Legalize it!
The organizers of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 have now collected enough signatures in order for the legalization of marijuana to be placed on the 2010 California ballot along with the choice with the state’s governor. The use of marijuana, and in fact all drugs should be legal, as the benefits are outmatched.
Firstly, legalizing drugs would make communities safer. It was reported in “Heroin: The Shocking Story” that drugs are connected to 40% of all crimes, and in Wharton Econometrics for the US Customs Service that police blame drugs for 25% of car thefts, 40% of robberies and assaults, and 50% of burglaries and thefts. When such an addictively demanded product is very expensive, cravings and fixes make individuals steal and ignore rational judgment, which accounts for a large portion of the percentages listed above. After the sale and use of drugs would be decriminalized, the price would fall dramatically due to the law of supply and demand (supply increases, price falls). When the price massively decreases, people will not have to go through such drastic measures to purchase the drugs they want; they will no longer have to steal to satisfy their habits. A study done by Lester P. Silverman, a former associate director for the National Academy of Sciences’ Assembly of Behavior and Social Sciences, shows the clear correlation between drug price and crime rates: a 10 percent increase in the price of heroin caused a 3.1 percent increase in property crimes, armed robbery by 6.4 percent, and simple assault by 5.6 percent in a nonwhite neighborhood in Detroit.
Another way that legalizing drugs could make our communities safer is that it would improve our police. Currently, studies show that from 33% to 50% of all police resources are used for drug activity and drug related crimes. If drugs were legalized, this huge amount of these resources would be freed to put to use towards other more imperative crimes.
Legalizing drugs could also sharply decrease organized crime. If drugs were to be legalized, the legal market would acquire most of the customers from the black market, as their products would be much more trusted, have higher quality, and be cheaper. Profit margins would decrease for gangs to the point that their power and threat would decrease immensely.
The legalization of drugs would make the product much safer than if it’s sale was left to the black market. Currently, most drugs go through multiple sources, which the buyer usually knows nothing about. These sources often lace and tamper with the drugs. Also, many drugs like heroin and cocaine are diluted with substances, which are unknown to the consumer and can be very harmful, and even deadly. If drugs were legalized, due to the free market, consumers would purchase the products from a reliable source. If you were to purchase any product, would you rather buy a name brand from a grocery store or from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who gets it from a cousin internationally?
I can go on, explaining many more of different beneficial impacts of the legalization of drugs from the reduction of prison overcrowding to the reduction of the spread of AIDS, but these are only side effects to the main reason why all drugs should be legal: every individual should have the right to do what he or she wishes with his or her own body.
4 comments:
I definitely agree with where the beginning of your post was heading - pro-legalization of marijuana, but you can't be serious when you are also advocating the legalization of hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin? I'm all for legalizing marijuana for medicinal uses for several of the reasons you mentioned, and also so it can be taxed to help California dig its way out of debt. The legalization of some of the most addictive and dangerous drugs, however, is not in anybody's best interests. Nobody ever has to go to rehabilitation for marijuana, but if you've ever seen the terrible process a cokehead or someone addicted to Heroin/Oxy Cotton goes through to get clean (not to mention the fact that success rates are extremely low), then I think you would not be pro-legalization of all drugs. Heroin and cocaine are extremely harmful to the body in large quantities, marijuana however, has not been proven to have nearly the same harmful effects.
Although I do not think that all drugs should be legalized, I do believe that marijuana needs to be legalized. There are true economic benefits that will come from its legalization. It's a known fact that marijuana is less dangerous than most other drugs. California is going to bring up the issue in November. Marijuana can most definitely help our state out of our economic downturn.
I, too, agree with the beginning of this post- that marijuana should by legalized. I also agree with the end- the every individual has the right to do what he or she wishes with her own body. One critical factor that you seem to be overlooking, however, is how addictive drugs like heroine and cocaine are. When an individual is physically addicted to drugs, he/she is no longer in control of his or her body, the drugs are. People don't "choose" to become addicted to heroine. The argument that every individual should have the right to do what he or she wishes to his or her own body cannot be applied to the case of drug legalization (like it can to abortion) because, save the early stages of drug use, an individual is not choosing addiction. Addiction is a disease, and drugs like heroine are extremely addictive. Once a user is addicted (which happens in a very, VERY short period of time), the drug's usage is no longer a choice. Heroine addicts physically need the drug to function. The legalization of heroine may reduce crimes and free up prisons, but it would also result in a lot more people who are addicted to heroine. If heroine were legal, people would assume it is a safe thing to do. Like you said, supply would increase and the price would drop. This availability would result in a massive increase in heroine usage. After just a few weeks of using heroine (or in some cases days), these casual users would be addicts. A large portion of their income would go to supporting their habit. This is why heroine destroys people’s lives. Not because of the physical affects of the drug, but because of its incredible potential for addiction. When people are addicted to heroine, it becomes the number one priority in their lives. They can neglect their families and their jobs because all they are focused on is obtaining the next high. This of course negatively affects society at large. I could expand upon this, but I trust you can connect the dots.
I'm sorry, but the full blown legalization of heroine is a ridiculous idea, and you clearly haven't thought out all the individual and social repercussions of this action.
There are some things I agree with in this post and some I don't....
First and foremost, you should be weary of the statistics used for "drug related crime." I took a criminal behavior psychology class, and I've read all of these statistics you've used and more in a classroom setting. To begin, a "drug related crime" could be trafficking thousands of pounds of heroine, but it can also just be a fender bender in a parking lot with a dime bag of weed in one persons glovebox. Even just testing positive for any drug through blood or urine once brought into county jail or prison would make that crime a drug-related crime; it doesn't necessarily mean drugs caused the crime, were even involved in the crime, or that the person was under the influence during the crime because many drugs stay in your system for weeks. That being said, the "drug-related crimes" statistics are largely inflated, and should not be used as the benchmark for how much crime can be avoided without drugs, or how much police time is devoted solely to drugs.
And I don't think that legalizing drugs would decrease organized crime or gang-related crime - those things are just as much a business, lifestyle, and income flow as anything else, so they would find a new way to make money illegally. If only marijuana is legalized, this means huge increases in crime related to cocaine, heroine, and the kind of stuff that really leads to messy gunfights and robberies. Worse yet, an increase in breakins and robberies of pharmacies to get the weed for free, or to get powerful pain killers and prescription meds that are still not legal.
And making marijuana legal could make it safer, but don't forget the flip side of it - the people that are going to be mass-producing and selling it are the same people that are feeding this country with nicotine. Who's to say they won't add addicting chemicals to their marijuana products? They couldn't do it secretly, but I would expect tobacco/weed mixed cigarettes that go for cheaper, taste better, are more easily available, and are marketed better.
But a couple things I wished you'd mentioned is the bolstering of our economy from marijuana taxation - currently its one of the largest cash crops in California, whose budget is dying. In addition, I think I lot more people would have jobs if it didn't require a drug test that tested for marijuana. As the widest used recreational drug, with less short-term and long-term effects than alcohol or cigarettes, it seems ridiculous that it could keep you unemployed.
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