Pros and Cons to Legalizing Illegal Drugs

Aug 27, 2006

Pros and Cons to Legalizing Illegal Drugs

In today�s world, illegal drugs seem to be everywhere. Illegal drugs are prominent among adults,
youth, the poor, and the rich. The United States spends billions of dollars each year trying to keep
drugs from entering the country, but with limited success. Several politicians and other individuals
question the way in which our country handles the problem of illegal drugs. Some believe that we
should keep fighting the drug war by keeping drugs illegal which includes sending people to prison
for buying, selling, transporting and being in possession of drugs. Others believe that we should
legalize drugs, or decriminalize the charges brought about by drugs in some way. The legalization of
drugs will only create new problems, and create more chaos among the criminals who buy, sell,
transport, and use drugs. Cases such as this come up often in our country, and it is important to look
at all of the effects of each opinion before making the correct decision or law.

Yes to legalization

What have we done about the increasing drug problem? The government has enlarged its funding and
resources and has tried to declare war, but it has not helped much. Many people ignore the law that
says drugs are illegal. In the previous year, about thirty million people in America have had
something to do with illegal drugs and have violated drug laws. I have seen the effects personally, in
which drugs have torn relationships apart between my friends and their families. Many have fought
their own war with drugs, and others continue to use drugs. Few are able to afford the expense of
treatment centers. Today places that used to treat people for drug problems with open arms are
now over crowded and are sending people elsewhere, or just simply giving them no service at all.
The same problem of over crowding is happening in our prisons. Drug law violators make up about
1/3 of the population in federal prisons. Drug violators rather than more serious offenders such as
robbers and sex offenders are using more of our prison space. The number of drug law violators in
prisons is going to continue to increase. The cost of maintaining and building as many prisons as
needed for the enormous increase in population can amount to large sums of money for taxpayers,
and this idea is not very appealing to any taxpayer. We cannot keep building more and more prisons
to accommodate the millions of drug offenders. The alternative would be to make drugs legal, and
to not prosecute those who use or sell drugs.

Drug policies have been failing rapidly. United States agencies such as the Coast Guard and U.S.
Customs Service to the U.S. military, have come to their senses and do know that they will never
achieve catching every aspect of someone or something having to do with drugs being brought into
the United States. The drug prohibition laws tied together with a minimal level of law enforcement
resources has caused the price of drugs to become higher than if there were no such laws. In the last
couple of years, drug enforcement efforts should have made drugs harder to find, increased the
prices, and made the purity of drugs lower. But yet the drug market has barely been effected at all.
Today cocaine sells for about one hundred dollars a gram, and it sold for just about the same in the
1980�s. However, the purity of the drug has jumped from 12 to 60 percent. Similar statistics apply
to heroin and other illegal drugs. Doing away with drug prohibition laws would cause police,
prosecutors, and courts to focus mainly on more serious crimes, and would dramatically decrease
the amount of money spent by the government for enforcing drug laws. There is no doubt that
legalization is a major risk, but sometimes taking a risk proves to be effective.

No to legalization

Yet, on the other hand, drugs have caused people to do the unthinkable. Drugs influence the mental
wellness of a person and often cause a person to do things such as commit crimes or engage in other
dangerous situations. Crime and drugs are closely related in that crime is often a means of financing
drug use (Inciardi, Lockwood, Pottieger 107). One specific case that was told to me by my father,
Randall Mack, Chief of Police in Bellaire, Texas, was a police report that said a man had beaten a
three year old child to death because the child would not stop crying. The man was high on crack
cocaine at the time and was later sent to prison. Crimes such as this happen nearly every day, and a
high number of the criminals are affiliated with illegal substances. Another serious problem is
women who use drugs and continue to use even if they become pregnant. A highly respected medical
doctor by the name of Josette Mondanaro made an important statement when she said,
�Chemically dependent women are among the most wounded and needy members of our society,
yet their special problems have long gone underrecognized and undertreated.� If it were legal to
use drugs imagine how many more babies would be born to parents addicted to drugs. Should this be
something we as a society accept? It is not morally right in any way to allow the fate of a young child
to be set in the hands of an individual who smokes crack cocaine or shoots up heroin on a regular
everyday basis.

Just imagine if drugs were available at the nearest corner store located about a block from your
house. Would you want the drug- crazed addicts that go to buy their daily dosage of heroin hanging
around your house and/or your children? If we give up the war against drugs and instead offer to
supply the public with drugs we would be setting a low standard for us and especially our children.
Governor Mario Cuomo was exactly right when he described the severity of drug abuse in our society,
he states, �[drug abuse] is the single most ominous phenomenon of our times� and �the most
severe threat to our future.� (Belenko 18). If the United States made drugs legal we as a country
would be enabling this severe problem of drug abuse to grow out of control. It is already pretty easy
for a minor to get a hold of tobacco and alcohol; do we want to make it just as easy for them to get
mind destroying drugs also? It has already been proven that teenagers and young adults are using
drugs excessively and the use is growing at an alarming rate (Reinerman and Levine 26). To offer life
destroying substances to the public is completely disrespectful. It�s like saying, �here, have some
heroin would you like to die?� Just because drugs are still so prominent in America does not mean
we should give up the war.

We should not do away with the drug laws just because of the amount of money that the government
spends on enforcing them. It is completely worth spending money if we can save lives and reduce
the number of babies born to addicted mothers. We should try everything we can do to wake people
up. If it takes putting more police on the streets, paying more money to educate people, and create
more jobs, we should be all for it. Letting drug users get drugs more easily and destroy more lives is
wrong. Life is precious and no amount of money is too much to save a life. We should never give up
the war on drugs.