Decriminalization of All Drug Usage

I will organize my arguments in three points: a) origin and cause of the War on Drugs, b) actual effects of the War on Drugs, and c) a coherent case for the legalization of most drugs. ARGUMENTS Point One: Origin and Cause The War on Drugs started out as a maneuver on political enemies of the Nixon administration, and interestingly, relatively recently, John Ehrlichman, former policy chief, actually admitted to its inherently sexist and bigoted origin. “The Nixon campaign in 1968,” Mr. Ehrlichman told Harper’s Magazine’s Dan Baum in April, “and the White House after that had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” [1]. Because you cannot deliberately and openly target these people using the powers and resources of the federal government, a cause attacking the very lifestyle of these people under a seemingly harmless and self-explanatory label—a war on drugs, a term coined by President Nixon himself while in office—had to be devised. “"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. " In simple terms, the antiwar left were hippies, and African-Americans—well, they were just political enemies of an apparently racist administration. Conventional wisdom was that these people used drugs at a higher rate than war-supporting Caucasians. Point Two: Effects of the War on Drugs The War on Drugs, simply put, is costly and wasteful. To enforce this war, the United States government pays fifty-one billion dollars annually [2]. About 758,000 individuals are arrested in a given year for a marijuana law violation. And, let’s keep it real here, most of us will unanimously agree that marijuana is one of the safest drugs and that it is hypocritical to criminalize it when tobacco and alcohol, which kill thousands more people, are still legal. Even though this is common sense to me, it might not be too common after all. Therefore, please look at these two sources: 1. . https://www.ucsf.edu... 2. . http://www.nbcnews.com... 70,000 people have died in Mexico’s drug war since ‘06, and about 200,000 students have lost financial aid eligibility due to a drug conviction. And 87% of marijuana law violations were primarily for the mere possession of the drug. Point Three: Case for Legalizing All Drugs The projected tax revenue of drug legalization would be $46.7 billion annually [2]. And ten years ago, Portugal legalized all drugs [3]. What happened? Tony O’Neill wrote in 2011, “For those looking for clues about how the U. S. government can tackle its domestic drug problem, the figures are enticing. Following decriminalization, Portugal eventually found itself with the lowest rates of marijuana usage in people over 15 in the EU: about 10%. Compare this to the 40% of people over 12 who regularly smoke pot in the U. S. , a country with some of the most punitive drugs laws in the developed world. Drug use of all kinds has declined in Portugal: Lifetime use among seventh to ninth graders fell from 14.01% to 10.6%. Lifetime heroin use among 16-18 year olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8%. And what about those horrific HIV infection rates that prompted the move in the first place? HIV infection rates among drug users fell by an incredible 17%, while drug related deaths were reduced by more than half. ‘There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,’ said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, at a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law. ” Law Enforcement Against Prohibition writes, “History has shown that drug prohibition reduces neither use nor abuse. After a rapist is arrested, there are fewer rapes. After a drug dealer is arrested, however, neither the supply nor the demand for drugs is seriously changed. The arrest merely creates a job opening for an endless stream of drug entrepreneurs who will take huge risks for the sake of the enormous profits created by prohibition. Prohibition costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars every year, yet 40 years and some 40 million arrests later, drugs are cheaper, more potent and far more widely used than at the beginning of this futile crusade. ” For certain drugs, though, I would advocate for the prohibition of their production and distribution but not their use. People tend to start using drugs either because a) they were peer pressured into it or b) they just wanted to experiment. You cannot treat drug usage as a criminal issue but rather a health issue. You cannot blame someone for a lifetime of drug use simply because of a stupid mistake. CONCLUSION I believe I have made a coherent case for the legalization of all drugs in the United States. I look forward to my opponent’s arguments, though, and await the chance to refute them. Might I also add, this is a curious article:. http://www.theatlantic.com... put, the solution to gang wars and cartel violence: Legalize drugs so that illegal markets disappear over time. SOURCES [1] . http://www.cnn.com... [2] . http://www.statisticbrain.com... [3] . http://www.alternet.org... [4] . http://www.leap.cc...