Legalisation of Drugs 1

Running Head: LEGALISATION OF DRUGS

Legalisation of Drugs
[Name of the writer]
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Legalisation of Drugs 2
Legalisation of Drugs

Introduction
Drugs have its origin in the early twentieth century. The issue of growing drug
consumption and trade in the national security is a problem of longstanding and growing
concern, because they have been emerging new generation throughout the country. The
main problem is the high incidence of drugs followed by drug trafficking, and this is
further giving rise to other crimes, which includes the proliferation of violent youth
gangs, legitimating capital and domestic violence. Hence, in order to combat drug use
and trade, there have been wars on drugs since the early twentieth century.

Discussion
The war on drugs is one of the most vicious and bitter of policies ever imposed
further waste of resources money etc. This is because the government uses billion of the
citizens money that they pay in the form of taxes in order to develop a well equipped,
skilled and massive army. I think Legalisation on all drugs to a certain or defined limit is
an approach most favoured for the war on drugs. This is because the governments would
no longer waste billions of dollars in fighting drugs; resources would be allocated to fight
the real criminals; those who violate the rights of others such as murderers, swindlers,
rapists, thieves, terrorists, if they adopt Legalisation approach towards controlling drug
use (Knight, 1974, p. 6-7).
Further the fact that the government is encountering enormous fiscal deficit as
they are spending massively other means to control the drug of war that are expensive

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and are costing them huge amount of misallocation of their current resources. This can be
stated as people are being killed through the drone attacks, or the law and policy of
having massive penalties such as placing drug users in Prison is costing them loss of
some valuable labour as well as the cost of maintaining prisoners in prisons. Through
Legalisation of certain drugs such as marijuana will help them control their deficit, some
additional costs that they can curb as well has ended the destructive drone attacks.
The prohibition of drugs has had disastrous consequences very similar to that
experienced by alcohol in the twenties. However, instead of recognizing the failure of
that policy, most governments around the world have committed to spending more and
more threatening to the freedoms of its citizens in a futile effort to stop the illegal trade in
narcotics. Legalising drugs would eliminate or significantly alleviate the dire
consequences countries face under the current prohibitionist approach.
Legalisation of drugs would end the grossly lucrative drug trade, bringing to the
surface the existing black market. With the demise, the underground drug dramatically
reduces the social problems linked to such activity. This is because drug use is giving rise
to other social crimes that include physical danger inherent in the use of illegal drugs;
smuggling which is frequently followed by other crimes such as prostitution murder,
assault, theft and kidnapping (Golden, 2007, p. 1555-1574). By incorporating
Legalisation, it would dramatically reduce the price of drugs, ending the high costs of
production and trading which includes a prohibition. This means that many people who
have an addiction to these substances do not have to steal or prostitute themselves to pay
the current inflated price of these substances, hence help in curbing to some extent the
social crimes. Although, the government has taken measures to combat this and the war

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method they have further use to curb it includes an introduction of stiff penalties. These
penalties cover and range from placing property huge fines, forfeiture to imprisonment
for all those individuals that are found with drug possessions.
Penalties attached to drug trafficking may differ, but in the majority of places
these penalties were placed with the aim to be harsh enough to de motivate individuals
from selling drugs and using them. However, this has not been able to reduce drug use
further research show that the drug use as well as drug trafficking has increased
irrespective of the penalties and the attacks they are currently pursuing. Hence, by
adopting a change of approach making the general public aware of health and other
hazards associated with this and legalising its use might have some chances of reducing
the use of it. This strategy has worked for alcohol and tobacco, smoking and can also be
successful for drug use. This is further attributed to the fact that the current drug
prohibition does not stop the market simply that has submerged under the mantle of
illegality, and when a business is crime, criminals will take part in it. According to the
UN, the drug trade generates $ 400,000 million annually, which represents 8% of world
trade, comparable to the textile industry. This prize is an irresistible temptation for
criminals (Corry and Cimbolic, 2005, p. 87-10).
This market being lucrative as well as having the means and opportunity towards
entering into the business as these drugs are easily available and citizens are engaging in
it, in order to gain in this lucrative market. By incorporating Legalisation, it would
dramatically reduce the price of drugs, ending the high costs of production and trading
which includes a prohibition which will further help in reducing the attraction due to
which the general publics are entering into this business.

