The May Blogs

*DISCLAIMER*

I do not promoting the use of drugs and I am not saying that I use or have used any substance (Including all legal substances). This paper is strictly for educational use. I do NOT promote drug use or encourage its use. They can all be harmful to yourself or those around you.

The war on drugs has caused a lot of damage. A lot more bad than good, you may be thinking to yourself “Why should all drugs be legalized? Aren’t hard drugs like heroin terrible?”. Well yes, yes they are. However, the world would be a much better place if they were decriminalized. People are going to use drugs whether you agree with their use or not.

Let us use Lil’ Peep as an example for one of my points. He died from a ‘drug overdose’. However, this wouldn’t have happened if drugs were legalized and more easily obtained. If you could buy Xanax off of a shelf, there would be no need to worry about if it is laced with Fentanyl or anything else. Maybe you think that’s just what they get for doing drugs like that but what if they were your close friend? Legalize all pills and this wouldn’t be an issue. You could stop by the store, get your daily dose of Valium that you enjoy recreationally, and then go to sleep when the day is over. While yes, this sounds like it will just lead to more addiction, it could help lead to people no longer being addicted.

Ok, so now let’s imagine that you’re at a bar. There’s a lady sitting there smoking a Marlboro Red and drinking a Bud Light. She says to you “I would never touch drugs, they’re awful for you.”. While she is saying that to you, she’s failing to realize that she is consuming alcohol and nicotine. Those are drugs, in the same class as heroin and Xanax, however they aren’t as taboo because they’re legal. Smoking has caused there to be up to 6 million deaths a year across the world. On top of that, 41,000 people die every year from secondhand smoke just in the United States.

Alcohol is also far more lethal than we want to think. Death by alcohol is normalized, and goes almost totally unnoticed. Our society has built a culture around alcohol abuse. It’s not too outlandish to say that underage alcoholism is promoted by other underage people. The ‘rush’ some people feel knowing that they are breaking the law and being nervous of being caught can heighten the experience for people. This can lead to addiction which leads to permanent damage and an early death. The prohibition should have opened more people’s eyes. It showed how much crime and death it brings to the world when you make people’s choices illegal. We should be able to put whatever we want into our bodies, because we are the ones who have to live in them. Is this not a free country?

There is a lot of violence over illegal drugs. Big cartels, gangs, the list goes on. Having our troops and police combat it will stop that? Maybe they could liberate a small town and try to eradicate it. Sure, that works. But does that sound like a good long term solution, at the cost of enormous amounts of money and numerous lives? Some people grow up around that violence and that is all they know. All it does is cause a cycle. A disgusting, depressing cycle, aided by the stereotypical and close-minded view of drugs and drug users. If you were to legalize all substances, all of that would end. You don’t see gangs shooting up people for stealing their alcohol now that it is legal. Al Capone for example at the height of his ‘career’ made 100 million in a year from drugs, especially alcohol during the prohibition. This just goes to show that making something illegal does not end anything. All that it does is cause violence and people to get hurt.

The government would also benefit from the legalization of drugs. Why spend money locking people up for using drugs? A college student decides to buy some adderall to help them type an essay for their english class. Someone reports them? They could be in jail for a year and have to pay $1000. Now they have a charge for having a schedule two drug on them, they aren’t at that college anymore, and they have a $1000 fine to pay. Regardless of how torn apart their life is now, we spent way too much money without even questioning it. “Anyone that uses drugs should be locked up forever” is a sentence I have heard too much. It costs the government $32,000 a year (in 2015) . According to BOP.gov, 46.1% of all people are in jail for drug related offences. If we do some quick math, (78511 x 32000) we are spending just over 2.5 BILLION dollars a YEAR for people to be in jail a year for drug related charges. Instead of spending all of that money on people being in jail (not including how much we put into the police, DEA, etc.) we could be fixing potholes, build better rehabilitation centers, get our veterans off the streets, stop sex trafficking, get rid of the stigma around ‘hard’ drug users,  the list goes on. Even with all the money that we would save from just the jail time, it would open up jobs for people to make drugs and help people learn to use moderation or get off of them. This would bring in money for the government so we could even lower taxes.

Another reason why the public would benefit from the decriminalization of drugs is because there are portions of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that are corrupt. Rosenberg sent out an email to 10,000 DEA agents telling them that they shouldn’t be afraid to rough up “thugs”. Why should drug dealers be treated worse than others when it comes to the law? This country was built on the idea that all men are created equal in the eyes of the law. Perhaps that would explain why “black” drugs have much higher punishments. For instance, mandatory sentencing for crack cocaine (a stereotypically black drug) is five times greater than the sentencing for powder cocaine (typically used in affluent white communities).

         The corruption with officers is also widespread. It is not unusual for them to get locked up for taking bribes, taking and reselling drugs, stealing money, and the list goes on. A lot of drug users aren’t drug addicts. Now, I am not saying that there aren’t any. However, a lot of drug users get treated like addicts. You wouldn’t treat a high schooler like a drug addict just because they take their dosage of prozac and lexapro every morning and panic when they don’t take them even though neither drugs are addictive. You wouldn’t call someone a drug addict who takes narcotic pain pills legally to deal with their pain and get withdrawals when they’re finally get off of them.  

Overall, I feel as though this should put into perspective why the criminalization of drugs is more harmful than helpful. It causes violence, people to unintentionally hurt themselves for lack of information, and has allowed too much corruption to exist. No more could people capitalize on prisoners just doing what they want with their body or them not being able to get the help they need. Many jobs could be created and we could tax the products they produce. People would no longer sit in fear just wanting to enjoy a drug recreationally. No more laced products that hurt people. So much good would come from this and it is almost always overlooked in favor of harsh punishments.