The Pros And Cons Of Drugs

What is Cocaine? Cocaine is the most powerful stimulant of natural origin. It is taken from the leaves of the coca plant which is native to the Andean highlands of South America. It is a potent brain stimulant and one of the most addictive drugs. In ancient times, South American natives used coca for religious and medicinal purposes. The natives took advantage of cocaine’s stimulant properties to fight fatigue and hunger or to enhance endurance.

Proponents on the legalization of drugs believe if drugs were to become legal; the black market worth billions of dollars would become extinct, drug gangsters would disappear, addicts would stop committing crimes to support their habit and the prison system would not be overwhelmed with a problem they cannot defeat. The decriminalization of drugs will only make illegal drugs cheaper, easier to get and more acceptable to use. “The U.S. has 20 million alcoholics and alcohol misusers, but only around 6 million illegal drug addicts. If illegal drugs were easier to obtain, this figure would rise”(Should Drugs be decriminalized? No.November 09, 2007 Califano Joseph A, Jr).”

Also, many scientific studies support the connection between drug use and crime. One study investigated state prisoners who had five or more convictions. It was found that four out of every five of them used drugs on a regular basis. With that being said legalizing drugs would definitely increase crime and social problems.

A controversial subject many Americans are constantly at battle over is legalizing drugs. Some experts have the opinion that drugs should be legalized for medical treatment, and for help with severe illness. Other experts argue that this will have a bad effect due to overdosing and addiction, and also the adverse affect on teens. I do not think that drugs should be legalized but they should allow people with serious medical conditions to use these illegal drugs. Legalizing drugs would only create and even bigger drug abuse situation, and especially for juveniles. Legalizing drugs would also create the question of what to do with criminals who are already incarcerated for this offense. There are surveys, which give statistics on crime, and how crime rates are affected by the use of drugs. For example, there is one survey called the “National

The government of United States spends nearly 15 billion annually on the “War on Drugs”. This translates to spending about five hundred dollars per second to combat the menace of drugs. According to group Law Enforcement against Prohibition, about 82% of the drug arrests are only for possession of banned substances. The War on Drugs has forced our law enforcement agencies to focus on nonviolent drug offenders instead of expending their energies and resources in capturing violent criminals. Our correctional facilities are overflowing with “small time drug offenders” which has created a number of social and economic problems for the country.

The city of Philadelphia is home to some of the richest and most influential history the United States has to offer, but it’s also home to a very large crime rate. Heroin and opioids have been largely abused for continuous decades in cities like Philadelphia throughout the world and the law needs to come down with harder sanctions to combat this issue. This is largely in part because crime simply leads to more crime. Another reason why more rigid law structure needs to be centralized around heroin and opioid abuse is that previous addicts from all sorts of backgrounds rarely maintain remission, but end up relapsing. In fact, heroin is one of the most addictive drugs in the world. Not to mention, basic necessities within the city, such as public space for its residents, have transitioned to heavily policed areas due to drug use. The conjunction of all these issues demands for more firm and rigid laws which will help to diminish drug use in America.

According to the United States Federal Register, the total cost per inmate exceeds $25,000 every year(8) At the same time, it costs tremendous amount of money on the prohibition of drugs in the U.S, “The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $500 per second. State and local governments spent at least another 25 billion dollars.” (8) I think the first method to fix drug epidemic problem is to decriminalize the use and possession of small amount of any kind of drugs, and at the same time, put more effort into creating “parallel harm reduction measures”. That means the government should send the people who use drugs or possess a small amount

current system of making drugs illegal is an issue. We have been fighting a war on drugs that never seems to end. If our country were to legalize drugs, there would be a decrease in crime rate, which would be terrific. American’s in today’s world believe that the majority of people who want illegal drugs would steal in order to obtain their drugs. Edmund Harrett, Deputy Chief and Executive Officer, of the Narcotics Division, New York City Police Department, New York, writes, “Many legalization supporters believe that property crime, particularly burglary, larceny from persons (purse snatchers, chain snatchers, and pickpockets), auto theft, theft from autos, and shoplifting would decrease by 40-50 percent if drugs were made legal. Similarly, many believe that the terms “drug-related murder” and “drive-by shooting” would become outdated once drugs were legalized. In their view, turf wars would be eliminated because there would no longer be a need to fight for one’s turf” (policechiefmagazine.com). This quote reveals that there is a serious drug problem in this country, and with legalization we would reduce crime, which is always a positive. By legalizing low-level drugs, we would have a lower crime rate for petty crimes, simply because those who used to steal to fund their habit, would have no reason to anymore. It would be terrific for our government if we had fewer petty criminals plugging up our court systems. Allowing them to focus more time on handling higher risk

