Regulating And Legalizing Illegal Drugs
Abstract
The United States government developed a drug policy to eliminate illegal drugs in the country. The war on drugs has become a major concern in the society. People have different views on the US war on drugs. Some think the US war on drugs is ineffective. This is because the government has not managed to eliminate illegal drugs in the country. The amount of illegal drugs in the country has increased for the last two decades. The market size for the illegal drugs has also increased.
In addiction, the prices of illegal drugs have increased and increased the demand for the illegal drugs. The US drug policy is aimed at reducing the market for illegal drugs. This will in turn reduce the demand for illegal drugs. Some people think the government has spent a lot of money eliminating illegal drugs in the country. Despite, the effort to curb drug smuggling, the government has not achieved the objective set. The government has to identify other methods to eliminate illegal drugs in the country. The thesis statement is regulating and legalizing and partially legalizing the use of marijuana, powdered cocaine and opiate products and shifting resources to drug prevention and treatment programs.
Introduction
Illegal drugs have caused adverse effects to the society .Illegal drugs have affected families, communities and individuals. They have led to increase in infectious diseases like HIV/AIDs and lung diseases. Researchers argue that illegal drugs have increased the rate of crime in the society. The rate of crime in Mexico and Columbia has increased because of drug trafficking. They have also led to increase in deaths in the country. The war on drugs is ineffective as the government has not managed to reduce the amount of illegal drugs in the country. Illegal drugs are considered one of the big problems facing the country.
The United States government has allocated a lot of funds on the war on drugs, but the amount of drugs has increased for the last twenty years. The market size for illegal drugs has increased due to increase in prices. This has led to increase in demand for illegal drugs. Researchers argue that the sale of illegal drugs has a lot of benefits. Drug dealer’s make a lot of money from selling illegal drugs. Drug dealers make $16 billion every year. The sell of illegal drugs does not contribute to economic growth in the country. The government should identify ways to control the amount of illegal drugs in the country, but not criminalization and prohibition.
Regulating and legalizing use of illegal drugs
Illegal drugs have caused negative effects to the country. Legal drugs have affected principal countries that supply United States with illegal drugs. First, illegal drugs have led to slow economic growth in countries like Mexico and Colombia. This is because the drugs have caused instability as the government constantly fights with drug dealers. This has also caused loose of lives. People argue that the countries are even worse than before. The US war on drug has not helped solve the situations in these countries, but it has worsened. The illegal drugs have led to increase in health care expenditure. The United States government has spent a lot of money eliminating illegal drugs. This has led low economic growth. Though, the government has spent a lot of money on war on drugs and health care, the effects of drugs are still being felt in the society. The government will continue to spent huge amounts of money if it does not identify alternative methods to control illegal drugs (Brecher, 1972).
There are several steps that can be used to control the amount of illegal drugs in the country. Example of the methods includes regulating drugs and legalizing drugs.
Regulating the amount of illegal drugs in the country can help reduce the demand of illegal drugs. Regulating the market for illegal drugs like marijuana and cocaine will help reduce the amount of drugs in the market. Though the government prohibits use of marijuana and cocaine, the amount illegal drugs have increased and many people have used the drugs. Prohibition has different effects. First, it raises the supplies cost and interferes with the functioning of the drug market. Second, promotion helps regulate the operation of the market and tax transactions. Prohibition has failured to control illegal drugs in the country and the consumption of illegal drugs has increased (Ruschmann, 2004).
The use of illegal drugs like marijuana can be controlled by regulation of a legal market, but not prohibition. Regulating the market for illegal drugs will expose drug dealers to taxes. Drug dealers will not smuggle illegal drugs into the market as the market will be legalized. This will in turn reduce the amount of illegal drugs in the country. Researchers argue that the market value for illegal drugs is greater than the gross domestic product of the country. This is because drug dealers make a lot of money from selling illegal drugs. Unregulated market for illegal drugs like marijuana will lead to increase in consumption of illegal drugs (Potter, 2009).
