The United States Should Legalize All Recreational Drugs

Opening Statements My Arguments will be seperated into 5 parts, with subsections for the first 3 parts. 1. Prohibition has Failed The purpose of drug prohibition is to prevent the recreational use of the prohibited drugs. After decades of using American resources, time, and effort, has prohibition been effective in achieving this goal? Drug Use According to The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, illicit drug use among persons aged 12 or older has gone up from 8.3% to 9.2% between the years 2002 and 2012. Out of those drugs, Marijuana usage has gone up considerably higher, from 6.2% to 7.3%. Psychotherapeutics use has remained similar, starting at 2.7% and ending at 2.6% between these years. Hallucinogens has also remained similar, starting at .5% in 2002 and ending at .4%. Some of the exceptions to the increasing or similar drug rates are cocaine, from .9% to .6% use, and methamphetamine, which dropped from .3% to .2%.(1) What can be taken from these statistics is that the drug war over the past decade has had little to no results in decreasing illicit drug use. The amount of people using illegal drugs has actually gone up, showing the failure of prohibition to end drug use. Drug Trafficking One important factor in achieving the goals of prohibition is to prevent drugs from getting into the hands of those who desire them. One may hear of the successes of the DEA in seizing large quantities of a variety of illicit drugs. But have these seizures made a meaningful impact in preventing drug supply nationwide? In the table below, the change in drug price and purity for heroin, cocaine, and marijuana over time are shown. This can be compared to the table below that, which shows the amount of drugs seized in the same time frame. What can be concluded from this data is that “the global supply of illicit drugs has likely not been reduced in the previous two decades.”(2) Since drug supply of illicit drug use has not been reduced, even after decades of effort, it is evident that the war on drugs is a failure. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "The largest income for transnational organized crime comes from illicit drugs, which account for some 20% (17%-25%) of all crime proceeds, about half of transnational organized crime proceeds and 0.6% to 0.9% of global GDP.”(3) What can be taken from this is the drug trade is still alive and well, noting that the more than .6% of the total Gross domestic product of the entire planet is derived from drugs. 2. Human Harm Every so often, you may find something on the news about a violent attack by drug cartels and gangs. One may think, “wow what a horrible thing to happen”, and then move on to thinking about something else. The violence, kidnappings, beheadings, and torture all has its roots in the high payoff of being able to smuggle drugs across US-Mexican border successfully. Mexico Mexico’s drug war has cost 70,000 lives since 2006, yet drugs still flood across the border. (4) This ongoing war has been extremely gruesome, with the belligerents being the Mexican government backed by the US, and the powerful drug cartels located in the various states of Mexico. As the number of deaths continue to climb, one can only imagine how influential our war on drugs here in the US is to hundreds of thousands of lives in our neighboring country. Colombia In Colombia, there have been 450,000 homicides since 1990, which is largely attributed to the war on cocaine there. (5) This gigantic number increases every day, as the war on drugs within that country continues. The amount of money the Colombian government has spent on this war is in the billions annually. Venezuela “There have been 43,792 homicides in Venezuela since 2007.”(6) Also said in the article was “In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.” This puts in to perspective the enormous damage the war on drugs hascaused. Although one could not say, if drugs prohibition ended, all the homicides would stop, the resources and motivation for a large portion of these deaths would be removed. The homicide rates would decrease substantially if the engine of gangs and cartels, the profits of illicit drugs, was cut off.3. Economic Harm In total, America has spent more than $1 trillion on the Drug War. (7) Ever since 1970, when Nixon’s war on drugs began, the amount of money put into the war has risen drastically. “His first drug-fighting budget was $100 million. Now it's $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon's amount even when adjusted for inflation.” According to the Cato Institute, "This report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. Of these savings, $25.7 billion would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government. Approximately $8.7 billion of the savings would result from legalization of marijuana and $32.6 billion from legalization of other drugs. "The report also estimates that drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. Approximately $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana and $38.0 billion from legalization of other drugs." (8) We spend billions every year on a war that has failed. This is not only unfair to the American tax payers, it’s unfair to the other countries that have also spent billions of dollars to prevent profitable recreational drugs from reaching our borders. 4. Rebuttals “Recreational drugs represent the short term spur or benefit to the user. An analogy being a hamburger - it may satisfy your hunger for the first 3 minutes yet your hunger will return again. Although one may argue this analogy is distant to the topic, I would say recreational drugs may help for a short period of time, however their long term effects are far more dangerous.” This debate is not about whether or not recreational drugs are beneficial to human health. It’s about whether or not drugs prohibition should or should not be in place. Personally, I am not a fan of recreational drugs and wouldn’t recommend anyone do them. This is not the purpose of this debate though. “For this reason, they should not exist as it is far healthier for a human to be ok in the long run than in a short burst of time. Almost forgot to say that they can also be addictive. Where do their benefits exist? And if somehow the question is answered, answer this one: "Why should they legalize recreational drugs?"” I need not answer the question, “Where do their benefits exist?”, if I can answer the question, “Why should they legalize recreational drugs?” with completely unrelated reasons. As demonstrated above, there are an ample amount of reasons to support the legalization of recreational drugs, completely unrelated to whether or not they are healthy.5. ConclusionThe war on drugs has been fought relentlessly for decades, not only by the United States, but by countries worldwide. Because prohibition has failed, the economic harm is enormous, and the human harm is devastating, the United States should legalize all recreational drugs. The country would benefit greatly from the increase in money. It could allow us to focus our resources on rehabilitation/education as opposed to punishment. It could save 100,000s of people from being victims to the war on drug war. Vote Pro. Sources: 1. http://tinyurl.com...; 2. http://tinyurl.com...3. http://tinyurl.com...4. http://tinyurl.com... 5. http://tinyurl.com... 6. http://tinyurl.com... 7. http://tinyurl.com... 8. http://tinyurl.com...