Why All Drugs Should Be Legalized
By: Zach Adams
Tags: Portugal, Legalization, Drugs Addiction, Oregon, Drugs

The war on drugs has failed. All drugs should be decriminalized. This war has disproportionately targeted minorities which led to black people accounting for nearly half of all drug offences, filling up prisons, even though drug use is usually evenly distributed between races. The race issues that come with the drug war have been shown to have a profound impact on black americans. They are six times more likely to be convicted for drug related crimes compared to other races. Statistically, a black convict with drug charges will serve the same amount of time that a white convict would for a violent crime. A report done by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission says that by decriminalizing drugs racial drug arrests could drop by 95%. Portugal has had drugs decriminalized for 20 years and still has less drug use than europe or the United States. This is including the economic situations Portugal has been in since then.

In 1920 prohibition made alcohol illegal. Alcohol consumption fell for about a year, but then sharply increased. With this increase came organized crime syndicates, alcohol that wasn’t made correctly, among a myriad of other issues. Some consumers switched to other substances.

These consumers can be an example, such as people who have stopped using illegal substances and instead drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes all day, because they are the only substance that is legal.

The war on drugs has cost the United States more than 1 trillion dollars so far and continues to cost taxpayers an estimated 51 billion dollars per year. “the drug war has repeatedly led to waste, fraud, corruption, violence, and death.” Drug policy reform has taken place in many states along with many countries, but our country as a whole has yet to follow the lead.

Prohibition creates problems for everyone from society, dealers, and consumers. Dealers have to be able to incur the prices/fines that come with the charges if they are caught. Consumers are always looking to get more out of their money so more potent drugs may look cheaper in their eyes. Substances can also be tainted or poisoned and there is no recourse because it is an illicit substance and consumers may fear of getting thrown in jail or fined if they go to the authorities. The problem for society comes with organized crime and how prohibition helps them thrive and mark up their goods, with all transactions being secretive.

Some people that do not want drugs legal are scared of the violence that comes with it, but it is prohibition that sets up the violence because since the substance is illegal, there is no other way to deal with problems or else the legal system may get that person in trouble as well. “The lack of legal channels combined with automatic criminalization lowers the cost of engaging in criminal activity and increases the benefit of using violence. It follows that the prohibition of drugs may be the primary cause of crime in the drug market, not the physical effects of use.”

In america someone is arrested for drug possession every 25 seconds, that’s less than a minute! A fifth of all inmates in the United States are there for drug-related offenses. An estimated 7 million dollars could be saved by taxpayers and more could probably be gained through taxes if marijuana was legalized federally. More people die from an opioid overdose than motor accidents, one overdose almost every 15 minutes. In two years 2014–2016 the opioid epidemic made fatal opioid overdoses increase almost 50 percent. The United States is less than 5 percent of the global population, but accounts for about 80% of all of the opioid products used worldwide. Putting people in prison for drug related crimes has been shown to barely have any impact on use rates, however the chances of overdose skyrocket right after drug users leave jail/prison.

Harm reduction programs have been very helpful to many places around the world, just showing how different we can treat drugs. Narcan has helped many cities lower their numbers of overdoses. Syringe access programs have also helped many addicts keep clean and not have to share needles. What does not help, is when some states require a prescription to get clean needles. Some international cities also have places that are very clean and hygienic for medical staff to stay and watch others use intravenous or other drugs that have already been obtained, so they can be helped if they become unresponsive or some other problem. Drug courts have also popped up to help addicts and sentence them to recovery instead of prison or another felony that can harm their chances of getting a job. A report showed that a quarter of everyone sentenced to recovery programs was able to get clean and live a clean life.

The country of Portugal has had all drugs decriminalized almost 20 years, since 2001. Since then the country’s HIV Infection, crime that is drug-related, and overdoses have decreased strikingly. One story from the guardian recounts, “ Álvaro Pereira was working as a family doctor in Olhão in southern Portugal. “People were injecting themselves in the street, in public squares, in gardens,” he told me. “At that time, not a day passed when there wasn’t a robbery at a local business, or a mugging.”. This is a story from about the 80’s, since then Portugal realized they had to do something. The country’s old leader from around the 50’s that went on until the 70’s had blocked the country off to higher education and other outside sources, this meant the country never experienced the open-mindedness that occurred in the 60’s and were ripe for their own expansion (in the 80’s after leader was assassinated in a coup). In 2001 after 20 years of being hit hard with all sorts of drug use, including gangs, the country decided to decriminalize all drugs and to fine or have someone caught with a small amount talk to a social worker. Their opioid crisis, not unlike ours, was curbed because of decriminalization in the years following the decriminalization measure. Portugal still has a crisis even though it has been decreased dramatically. Locals have reported that government officials haven’t been to enthusiastic about opening supervised using facilities, or even making naloxone (Narcan) readily available to the public.

The country also found that because of the social work and hospitalization instead of going to jail it helped the community work together like employment offices with social workers, or a psychiatrist with police. People also found that people referred to as their languages “Junkies” turned into “just people with addiction disorder”. The guardian found this was also essential in the change of how people with addiction are viewed.

(This was a paper/essay I wrote for an argumentative topic in my engwr300 college class)