The worldwide war on drugs has been an epic failure. It
has torn apart the lives of millions of people and drug usage rates are rising,
not falling. In Mexico the drug war has claimed the lives of around 100,000
people and in the US roughly 330,000 people are in prison for drug offenses,
48% of all people in federal prisons. Despite the generations’ long crackdown
on drugs, in 2009 data from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) says 39,000
people died from drug overdoses (in the US). It should be immensely clear to
political leaders and civilians globally that the War on Drugs has been a
disaster of epic proportions. It is time for a new strategy and I favour
legalisation. Here I will outlay 10 reasons for legalising all drugs (bar a
few).
1. Nobody doubts
that drugs can be extremely damaging to a person’s health especially when they
are addicted. Legalising drugs will make it easier for people to get help as it
will remove the fear of arrest or a criminal record. It will also make it
easier for families or friends to get counselling for loved ones.
2. Alcohol is legal. Alcoholism is very damaging to
society, just like other drug addictions. How can we argue that alcohol should
be legal whilst other drugs are illegal? The reason is that alcohol is deeply
rooted in European culture (and the culture of the Americas where many
Europeans migrated to). Tens of thousands of people die every year from alcohol
poisoning and many more are addicted. According to the NHS 9% of men and 4% of
women are alcoholics. Alcohol is also frequently linked to violent behaviour
and aggressiveness, whilst many illegal drugs have no such link.
3. One of the bonuses with legalising drugs concerns
policing. Police spend many hours dealing with drug smuggling as well as
possession and the paperwork that goes along with it. Legalising drugs would
give police more time to deal with serious crime. Now don’t get me wrong, drug
cartels are serious criminals, but they do a lot more than drug smuggling;
racketeering, murder etc. Reducing the time police spend on the small fry would
make it easier to get the big fry. Although a police raid might only last one
minute, preparing for it takes hours of meticulous planning. As police gather
information about who is who and what exactly they are doing. There are also
many hours spent after arrest interrogating the suspects.
4. Another benefit would be to the judiciary. By
legalising drugs, the judiciary would no longer have to waste time and
resources on dealing with drug possession. This would reduce the length of time
that people would have to wait for trials and make the whole system more
efficient.
5. Furthermore, legalising drugs would benefit prisons
systems. Around the world prisons are overcrowded and much of this is due to
people with drug convictions. Removing drug offenders from the list of people
being sent to prison would mean the pressure would be significantly reduced. It
would save taxpayers money as there would be fewer new prisons built. It is
also a well known fact that prison usually makes people worse criminals.
Sending drug offenders to prison usually backfires as they leave prisons in a
worse shape than they entered. Sending them to prison is extra stupid
considering how prisons are awash with drugs.
6. One of the benefits to legalising drugs is for the
users. A lot of people die from overdoses, but not always from the drug they think they are taking. They might get
cheated by their dealer who sells them a cheaper alternative that is more
dangerous. You also have the problem of impurities in drugs that kill or injure
people. By legalising drugs and regulating them, people will know that the drug
they have intended to buy is the one they have actually bought. Thereby
reducing the deaths caused by cheap alternatives and impurities. I mean, when
was the last time you heard of someone buying alcohol from a legitimate seller
that turned out to be something else?
7. Ever heard of legal highs? These are new drugs that
appear on the market every so often and are perfectly legal. Eventually law
enforcement catches up and illegalises them, but by that time there is a new
legal high on the market. This creates a
constant cycle where law enforcement is always one step behind the drug
cartels. This further proves that the War on Drugs is a failure. To make
matters worse, legal highs are normally more dangerous than many illegal drugs.
If drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy were legalised, people would be more
likely do take these, less
dangerous, drugs than the legal highs.
-- The next three points I think are the most important
reasons for legalising drugs, the big three if you will –
8. Supposedly the
only things that are certain in life are death and taxes, well when it comes to
illegal drugs, there are no taxes! Legalising drugs would create a windfall for
treasuries worldwide and considering the financing problems of most
governments, it would be a welcome benefit. You would also have the tax on
drugs higher than normal and you could use some of that money to help battle
drugs by funding more drug rehabilitation centres and hospitals.
9. Freedom. Plain and simple. I don’t understand why one
person gets to tell other people what they can and cannot do to their own
bodies. If I want to smoke marijuana or take ecstasy, who are you to stop me?
Why do you get to make that choice for me?
A lot of people argue that it is for my own good, I don’t know what’s
best for me. But alcohol is legal, so is self-harm, and they damage the body.
With self-harm and alcoholism we try and help people affected, why the double
standard? Drug addicts need help, not a prison sentence and a criminal record.
10. Drug cartels. All around the world the drug trade is
controlled by criminal gangs, mafias and cartels. They use the massive profits
to fund murder, theft, torture and general lawlessness. Legalising drugs
worldwide would take away most of their money, helping to reduce organised
crime around the planet. This would help save lives and spread peace. If drugs
were legal, organised crime would be a thing of the past.
I hope I have helped you understand why we must legalise
drugs. Every day we wait, more people die, the drug cartels make more money and
more people’s lives are needlessly torn apart. There are, of course, legitimate
reasons for keeping drugs illegal, but while you keep alcohol legal, your
argument falls flat. I have seen the affects of alcoholism on a family, and
trust me, it is devastating. There should be exceptions for drugs that make you
hyper aggressive, such as bath salts, as the affect on wider society is simply
too great.
Thankfully the tide appears to changing in regards to
drugs. In the USA 10 states have decriminalised marijuana, 17 states have
legalised it for medical purposes (nine states have done both) and last year
Colorado and Washington legalised it for recreational purposes. In 2012, after
a yearlong inquiry, a group of MPs in the UK called for marijuana to be
legalised. In the Netherlands drug laws are complex but making progress.
Most of the advancement that has been made in the War on
Drugs is in regards to marijuana, this is because the drug is not dangerous at
all. It reduces stress, you cannot overdose and it has medical purposes. All of
these are qualities that alcohol has the opposite of. It will be a long time before serious progress
is made in regards to other illegal drugs; the argument that they damage your
health too much is valid and true.
 |
Legality of marijuana worldwide
source: www.wikipedia.org |
Legalising drugs must be done across the globe for it to
be effective. For example; if the UK legalises drugs then where will it get the
drugs from? The climate of the UK makes certain drugs difficult to grow and so
it would need to import the drugs. If all other countries keep drugs illegal
then only drug cartels would be able to get drugs to the UK, meaning the affect
on drug cartels globally would be minimal. Even in the UK the effect on drug
cartels would not be as great as you might hope. Since the demand for certain
drugs would be greater than the legally available supply, drug cartels would
still be able to make profits by importing drugs from countries where drugs are
still illegal but can be easily cultivated.
The War on Drugs has been a global disaster, so it
requires global solutions. We must end the War on Drugs now.
