FREE ESSAY ON LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

Legalization of Drugs 
It is clear that most of the serious problems the public associates with illegal drug use
are, in reality, caused directly or indirectly by drug prohibition. Let's assume the war
on drugs is given up as the misguided enterprise it is. What will happen? The day after
legalization goes into effect, the streets of America will be safer. The American
citizens will no longer have to worry for their safety due to the drug dealers in their
community. One year after legalization, 1,600 innocent people who would otherwise have
been dead at the hands of drug criminals will be alive.
In many cities, half or more of arrests are for drugs or related crimes. Within days of
legalization, thousands of judges, prosecutors, and police will be free to catch, try,
and imprison violent criminals, criminals who commit 50 to 100 serious crimes, including
robbery, rape, and murder, per year when on the loose. For the first time in years, our
overcrowded prisons will have room for them. Ultimately, legalization will open 75,000
jail cells. Of 31,346 sentenced prisoners in federal institutions, those in for drug law
violations were the largest single category, of 9,487. Forty states are under court
orders for overcrowding. Funds are not available to build prisons fast enough to provide
the needed space. Violent criminals are being paroled early or are having their sentences
chopped to make space for drug users and dealers. Legalizing drugs would immediately
relieve the pressure on the prison system, since there would no longer be drug offenders
to incarcerate. And, since many drug users would no longer need to commit violent or
property crime to pay for their habits, there would be fewer drug criminals to house. 
Instead of building more prisons, we could pocket the money and still be safer. As a
consequence, all criminals have a much better chance of escaping detection and punishment
than if drugs were legal.
How about those slick young drug dealers who are the new role models for the youth of the
inner cities? With their designer clothes and Mercedes convertibles, being seen everyday
with a smug smile that says crime pays. They snicker at the honest kids going to school
or to work at the minimum wage. The day after legalization, the honest kids will have the
last laugh. The dealers will be out of a job, unemployed. The shoot-outs between drug
dealers will end. Innocent bystanders will not be murdered anymore. Hundreds of thousands
of drug addicts will no longer roam the streets, shoplifting, mugging, and breaking into
homes in the middle of the night to steal, and dealing violently with those who happen to
wake up.
Drug prohibition also accounts for much of the proliferation of handguns. Drug dealers
must enforce their own businesses and provide their own protection from predators, even
mules who deliver drugs need weapons. The drug dealers today are animals; they do not
care about any one but themselves, and the money they make. Packing a gun, like fancy
clothing or gold jewelry, has become a status symbol among many adolescents. Keep in mind
these kids would not think twice about shooting any one for their "drugs." In such an
atmosphere, other youngsters carry guns for the hope of protection. A decade ago, only
15% of teenagers who got into serious trouble in New York City were carrying guns, now
the rate is 60%-65
Creating incentives to steal and rob to buy drugs is not the only crime-inducing effect
of prohibition, perhaps not even the main one. This essay was to let you know the factual
problems that prohibition causes, mainly how prohibition effects us the U.S. citizens'.
In major cities, at least one-fourth of the killings is connected to the drug trade. The
victims of drug warfare are often innocent bystanders, even infants and school children.
After legalization goes into affect the streets of America will be safer.