There always seems to be debate on whether the decriminalization of drugs would be of great public interest. It is a very important and controversial issue that has many people wondering if legalizing drugs would be a right move or not. In the article, “Decriminalization Would Increase The Use and The Economic and Social Costs of Drugs” by David Mineta, Mineta argues about why drugs should not be decriminalized and how keeping illicit drugs illegal outweigh the possible negative consequences of legalizing these substances. Mineta himself writes that, “Our position is simple and evidence-based: both decriminalization and legalization of illicit drugs would increase their use, along with their associated health and social costs” (Americas Quarterly). According to Mineta the decriminalization of drugs will only allow more people to become addicted causing more health and social costs because seen as they will be more widely used. (Americas Quarterly)

For years, the issue of legalization has been an increasingly controversial subject. Millions of dollars are spent annually in the War on Drugs causing many to wonder if this fight is cost-effective or if an alternative such as legalization would be more realistic than current efforts in drug prevention. Opponents state that with legalization would come an increase not only in availability, but also with everything associated with that availability. This includes suffering of users and their loved ones, death of users and innocent alike, increases in health-care costs, cost to employers, drug-related crimes, and increases in various other social, economic, and emotional

Reforms in prevention programs and increase in law enforcement have all come at the cost of tax payers. The Drug Policy Alliance estimates that since the War on Drugs started three decades ago Americans have paid about one trillion dollars toward the campaign (Sledge 1). The only change the country has seen is a five-hundred percent increase in the incarcerated population (Carroll 1). In reality, it has seemed that the US government has profited off of the money of taxpayers by dealing with private prisons. Today nearly

-I believe that the legalization of drugs would actually come to reduce our issue of prison overcrowding. I believe this due to the fact that the statistics present in the Federal Bureau of Prisons demonstrates that 79,190 of inmates in prison as of April 28 of this year, being 46.2% of inmates, are incarcerated for drug related offenses. That being said, this comes to illustrate that almost half of our prison population is behind bars due to drug related criminal activity in which legalizing such would come to signify that not only would this statistic cease to grow, but such could also come to clear up 46% of our prison population if the legalization was to

The benefits of legalizing illicit drugs are numerous and obvious to the supports of this movement. The primary benefit to legalizing illicit drugs is financial. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, the United States spends $51billion annually on the war on drugs. The benefits of legalizing illicit drugs can also be felt in the criminal justice system in this country as of 2012 there were 1.55 million people who were arrested in the United States for nonviolent drug charges, of which 749, 825 were arrested for possession of marijuana (www.drugpolicy.org).

Herbert Kleber , feels as though if drugs were to become legalized it would cause more people to want to use it and that legalizing it wouldn’t do anything. Author Gorman, feels as though that restricting drug use has been ineffective and that since the laws have become more stringent more people use the illegal substances.

Alex Kreit states in the article “The Drug Decriminalization Option” that drug prohibition expenditures stand at around $30 billion overall, with marijuana law enforcement being $10 billion alone annually, federal expenditures stand at about $15 billion annually (Kreit, 2010). In an argument defending the criminalization of drugs, whatever data you use to backup your statements, it is impossible to deny the fact that drug enforcement spending consumes a significant percentage of the countries corrections and law enforcements resources. According to the article, there are studies which have found that increases in spending for drug enforcement lead to reductions in the budget for enforcement in non drug related crimes such as robberies. The money and taxes spent does not all have to go to law enforcement related expenses, the money could have been invested in education. Despite all the government spending on drug prohibition, there is not much evidence that these efforts have had an effect on the availability or drug use rates. According to the article, nearly half of high school seniors have used an illegal drug by the time they graduate, some say it is easier to obtain than legal substances such as alcohol. There is no reason for the