Why Drugs Should Be Legal

By John Kim | December 10th, 2008

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Response

Junkies filling our streets, the collapse of society, this is what people envision when they hear about drugs being legal. I’ve never lived in a time where drugs were ever legal, nor do I know anyone, so I can’t say if a degradation of society would actually occur. But the statistical data that exists on this “War on Drugs” is very scary. Many robberies are committed by druggies desperate for some cash to support their habits. Drug cartels are making billions, and they become as powerful as the countries they live in. Tax payer money is spent in the billions of dollars to employ people to fight this drug war, and no progress has been made. The reality is that making drugs illegal is creating more harm then good.

I could probably paint a pretty accurate picture of what would happen if we did make drugs legal. For one thing it would be a total collapse of the drug cartels. Applying basic economics, you would know that if drugs were legal the supply would increase because all delivery barriers would be gone. No police officers to arrest dealers, or government crack downs. Supply would finally be allowed to meet the demand, so what you end up with are drugs that go for pennies on the dollar. The drug cartel would literally go bankrupt in a matter of months.

Robberies would decrease tremendously because if a junky can get drugs for pennies instead of dollars, financing their habits no longer becomes a problem. They would spend the rest of their short lives hidden from view, and taking as many drugs they want until they OD and disappear from existence.

An added bonus would be that our prison system would be less crowded, and if you take into account that it costs $30,000 a year to keep someone in jail you can instantly save that money and put it somewhere else. Let’s say we are able to keep even a million people out of jail every year, then our government saves 30 billion dollars. That money can go back to our school systems, giving them kick ass after school programs and keeping them off the streets. With our kids being raised in safe environments we will have a ripple effect of well educated and hard working future adults, and decrease the crime.

To add to my argument of the enormous amount of tax money being saved annually, our country no longer needs to employ so many law enforcement personnel. With a decreased workforce you also decrease the need for extra equipment and structures. This would probably save another 30 billion in tax revenue. My idea of making drugs legal has just created a 60 billion dollar in savings for our government. That is twice the amount the Big 3 automotive companies are getting for their bailout.

Even if you do make the argument about an increase in junkies, but by taking that 60 billion in savings and using it for prevention, like I’ve mentioned, you will actually decrease the amount of junkies. Not only that, our children will grow up being productive members of society, which in itself will lighten the burden of well fare for our government. Like I said, there would be a ripple effect.

So it’s true, there are people who will use drugs no matter what, but making it illegal will not deter them. Think about prohibition in America, did taking alcohol away do any good? In fact this did the opposite, because it gave rise to the modern day Mafia. So my basic message is that why not focus our attention on prevention instead of pouring billions into increasing the size of our law enforcement. And trust me, although many of them will go out of work, the ones that are working will appreciate being in a safer city. Unfortunately making drugs legal would never happen, but it’s nice to just dream. But just as a note, I don’t use drugs, I’m just a realist.