Another method to reduce the amount of illegal drugs in the country is by legalizing them. The number of people arrested for drug related activities has increased. Some of the people are arrested because of drug trafficking while others are arrested for minor activities like drug consumption. Researchers argue that prohibition destroys the lives and careers of many citizens. This is because most citizens are convicted for drug related activities. Legalizing illegal drugs is important as it helps eliminate the effects caused by prohibition. Legalizing illegal drugs will help reduce the market share for illegal drugs as drug dealers will no loner smuggle drugs into the country. It will also reduce activities associated with black market like violence, corruption and deaths. In addition, legalizing of illegal drugs will allow the government to redistribute resources well. The government will not spend a lot of money in controlling crime. The government will be able to allocate money to address critical issues in the country. Countries that have not legalized illegal drugs have experienced increase in illegal drugs. Legalizing illegal drugs helps reduce government expenditure on drug control. It also helps increase the amount of tax revenue in the country so as to increase countries GDP (Cohen, 1997).
Apart from legalizing illegal drugs, decriminalizing can also help reduce the amount of illegal drugs in the country. Decriminalization was first practiced in Netherlands using the opium act of 1976.The act allowed citizens to use a small amount of the drugs for personal consumption. Decriminalization led to decline in use of illegal drugs in Netherlands. The consumption of hard drugs like heroine decreased from 38 to 28.The consumption of illegal drugs among children aged 16 years reduced drastically. The children did not consume illegal drugs like cocaine and heroine. Though people thought that decriminalization would increase the consumption of illegal drugs, it reduced consumption of illegal drugs. The government should develop decriminalization programs to help marijuana users from consuming other drugs like cocaine. This will reduce the amount of illegal drugs in the country as users will not buy illegal drugs from the black market. The demand for illegal drugs will reduce and hence the supply (Cohen, 1997).
Lastly, the government should avoid criminalization as it leads to increase in amount of drugs in the country. Also, the government should spent the funds on war on drugs on provide counseling services to the victims and develop rehabilitation centers. The number of people convicted for drug activities has risen. Some criminals are convicted of minor crimes while others are convicted for major crimes. Researchers argue that prohibition and criminalization do not help solve drug consumption. This is because drug victims do not get the right instructions. The demand for illegal drugs can be reduced by providing counseling and education to the society and the victim. Drug addicts will get education services on use of illegal drugs from the rehabilitation centers. Drug prevention programs can help reduce the amount of drugs in the country (NIDA Info Facts: Heroine, 2010).
Conclusion
The amount of illegal drugs has increased for the last two years. This is a result of poor policies and measures. The US war on drugs has become ineffective as the amount of illegal drugs in the country has increased. The demand for illegal drugs and the cost have also increased. This is in contrast to the assumption made in the drug policy. The drug policy is aimed at reducing the cost and demand of illegal drugs in the country using the supply model. Though the government has spent a lot of money in reducing the amount of illegal drugs in the country, illegal drugs are still common in the market. The effects of illegal drugs are evident in the society. For example, the rate of crime has increased due to drug consumption. It has also led to increase in the rate of deaths and diseases.
Researchers claim that prohibition does not reduce the amount of illegal drugs in the country. The government should allow regulation and legalization of illegal drugs so as to reduce consumption. Also it should encourage decriminalization. Regulating illegal drugs will help prevent consumption of illegal drugs. Researchers argue that regulating the environment will make it easy for the government to control black market. Regulation of the drug market will make the drug market legal. The government will be able to tax drug dealers. This will in turn reduce drug smuggling and consumption. Also, the government should legalize illegal drugs. It should allow people to consume small amounts of drugs like marijuana and cocaine. This will reduce the consumption of illegal drugs in the country. People will not be able to consume hard drugs like cocaine. Decriminalizing will also help the government control the amount of illegal drugs in the country. The government will not arrest criminals and charge them with drug related activities, but it will spend the money in introducing rehabilitation and counseling services.
Reference
Brecher, E. (1972). Opium smoking is outlawed. In Drug library. Retrieved from http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu6.htm
On 9/08/2010
Cohen, P., Ph.D. (1997). Dutch drug policy even more effective than previously thought. In Center for Drug Research. Retrieved 2010, from http://www.csdp.org/ads/dutch2.htm
On 9/08/2010.
NIDA Info Facts: Heroin. (2010). Retrieved July 26, 2010, from National Institute on Drug Abuse website: http://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/heroin.html
on 9/08/2010
Potter, M. (2009, October 22). Illegal drugs flow over and under U.S border. Nightly News[Television broadcast] MSNBC News . Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33433955/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
On9/08/2010.
Ruschmann, P., J.D. (2004). Relaxing marijuana laws would be good for society. In legalizing marihuana. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. Schaffer, C. (n.d.). Basic facts about the war on drugs. In Drug library. Retrieved from http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/library/basicfax17.html
On 9/08/2010.
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
