Legalize It!

Legalize It!


     Many feel today we are loosing the war on drugs.  When a battle goes to

the point where there is no winner there needs to be a re-evaluation of how to

solve the problem.  In the case of the war against drugs, years of fighting have

caused increased crime, overcrowding of prisons and the wasted use of money and

resources with no results.  It is now time to look at alternative methods to

solving the nation's drug problem.  I will be looking at one of these methods

that deals with the legalization of marijuana.  In the following pages you can

look at why I think there is a problem in the United States which deals with the

use of drugs, our solutions to the problem and our responses to the attacks

against the legalization of marijuana.

     Although, legalization will increase use of the drug.  However, many

supporters of continuing the illegalization of drugs believe that by legalizing

drugs they will become more accessible and use will therefore increase.  They

base this argument on past experiment dealing with alcohol prohibition.  After

the end of prohibition with the 21st amendment, alcohol consumption doubled

while prohibition decreased use by 50 percent(Light).  They also cite that use

of marijuana peaked in 1979 when there was a decriminalization of drug use by

eleven states.  When researching to find if a particular solution will prove to

be of use, it is important to look at historical examples and learn from them.

In Liverpool, England, after a recent legalization of drugs in a regulatory

program that focuses on the medical benefits of drugs, most drug pushers have

left town because there is no longer a market for them(Priver 28).  This shows

that legalization actually decreases use because of the increased emphasis on

rehabilitation and the decrease of drug pushers.  Such a dramatic decrease in

drug dealers has not only resulted in crime reduction in England but there was

also a decrease of drug use.

     It is true, legalization will not eliminate the major cause of violent

crime; however, most argumentation which says that drug legalization will not

decrease crime deals with the idea that most violent crime occurs as a result of

alcohol use(Light).  Since this is true, and legalization would not effect crime

that is alcohol related but it will decrease violent crime that is linked to

drug dealing and use.  The drugs themselves may not cause violent crime but

people involved in the distributing of illicit drugs make the deadliest crime.

By legalizin
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