Legalization Of Drugs 2 Essay Research Paper

Legalization Of Drugs 2 Essay, Research Paper

Legalization: Problem or Solution to the War on Drugs

Legalization of drugs is a very controversial topic that is being discussed in the United States. Currently there is an intense debate to legalize marijuana as a medicine. To most people, legalizing drugs seems like something insane. They probably ask how can they legalize something that the government furiously tries to eradicate. The problem is exactly in what the government tries to do. Eliminate drugs. The drug problem will never go away. A drug free society is something that will never happen. The amount of money made from illegal drugs is so great that the police have no force to fight this situation.

Pro legalization advocates say the drug war has failed. They claim legalization will reduce the huge costs of drug enforcement, prosecution, and imprisonment. The anti- legalization advocates say that legalization will increase crime and cause more addiction. They also say that the war on drugs is a success. The question at issue arises from these two different viewpoints. Will legalization of drugs be more beneficial than continuing the drug war.

Joseph McNamara is a former Police Chief of San Jose and other large cities. He is a research fellow of the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California. Mcnamara believes that the drug war is violent, corrupt and unsuccessful. McNamara questions the principle behind the war on drugs. He says the drug war is racist, violent, corrupt, unsuccessful and confusing. Alcohol and tobacco, the most dangerous drugs that kill around a million Americans a year, are legal. McNamara says the drug war cannot succeed because of the profit of drug dealers. About 500 dollars of cocaine or heroin in a source country, brings about $100,000 on an American city. No cops, prisons and armies can stop this because of the tremendous profit. A big problem is our thinking towards drugs, which is frozen a century ago. This enables us to look at what the drug war is causing to America.

McNamara is against the way America says it will stop foreign production of drugs. The source countries are poor and they don’t want to destroy their country in a civil war because Americans can’t control their demand for drugs. This problem exists because millions of Americans are willing to spend a lot of money in drugs knowing they are illegal and cause health problems. It only takes about 50 square miles anywhere in the world, to produce the entire drug supply for America. That really makes it difficult for the USA to stop foreign production of drugs. The border control of drugs is another problem. The government estimates it stops about 10 percent of drugs. Even with this seizure of drugs, the street price remains stable because the supply here is America is already huge. McNamara says early in the drug war, tough enforcement was supposed make drugs harder to get by making drugs more expensive and harder to get. But what happened was it made drug users commit more crimes to get money for drugs. Other problems McNamara points are USA’s huge borders and the great volume of international trade which makes it impossible to control everything that is coming in.

McNamara questions the way society acts towards drug users. People who have been punished for drug use don’t have the chance to rehabilitate themselves. There are drug free workplaces where nobody with a drug record can get a job. There is drug free housing. Another problem McNamara mentions is the enormous corruption. The same Drug enforcement agent that arrested General Noriega, was arrested for stealing 720,000 in laundered drug money. The corruption has reached in the federal law enforcement. The police are corrupted and the legal system is paralyzed. The FBI and the Coast Guard had to admit to corruption.

McNamara says the DARE program, which runs about 1 billion a year, is ineffective. Two studies by the government proved that but the government didn’t dare to publish this study because it didn’t want to admit it failed. McNamara thinks marijuana should be legalized because marijuana is as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Even Clinton and Newt Gingrich have smoked marijuana and this has not lead them to other drugs or criminal behavior.

Steven B. Duke professor at Yale University Law School and Albert C. Gross a lawyer in San Diego wrote an article about the benefits of legalization. More than 60 percent of federal prison inmates are in jail because of drug violations. Now we spend about 159 dollars a day to house a prisoner in one of many overcrowded jails. It is estimated that about one third of a million people are in jail because of drug violations and three times that number are in probation or parole for drugs. Legalization will create more space in jails for real criminals once the previous drug offenders are set free. About one third of all prisoners would be set free. Also about a quarter of other convicts in prison are there because of property crimes committed to buy drugs. This will create space to punish criminals that commit rape, murder, robbery and burglary, the real threat to society.

The next benefit Gross and Duke claim from legalization would be safer neighborhoods. Drug commerce is the major cause of the destruction of the inner cities. Open-air drug markets and gang violence makes life hell in poor neighborhoods. Around half of violen