The Legalization of Drugs - Essay Example

Legalizing drugs can benefit society as a whole Proponents of drug legalization argue that the government’s drug policy, not drug abuse by individuals, is principally responsible for the observed relationship between drugs and crime. Drug laws make illicit drugs more expensive and higher drug prices increase crime because many serious drug users commit crimes to fund their habits. Violent crime among dealers is historically more clearly attributable to drug prohibition than it is among users. “When alcohol was an illicit drug, alcohol dealers settled their differences with firearms, just as cocaine dealers do today. But two liquor store owners are now no more likely to shoot one another than are two taxi drivers. Eliminate the drug laws, it is said, and most drug-related crime will also disappear” (Boyum & Kleiman, 2003). Some policy makers in the U.S. government are persuaded that the federal war on drugs, spurred on by media accounts of innocents victimized by drug-related violence, is a terrific failure. The governments fight, long and expensive, has not reduced the supply of illegal drugs on the streets of America. These policy makers, in an attempt to solve the drug problem have proposed legalizing drugs as an alternate strategy to a failed policy. Decriminalization supporters theorize that if marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs were legalized, several positive things would probably follow. Drug prices would fall enabling users to obtain their drugs at low, government-regulated prices. If prices were lower, users would not need to steal or to consort with true violent criminals in order to support their habits. “Levels of drug-related crime, and particularly violent crime, would significantly decline, resulting in less crowded courts, jails, and prisons thus allowing law-enforcement personnel to focus their energies on the violent criminals in society and the drug production, distribution, and sale would no longer be controlled by organized crime” (Inciardi & Saum, 1996). Concurring with this idea regarding the price of drugs, Kirby Cundiff (1994) said: “At the turn of the century, both heroin and aspirin were legally available and sold for approximately the same amount. Today aspirin can be purchased at the corner drug store for 20 cents per gram; heroin costs $50 per gram.” Due to the imprisonment risks now involved in its sale, the price of heroin rose drastically after it was deemed illegal. Before its criminalization, users could easily afford the drug and did not have to resort to theft. Taxpayers, through high crime rates caused by the war on drugs and high tax rates used to support the war on drugs, continue to fund this fruitless endeavor. Drug dealers, who are willing to kill each other for profits obtained from such a lucrative market and junkies, who cannot envision a life without the drug and are willing to rob and kill for money to support their habit, would not feel compelled to resort to these measures if drugs were legal and cheap. “During prohibition liquor store owners murdered each other to protect their turf just as drug dealers do today. Today, liquor store owners are generally peaceful. Eliminating the enormous profits involved in black-market businesses eliminates the motive for violent crime, and therefore the violent crime itself” (Cundiff, 1994). “According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1990 the United States spent $74.249 billion on justice system expenditures” (Maguire & Pastore, 1994). This figure includes federal, state, local, county and municipal expenditures. (1990 is the latest year for which data was available for the publication of the source book.) The major category of costs was police protection at $31.805 billion (42.8%) and corrections at $24.961 billion (33.6%). Between 1971 and 1990, the justice system expenditures have increased 606.0%. For the period 1979-1990, the figure is 185.3% and for the period 1985-1990, the figure is 62.8%. In the time frame since 1979, the percentage increase has been greatest for corrections. The expenditure for this activity increased 313.3% in the period 1979-1990 and increased 91.5% in the period 1985-1990 (BJS, 1992, p. 1). The war on drugs is policy based on morals, not on public health, and is taking a grave toll on the economics and civil liberties of our society. “The U.S. government is spending an enormous amount of money to wage this war – a figure that has exploded in the last two decades. In 1981, the federal drug control budget stood at $1.5 billion. By 1991, it was $11 billion. Today, it is $17 billion” (Sane, 1999). “In general, states that decriminalized marijuana possession in the 1970s reported savings in police and judicial resources” (Harrison, Backenheimer & Inciardi, 1995). Crime is on