WHY DRUGS SHOULD BE LEGAL

          Richard Nixon first declared the official war on drugs in 1971, although the crusade against them has gone back to as early as 1914. Decades later, the drug war is still going strong and has no realistic end in sight. How can this war be won? The fact is that it cannot be won. The drug problem is far too big for any government to solve, let alone one as clumsy and inefficient as ours. Millions of dollars go to fighting this unwinnable war. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars go to military aid in Columbia alone, and yet the cocaine trade continues to flood into the country mostly unharmed. In June of 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy publicly stated "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." In Mexico, nearly 50,000 civilians have died and hundreds are kidnapped everyday as a result of their war on drugs and the various cartels are still as powerful and corrupting as they have ever been. Here in America, there are hundreds of non-violent drugs offenders in prison just because they were (for better or worse) living their lives as they saw fit. 

            Drugs illegality gives over the entire market to the criminal element of society, virtually handing over a monopoly into the hands of those who rarely have anything higher than a high school education. The result is nothing but corrupt or dead law enforcement individuals (Cops, Judges ect.) murdered civilians who just got mixed up in things, and the occasional cocaine or heroine seizure. The fact that big pharmaceutical companies cannot sell drugs has been a 24/7 black Friday for gangs and cartels. The cost to make drugs is actually very low. Their high price comes from the money needed to smuggle the drugs into the country. If drugs were legal then pharmaceutical companies would begin to sell them at much cheaper prices, thus destroying the cartels profits. There is no realistic way that some thugs producing meth out of a warehouse can compete with the resources of bigger, more efficient professional companies.

           There are few responses to this epidemic and none of them are pretty. The legalization of drugs is not a perfect, end all solution. An addict will still be able to get his/her fix, but with vastly cheaper prices they would be able to support their addiction for much less than what it would usually cost. This finical freedom would allow most to not be driven to desperate measures such as to steal, kill or turn to prostitution for money to maintain their habit. Those against the legalization of drugs cannot accept a very simple truth; that they have neither the right, nor the competence to run other peoples lives. Drugs can be hideous things and this would be a much better world  if they had not been discovered. Many thousands of lives have been lost to drugs, and this is not counting those that have been ruined or de-humanized by the needle. But it is a dangerous illusion that we can stomp out every vice through legislation and force.