Drug Prohibition

First let me thank you for the opportunity to debate this important issue. *Drug Prohibition has been an utter failure. It has many unintended consequences, while not even achieving its intended goal of deterring drug use* At a glance, this may appear to be the case, statistics however do not support your argument. The United States has seen a drop in the rate of drug abuse over the past 20 years of more than a third. The current overall rate of abuse is roughly five percent of the population. *A cost-benefit analysis would clearly favor ending drug prohibition......Considering it doesn't even succeed in it's goal, the costs greatly outweigh the benefits.* In 2000, the federal drug control budget was around $11.5 billion, in 2002, the federal government spent less than $19 billion on drug control. When speaking of federal dollars those are miniscule amounts. Your argument assumes that once legalized, the government would no longer be spending those dollars on drug control. Simply not true. Those amounts represent the drug control budget in its entirety. Not simply enforcement, but treatment, education, and prevention as well. The cost to the American taxpayer would inrease exponentially if drugs were legalized. Let us disregard enforcement for the moment and focus on education, treatment, and prevention. The cost of those three alone would no doubt be enormous. The New England Journal of Medicine has estimated a 10 fold increase in the number of cocaine addicts were it to be legalized. This has actually been demonstrated in communities where the use of marijuana has been decriminilized. Those communities witnessed an increase in frequent marijuana use of at least 600 percent. Obviously, cocaine and other illegal drugs are much more addictive than marijuana which would result in even greater rates of addiction. The treatment for which you, I, and every other American taxpayer would have to fund. The increased rate of abuse and addiction would then necessitate an increase in spending on prevention and education. Now to address enforcement. The cost of that too would increase greatly. *Secondly, The black market for drugs creates crime and anarchy. A drug user or dealer can not notify authorities if he is not paid for his services or his merchandise is stolen; there is also no law to enforce a contract. In order for drug users and dealers to protect themselves and there property, they must arm themselves and take matters into their own hands; thus creating anarchy. Thirdly, The black market for drugs creates an illegal economy in poor communities that advocates and promotes laziness, dishonesty, and discourages youths from getting an education. In poor communities drug dealer is often considered successful entrepreneur. Kids start to think, "why should I go get a job or go to college when I can make easy money dealing drugs?" A superior court judge in California, James Grey said, "We are recruiting children [to be drug dealers]in barrios all over the county because of drug money... The money to be made from the sale of illegal drugs is a bigger problem than the drugs themselves."* Your argument assumes the elimination of the black market. Currently, one of the drug pushers primary targets is children. Obviously any legalization of drugs would carry age restrictions. I think it would be safe to assume the legal age to purchase drugs would be 21. Unless you are suggesting that there be NO age restriction you are still leaving open the drug cartels' key demographic; youths aged 12-20. To compound that, you would also likely be combating a much more aggresive black market since they would want to make up as much as possible the business they were losing on those 21 and over. A Justice Department study found that those under the influence of drugs comitted murder at 6 times the rate of those simply looking for a way to get drugs. By legalizing drugs you would not only be creating more addicts but it highly likely you would see a significant increase in the murder rate. By legalizing mood altering drugs you would most definitely see a DRAMATIC increase in domestic violence, assault, rape, etc. One need only watch an episode of COPS to see how overburdened our police officers are already just dealing with run of the mill drunks. Adding legalized drugs to the mix would create an ENORMOUS need for more and more officers, jailers, etc. The anarchy you seem to think would suddenly disappear would not. It would increase. *Lastly, It is infuriating that a government can draft a citizen and force him to unwillingly risk his life, but that same person can't do drugs because it might harm his body.* On this point, I would submit that the criminilization of drugs is not because it might harm YOUR body but the overall harm to and burden upon society.