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Apart from this, by legalising drugs, government can make the manufacture of
such substances within the scope of the regulations specific to a legal market. Under the
ban, there is no quality control or sale of standardized doses. This has led to highmortality rates due to overdose or poisoning by drugs.
The drug has spread its tentacles into the political life of countries. Important
political figures throughout the world have been linked to personalities and money related
to drug trafficking (Ray and Ksir, 2004, p. 23-24). Perhaps here lies the reason why the
drug war intensifies every year. The drugs barons are the ones who benefit most from the
current ban and antidrug operations practiced that are designed to eliminate the
competition faced by small and medium-sized distributors. Legalisation would end this
unholy alliance of drug traffickers and political power. Legalising drugs would end with a
major focus of corruption, which increases at all levels of government because a
substantial number of police, customs officers, judges and all sorts of authorities have
been bought, bribed or extorted by drug traffickers, creating a great atmosphere of
distrust by the population to the general public.
Moreover, Legalisation prisons, which today are inundated by people, whose only
crime was the consumption of substances that are prohibited by law. All these efforts to
combat drug trafficking have been unsuccessful. For example, the same officials
acknowledge that despite all the money spent, current efforts to intercept only 13% of
shipments of heroin and more than 28% of cocaine. According to the UN, illegal drug
profits are so inflated that three quarters of all shipments should be intercepted to
substantially reduce the lucrative business (Ray and Ksir, 2004, p. 23-24). The above
mentioned example states and further proves the fact that it is a better approach to

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legalise drug use rather than having stringent and prohibited laws to counter it that later
turn out to be in vain.
Legalisation is just a pretext to undermine the rule of freedoms in order to conduct
this war against drugs. Wiretaps, searches of records, censorship and gun control, are acts
that threaten the freedom and autonomy of individuals globally. Hence Legalisation of
drugs would help in creating a more safer and healthy environment. It will help in
benefiting the economy in terms of tracking the drugs, its usage as when it becomes legal
it will be easier for the government to estimate which drug usage is in demand. Along
with this, in which areas are people will be consuming it without fear (Clark and Peter,
2007, p. 40-60).
In a society where drugs are legal, the number of the innocent victims product
consumption and sale of drugs would be reduced substantially. There is a present policy
of direct concern to consumers of narcotics and third parties. This is how many people
who have never used these substances or which are not related to the activity are
impaired or even die because of "externalities" of the war on drugs which include urban
violence, police abuse, confiscation of properties, searches wrong, among many others.

Conclusion
The Legalisation will enable the society to learn to live with drugs as it has done
with other substances such as alcohol and snuff. The social learning process is valuable to
reduce and internalize the negative effects arising from the use and abuse of substances
(Cussen and Block, 2010, p. 1-4). However, policies such as prohibition of drug use and
drug trafficking are in turn turning its consumers into criminals, discouraging the

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emergence of social behaviours and attitudes needed to deal with the problems of
addiction and consumption of these substances. Hence, after doing a complete survey
over the methods used against war on drugs, Legalisation is a better approach towards
combating drug war.

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References
Clark, Peter. (2007). The Ethics of Medical Marijuana, Government Restrictions vs.
Medical Necessity. Journal of Sociology 21.2 , p. 40-60
Corry, James M. and Cimbolic, Peter. (2005) .Drugs: facts, alternatives, decisions,
Belmont: Wadsworth publishing company, p. 87-90
Cussen. M and Block. W. (2010). Legalise Drugs now, an Analysis of the Benefits of
Legal Drugs, Journal of Economics and Sociology, p. 1-4
Golden, James. (2007). Julie A. Schumacher. Journal of Addictive Behaviors, p. 15551574.
Knight, R.C. (1974). College Student Marijuana Use and Social Alienation, Journal of
Health and Social Behaviour 15.1, p. 6-7
Ray, Oakley and Ksir, Charles. (2004). Drugs, Society, and Human Behaviour, times
mirror/Mosby college publishing, p. 23-24