Debates Across The World: Legalization of Drugs (Essay Sample)

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Legalization of Drugs
In the twenty- first century, there have been hot debates across the world and especially in the United States on the legalization of illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroine. Some nations have legalized marijuana for a while others have not. In the in the United States, states like Colorado and Washington have allowed the possession and usage of Marijuana for medical purposes. There are no universal remedies in the world, but for social affiliations, legalizing drugs may be the policy that will bring changes. Removing all legal penalties from the production, distribution, and usage of drugs and other controlled substances would alleviate some of the biggest political and social problems in the world. In recent years, there have been debates on the benefits of legalizing drugs especially marijuana and other recreational drugs, and their contributions to the reduction of crime. There are harsh penalties for those caught using or in possession of these illegal drugs. This essay will discuss benefits of legalizing illegal drugs such as marijuana and treating them the same as other legal drugs.
The demand for illegal drugs is high in the United States since thousands of people demand illegal drugs and the numbers of users increase in every year (Friedman 26). Decriminalization of the production, supply, as well as the use of illicit drugs usually creates a loophole which is utilized by drug traffickers because the demand is high. These criminals make abnormal profits since the government does not tax them or pay for advertisements (Caulkinset al.16). Legalization will force these drugs cartels out of the market and the government will regulate the market since with or without the government intervention illegal drug trade prevails. Government intervention will be beneficial since they regulate the drug trade by giving the right prescription, laws on sales to minors, licensing, and advertisement regulations.
Legalizing drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and recreational drugs would make people's homes and streets safer. The majority of crimes committed are drug related because people are struggling to get limited supply of narcotics. To access drugs, individuals would quickly commit violent crimes, rape or murder others (Barbour 56). When law enforcers restrict the supply of drugs, the prices raise, and people do everything in their means to get money for drugs. Illegal drugs are costly since demand make their prices go up and the market is unregulated. Since most of the people cannot afford to buy these drugs, they engage themselves in illegal activities such as robbery, money laundry, among other activities to raise fund to buy these drugs (Goldstein 48). In the United States, many deaths and violence arise from the dealings of uncontrolled illegal drugs markets. Legalization will enable the government to regulate this dangerous business, determine the market price to make affordable to the most user thus reducing crimes aimed at raising money to buy drugs. The prisons in the United States will be decongested since many inmates have illegal drugs-related cases hence saving billions (Friedman 26). Legalizing drugs would put an end to prison overcrowding. Overcrowding of prisons is a serious as well as a persistent problem. This issue makes the prisons violent and faceless and the prisoners live in dehumanizing conditions. The government has been forced to build more prisons because current ones are overcrowded. Legalizing drugs would immediately relieve a lot of pressure on the jail systems because there would not be drug offenders to incarcerate. In the year September 2015, approximately 92, 000 of the sentenced federal prisoners In the USA were serving time for drug related offences (Fortner 26). It is evident that the number of real crimes would go down because drug users would not need to commit violent crimes in the process of accessing the drugs. Just like the legal tobacco business a cigarette smoker does not steal to raise funds to buy a cigarette. Illicit drugs of legalization will just like be tobacco.
The survey shows that more than half of sixteen to seventeen-year-old teenagers have at least used an illegal drug. Close to one and a half million individuals use ecstasy each weekend. Amongst adolescents and young adult, illegal drug usage is normal (Burnham 47). The number of user’s increases on a daily basis suggesting that prohibition of illegal drugs use does not work. Strengthening the 'war on illegal drugs' is not minimizing the demand. In countries where illegal drugs laws are not strict, the usage is low for example in Holland. Legalization will agree that the usage of the illegal drug is a social problem, normal and not a criminal justice one. How the country deals with these issues is what counts on the reduction of drug use.
Information about drugs and drug use is provided by prejudice and ignorant policy-makers, and media who give irrelevant information for their gain. This led to misinformation about the true effects of the illegal drugs usage and many falls at this risk (Kleiman, Caulkins, and Angela 18). Legalization will enable people to publicize open, honest as well as truthful information to non- users and users to facilitate them to make wise decisions on whether to use it or not. People will be encouraged to investigate deeper about illegal drugs especially marijuana to know its positive and negative effects.
Criminalization has resulted to the marginalization and stigmatization of drug users. Nations which operate ultra-prohibitionist rules have high rates of HIV infection among injecting addicts. The numbers of patients with Hepatitis C are growing substantially (Ventura, Jenn and Steve 38). Legalization will make it possible for users not to share same syringe or contaminated syringe for fear of being caught. Thus, it will reduce the increasing cases of HIV infections.
Legalization of narcotics is that it would free up the resources in the police department and give them the chance to fight crimes against property and people. With the legalization of drugs, the police would have more time and resources to expand their war against other crimes and ensure that they protect the innocent people from those that commit crimes when there are no drug laws (Becker 23). Additionally, the police would be able to offer citizens better protection because of their ability to focus recourses on catching murderers and rapists and other criminals. In addition to freeing up the police, the legalization of drugs would unclog the judicial systems. Currently, it takes months for the courts to bring a single person to trial because of the enormous number of drug-related cases. The delays make a person innocent or guilty live in anxiety as they wait for trial. Even when the trial begins, the civil proceedings are extremely slow. The delays occur because there are no enough courts and judges to handle the caseloads that continue to skyrocket (Williams &Grossman 56). Legalization of drugs would drastically reduce drug-related crimes letting the legislature to wipe thousands of cases off the dockets of the courts across the globe.
Prohibition makes law- abiding individuals become criminals because their responsibility to handle the drugs will be removed. These people who are the policy- makers or the health practitioners will handle that role to violent dealers who do not care on who they sell the drugs and for what purpose (Bennett, William and Robert 42). Legalization will restore the right to use drugs correctly and as prescribed by the professional. People’s perception of how they feel and think about the drug will change. The vulnerable will be protected because of the measures put in place.
Legalizing drugs would reduce corruption among the police force and the citizens. Corruption in the police force takes two major forms. The first one is where the police offer protection to the drug dealers, and the second one is where the police seize the drugs and sell them by themselves (Barbour 11). The legalization of narcotics would eliminate such cases of corruption and help to streamline the image of the police. Additionally, reducing corruption cases that are drug related would further decline the strain in courts. This would give investigators and judges more time to handle other cases expeditiously and thoroughly.
The illegal drugs business makes up 8 percent of world’s trade. Every country is run under the influence of powerful drugs cartels. Prohibition allows rich countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and China among others to exercise vast political influence over producer country under the supports of drug regulation programs (Burnham 47). Legalization will bring back the lost income to the appropriately taxed economy as well as eliminate the high-level corruption. Also, ban the tool of political intrusion by foreign nations against producer countries.
In the United States, African American are more likely to be caught and jailed for illegal drugs cases than whites. Detentions for drug crimes are extremely unrestricted allowing the police officer to target people of the color easily (Barcott 8). Prohibition has promoted this stereotyping of people of color as the drug trafficker and drug user. Legalization will eliminate these set of laws that are applied to suspiciously bring people of color into interaction with the criminal justice system (Barcott 8). Also, it will enable to redress the issue of over-representation of African American drug offenders in jail.
Regulation of drugs such as recreational drugs and marijuana is an issue that has been a ball of contention for a long time. One way of dealing with this issue, that causes a lot of insecurity in the society is to treat or regulated all drugs in the same way. Regulating...