Thread: A researched argument for drug legalization

i believe that drugs should be legalized. Not because drugs are good or that I would ever take a drug the problem with drugs is the "drug trade".

1. Money
2. Violence
3. Resources
4. "forbidden fruit"
5. Organized Crime

Money
The most hurtful part of drugs is that it takes a huge amount of money to buy drugs versus how much they are actually worth. 90% of the price of drugs are from skirting around the law. In places where marijuana is legal (ie. Amsterdam) marijuana is cheap and is seldom abused. It as much part of the culture as cigars are here.

Violence
People get killed because of drugs and wars occur over drugs. Inner city gang violence is almost always about drugs. Most gangs are fighting for “territory”. This territory isn’t for strong arm tactics or protection money like the Mafia it is simply for drugs.

Resources
The government spends a lot of resources on the "War on Drugs" more than any other country. There is SO much resources spent on it which would be better off not being spent at all or put into more police officers to deal with other problems.

“Forbidden Fruit”
By forbidding it they are making it a hip thing to do. It is the same as alcohol and tobacco with minors. Most minors would not be obsessed if they were legal. I mean the United States is the only place in the world where people get stone drunk frequently in high school. Other places the drinking age on beer/wine is 16. Beer of course being less alcoholic than everything else. But still people in Europe can get a drink or two if they want to in the afternoon and responsible. And of course they have mass transit there so if you get drunk you can take a bus home (can't in most places in the states).

Organized Crime
Drugs breed gang violence. Do you know why the Mafia doesn't exist anymore? (or at least doesn’t have as much power) Its because they legalized gambling, prostitution (in some forms), and alcohol. Everything was over those three things and since they were things that everyday people would do occasionally public opinion (as it is on drugs) were that it was okay. Prohibition is what caused americans to be binge drinkers. You could only get drunk every once in a while if you were able to get into an underground bar. I'm guessing if you went through all the trouble to get into a underground bar you aren't going to drink one beer (or if a 18 year old gets into a bar).

what we should do

• Legalize Pot
• Have the government dispense drugs

Why should we have the government dispense drugs?
·Addiction
·Deadly Drugs


Addiction
Drugs are addictive substances. There is no doubt. But the solution is not to eliminate drugs. We need to limit them. For example a person can only buy a certain amount of it a day and than the government can limit people and prevent addiction.
Now countries in Europe have done this successfully. In many European countries you can buy one dose of some harder drugs from government dispensaries. You only get one dose and that’s it. This means that since its readily available from the government and you can buy it from the government it would be hard to find it illegally. Meaning that people could be prevented from addiction by not being able to overdo it. This could be shroms, acid (in small amounts), and maybe cocaine.

Deadly Drugs
Now that the government has control over the drug trade they can eliminate the most deadly drugs. This means meth, heroine, oxycotton, etc. These drugs are easy to OD and there is no safe way to use these drugs. It is extremely difficult if not improbable to be a casual user of these drugs and they have obvious effects on the brain. They kill brain cells and are just horrible. Now that the government has control you can only get these illegally. Sure this goes back to the main problem of forbidding but people can be educated and why these are simply not drugs that will have any benefit for you. You can smoke marijuana before a movie and you have the benefit of being all trippy and not really having any consequences.
The American people are not that stupid. The government has been able to curve meth by showing ads of meth heads. That and since you can get other drugs legally it just doesn’t make sense to get these drugs.

Control
Now that the government has control they can make it so obvious addicts get turned down and possibly baker acted. The government doesn’t have to control drugs by force and now violence will subside. Thugs will have nothing to defend or no business model. Once you take away drugs….whats left for organized crime. It would simply eliminate crime completely and keep people from getting mixed up with the drug business out of necessity now that there will be alternatives (eg. Real jobs). Less money will be spent on drugs and thus the money people have that is not spent on drugs can go towards the economy and create jobs.

Thanks and I just wanted to state a case.