy. We could use the revenue from taxes on marijuana to provide for a better quality of life for Americans in need. Legalizing marijuana would also save us money by cutting the cost of putting someone in jail for harmless marijuana related charges that waste tax money. Also it would put more money into circulation by keeping the profits off the black market and into the legal and taxed market. With an estimated twenty-five million active marijuana smokers in America that consume nearly thirty-one million pounds of marijuana each year, we are missing out on extreme revenue that this country cannot afford to go without for much longer (Krulick).
Introduction The legalization of marijuana is considered a controversial issue, something that can benefit people for medical purposes, but what about recreationally? Marijuana has been illegal since 1937, but there’s never been a bigger push for legalization. There are several reasons why it is illegal, because of government propaganda and big industry not wanting to lose money, but this will be discussed later. The purpose of this paper is to educate, theorize, and discuss various aspects of marijuana, such as its history, development, and the advantages and disadvantages of marijuana legalization. Finally, my personal reflection on legalization and marijuana in general will be discussed.
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.
The first major benefit that will come from the legalization of drugs will the increase in jobs. Creation of new jobs will take place in the manufacturing industry, sales industry, and marketing industry due to the increased demand for drugs. The manufacturing industry will experience a boost because some drugs will need to be mixed with other substances to become other drugs, such as crack cocaine. The sale industry will expand from the legalization of drugs because the drugs will not sell themselves. They are the same.
People ask, “What good does legalizing Marijuana do? It is a drug for a reason.” Well, I, along with numerous others question, “What are those reasons? What good does keeping it illegal do?” One reason to legalize the “drug” is that it can save/earn the United States of America a great deal of money. “Nationwide, law enforcement officials made 1.5 million drug arrests in 2011, more than 40 perce...
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.
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,
Drug addiction is a chronic which always the brain disease is relapsed that leads to the seeking of compulsive drugs (NIH 2012). Nowadays, drug abuse still is a serious issue for a long time although the government tries to control the drugs by rigorous imprisonment and better education program. Some people cannot understand that why and how people can be a drug addicted person. And the drug users are regarded as the lack of moral principles or willpower (National Institute on Drug Abuse 2012). People think there is no way to reduce the number of the people who take drugs, so drugs should be legalized. Another reason is that the drugs illegal poses threat to society. If the drug is legal, the society would be more peaceful. As far as I am concern,