Why Drugs Should be Made Legal

Why Drugs Should be Made Legal

During the 1920's, laws prohibiting alcohol sales and consumption did very little to stop people form getting their hands on a bottle of rum. Instead, the streets became the battlegrounds for organized criminals. Innocent people were being killed and public officials corrupted. Prohibition was a mistake and hopefully we are wise enough as a society not to try to repeat the same mistake. However, we are making the same mistake by trying to fight the war on drugs. Today, drug laws are doing very little to stop people from consuming illegal drugs. Like Prohibition, the war on drugs has been a failure. It is time to re-legalize drugs. By doing so, we would be able to regulate it, increase revenue for the government, and reduce crime.

Regulation is the control of a product. The government should regulate who can use drugs, how one can get it, and who produces it. Drugs should be regulated in the same way as alcohol. There should be an age restriction of 21 on all drugs that are deemed illegal today. Like alcohol, drugs should be made available for purchase at liquor stores. And as for who would produce these legal drugs? As it stands today, individuals produce drugs. Whether it is the cartels in South America or your neighbor in his garage, quality control cannot be imposed upon them. This is very similar to the days of Prohibition. As the production of alcohol moved away from the corporation and into the hands of the individual, the product became more lethal. Alcohol killed thousands of people during the twenties because it was made improperly. Like wise drugs, like heroin, are doing the same today. If we moved the production of drugs out of the individual's hands and into the profes...

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...drugs would drop the prices of those drugs drastically. A user would no longer have to steal to support his habit. As for the dealer side of crime, that would completely be eliminated because the profits would be minimal. This could only happen if all drugs were legalized and put into an environment where all adults could afford them and obtain them. As long as there is a restriction on the distribution of these drugs there will be a black market.

In review, we understand that the drug war is not working. It is failing most miserably. We must take a look of the benefits of legalization and weigh the results. We can not continue on a path, which has proven itself to not work. We must try something new what ever it is. One thing for certain is should we legalize drugs we could regulate them, increase revenue for the government, and reduce crime dramatically.