Drugs are actually kind of brilliant products as they bring a lot of advantages to our society especially in medical area except when someone misuses them. Because of these abuses, certain drugs have been designated as illegal articles in lots of countries across the globe. Thus, we can see that in these recent decades, our society has involved in holy drug wars with the aim to strike against this disastrous drug abuses trend. However, a new phenomenon occurs when some people claim that we can only hold the stretch out of drug back by legalizing it. Thus, a number of arguments exist both uphold and subvert the legalization of drugs. The advocates of this statement assert that the legalization of cracks will surely decline the rate of drug related crimes besides of decreasing the number of drug addicts. Opponents of drug legalization affirm that the surrender of drug wars will only create new drug addicts and increase the rage of committing crimes.
Though legalization of drugs may lead to some unexpectedly unfavorable consequences, it will lead us one step nearer to our main purpose, to kick drug abuses out of our world. Drug legalization need to be executed because drug wars are of little avail. These drug wars have been spending too much citizen’s money with only a little pay back. Government should not continue wasting the money pointlessly with the hope that “we could actually hold drug use level or see it decline” (Johnson 283) one day in the future inasmuch as this money should be used to decrease the other crimes too for the benefits of all residents but not only for the junkies who actually embarrass the country. Though government claims that the drug wars work according to the increasing rates of captured people who relate to drug, we can see that the money spending on it increasing too. For instance, the federal government spend one billion dollar to arrest few hundred thousand people in late 1970s but nineteen billion dollar to arrest merely 1.6 million people now.
The amount of spent money and the rate of arrested people are not directly proportional. This data shows us that the drug wars become less and less efficient than it should be, not mention that most of these apprehend people are just mules. The drug commercials around the country will not be affected as these arrests are just drug traffickers who wish to make money for jam rope. Their only usage is simply swamping our jails and courts which are built by the taxpayers’ money but “[doesn’t] make any difference in the overall war on drugs” (Johnson 286).
No matter how many of these mules get caught, they are just the puppets whose strings are pulled by the hided dealers. Thus, drugs should be legalized since the drug wars cannot achieve our aim. Legalization of drugs will decrease the rate of crimes and consequential raise in safety of the country. Drug is definitely a money-maker, two hundred thousand dollars could be gained in just few minutes by selling one kilogram of heroin.
Under no circumstance do these gang’s headmen do not want to make such big profit through drug deals. Thus, a wide range of arguments due to drug store have occurred and endanger the safeness of our society. By legalizing drug, government will able to control the whole drug markets which are currently run by those different criminal underworlds and enable to preclude the disputes over drug store, which is also one of the main factors of these gangland killings and most innocent people die for. Moreover, when this new law put into action, government can fix the price of drug and decrease it to a reasonable cost. Under this situation, most of the drug users could buy it and will not commit crimes such as robbery and burglary on order to get money buying those expensive narcotics.
This will definitely secure the public safety as they would not live in such a panic lifestyle. Besides, this legalization rule may reduce the stigmatism surround the druggies as they would not have any criminal record which is the main factor to be looked down. This will probably make these addicts easier to get hire besides of legitimizing the jobs related to cracks like mules. No one will be caught because of trafficking as they already become a legal transport team to deliver drug stores. It will also prevent a lot of unsophisticated teenagers forfeit their future or even life due to drugs trafficking. Many adolescents make this wrong decision but the last thing we can do is lock them up because we should give them a chance to turn over a new leaf instead of ruining their bright future. Hence, the rate of crimes especially drug-related crime will decline with the legalization of drug. Drug should be legalized because its prohibition restricts the freedom of citizen.
“Prohibition can’t work, won’t work and has never worked” (Carter 289) as it confines the residents’ right to choose, one of the most basic principles that this country is built upon. Liberties of society cannot be restrained unless the act may cause someone loss. We need to keep in mind that the druggies would not harm anyone if they can get drug in a cheap, easy and legal pathway which is when the government carries out legalization of drug. Thus, drug is a personal entertainment substance instead of a harming weapon. It would not hurt anyone but only the user themselves since it is kind of personality-destroying matter just like alcohol and tobacco are. However, it does not treated as personal and societal problems like they do even though “every argument that is made for prohibiting the use of currently illegal drugs can be made even more convincingly about tobacco and alcohol” (Carter 290).
This statement can be proved by the data showing much more “health-related problems due to alcohol and tobacco” (Johnson 285) than health cases cause by taking drugs. Victims of liquors and cigarettes are hundred times more than the people who are killed by hard drugs too, not even mention that the issues that caused by alcoholics and smokers are incalculable yet. Nonetheless, both of them tackle as personal problem and only deal as criminal troubles until they did hurt someone such as drunk driving or smoking at smoke-prohibited places. Therefore, drug should be legalized and treated as personal problem unless drug abuse occurs. All in all, government needs to put drug legalization into action instead of idling talk in order to avoid drug abusing sprawls it devil’s talon to any corner of the world from day to day.
We cannot show an apathetic face to this virus that may devastate our civilized society. We need to end the spread of this malignancy not by putting more effort on wars of drug but by legalizing it. Legalization does not mean that we surrender to those peddlers in the wars but intend that we change our battles with those dealers strategically based on afore-mentioned reasons. We should not be tenacious of only one idea, the drug wars when we actually know that it is not as efficacious as it would be. However, I agree that this legalization should be carried out with a clear plan as we are “talking about legalization but not decriminalization” (Johnson 285).
We need to control the market of drug to prevent the incidents that happened in Great Britain’s late 1960s due to lack of thorough control replay. Let’s all of us hope that this new law will be carried out and give us back a clean land which full with hopes.
Works Cited
Bennett, William J.. “Should Drugs Be Legalized?” In McDonald and Salomone,
291-297. Print. Carter, Hodding III. “We’re Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works.” In McDonald and Salomone, 289-291. Print. Johnson, Gary E.. “The Case for Drug Legalization.” In McDonald and Salomone, 283-287. Print. McDonald, Stephen, and William Salomone. The Writer’s Response 5th ed. Boston : Wadsworth, 2012. Rangel, Charles B.. “Why Drug Legalization Should Be Opposed.” In McDonald and Salomone, 287-288. Print.