Legalisation of Drugs 7
Running Head: LEGALISATION OF DRUGSLegalisation of Drugs
[Name of the writer]
[Name of the institution]
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 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 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.
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
high-mortality 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 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 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.
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. 1555-1574.
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
