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Illegal drugs can be found in almost any community and despite many arrests, little progress is being made. I think it’s time we rethink the war on drugs.
The current strategy involves squashing illegal drugs, destruction of any illegal substances found and the incarceration of anyone in possession – which is an utter failure.
The fact of the matter is that destroying the supply of the drugs isn’t going to help anything if the demand remains strong. Anyone can make almost any illegal drug at any time in their home with products found at a grocery store.
If a man is addicted to methamphetamines, he is going to get his hands on some, even if he has to cook it himself.
If said man is arrested with meth on him and sentenced to time in prison, he’ll be back on it once he is released.
The same can be said for marijuana.The government can burn as many crops as it wants, but people always will be able to find some. Addicts are treated as the worst kinds of offenders. Drug users aren’t criminals, however; they often are people who have lost their way, who are missing something, and drugs fill that hole. If we can manage to help those people, we will eliminate the demand and therefore the supply.
What exactly do we do to win the war?
First off, we should legalize marijuana. Let’s forget that marijuana has killed zero people in recorded history, it contains no addicting substances and it has an almost infinite number of uses in the medical and textile industries. Marijuana is the most widely available illegal drug in the world.
Major drug dealers know it, and that is where they get the majority of their money.
Drug lords are all but running Mexico, and how can they afford to do it? Marijuana smuggled across the border. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 60 percent of the cartels’ profits come from marijuana.
If the United States and Mexico were to legalize marijuana, it could be taxed and regulated. Then all profits would be going into the pockets of businesses and the government instead of to criminals.
It would deal a major blow to the cartels, potentially even cutting into profits from other drugs. Marijuana is a gateway drug only because it is classified with other dangerous drugs such as heroin. If it were placed in the same group as alcohol and tobacco, things would change.
Our prisons are filled with people whose only crime was having marijuana in their possession; no murder, no rape, no theft, only a bag of dried up leaves. If we were to make a legalization act ex post facto, prisons would be freed up and police could use their time and money to go after the real criminals.
In Vancouver, Canada, there is a facility specifically for heroin addicts to come shoot up. It provides sterile equipment for addicts to use, instructions on how to safely inject and medical staff in case of an overdose.
For every overdose the facility has had, not one single person has died. And for those who survive an overdose and decide it’s time for a change, a rehabilitation clinic is right upstairs.
Addicts are helped, not by being sent to prison, but by being treated as humans and given an opportunity.
That approach would be a great experiment here in the States. If we can get junkies off the street and give them help, then heroin use most likely will begin to drop.
We could even develop similar facilities for every dangerous drug. Furthermore, if the facilities were allowed to sell the drugs, with proper regulatory and security measures, of course, then drug cartels would be out of a job.
If that were to happen, the war would be won.
2 comments
Abraham LincolnThe only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!