the rise overcrowding the prison system while inner cities are becoming unlivable decreasing chances for the economic revival in those areas, all as a consequence of a misguided war on drugs to prevent the misuse of drugs. These governmental drug programs have had very little if any reduction in the use of drugs but a great many innocent victims have had their lives ruined. “The harm which is being done by these programs is far greater than any conceivable good” (Friedman, 1991). “Most users of illegal drugs are not addicts, are employed, do not commit property crimes, and indeed are more likely to have crimes committed against them. Criminals gravitate toward the profits of dealing in drugs more often than drug use itself causes crime” (Rasmussen & Benson, 1994). Law enforcement has proved not to be an effective deterrence in drug use and have made the drug war less effective. The evidence shows that stricter enforcement laws have led to the use of even more potent and more dangerous drugs. Higher drug arrest rates have caused prison overcrowding and early releases of violent prisoners putting them back on the street which causes more problems and amplifies costs for the public both in personal terms and in judicial expenses. Drug dealers have resorted to juvenile street dealers, who face less severe sentences. “The escalation of enforcement increases property crime, violent crime, and corruption and does not reduce drug abuse and may increase it” (Rasmussen & Benson, 1994). There are only so many policemen on the street and as the police focus on drugs escalates, the protection of property and crimes involving bodily harm is thinned. When police raid an area known for drug traffic, the dealers disperse into new neighborhoods spreading violent crime outside the inner city. Stronger enforcement leads to higher drug prices which, in turn, instigate the cyclical effect of more dealers, more enforcement and less protection for the public. “For example, Illinois maintained its property crime rate while escalating the war on drugs, but traffic control and safety suffered, and the state’s highway death rate rose 1,200 percent faster than the national rate … The Comprehensive Crime Act of 1984 allowed local police to get money and therefore higher budgets from confiscated property involved in drug investigations” (Rasmussen & Benson, 1994). Police corruption, or at least the perception of it, has been suspect since this law was enacted. Police departments that are low in funds can simply plant drugs in a person’s car, then seize the car to be sold for profit. The dealers and law enforcement make a profit at the expense of not only civil liberties but in higher taxation for more police and prison related expenses. “The introduction of crack cocaine was a result, not the cause, of the augmented drug war. Public opinion did not generate it. Only two percent of people polled said that drugs were the most important problem in 1985, but 38 percent called it their most important concern in 1989, just as the drug war was being moved to the political back burner. Simply put, the police and judicial bureaucracies benefit from the drug war while dispensing justificatory propaganda and performing inefficiently at the public’s expense” (Rasmussen & Benson, 1994). In conclusion, drug laws serve to boost the cost of the drugs and heighten their appeal in terms of bringing more and more young people into the business of dealing in drugs. These higher prices mean more competition for prime selling positions and violent means of enforcing these territories. This results in a greater need for enforcement of the moral laws that define these drugs as illegal, forcing taxpayers to pay more in taxes to support these law enforcement programs even while suffering from a significant lack in police protection regarding safety and property. Meanwhile, the enforcement offices are increasingly viewed as corrupt as the doors open to them for widespread corruption and profit. By abolishing these laws, this cycle of abuse and domination is ended. References “A Sane Drug Policy.” (October, 1999). The Progressive. V. 63, I. 10, p. 8. Full text article available 7 February, 2006 from Bureau of Justice Statistics. (1992) Justice Expenditure and Employment, 1990. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice. Full text article available 7 February, 2006 from < http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cjee92.pdf> Boyum, David & Kleiman, Mark. (Summer 2003). “Breaking the Drug-Crime Link.” Public Interest. p. 19+. Full text article available 7 February, 2006 from Cundiff, Kirby. (August, 1994). “Crime and the Drug War.” Claustropobia. Full text article available 7 February, 2006 from < http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu:8001/Liberty/Tales/CrimeAndDrugWar.Html> Friedman, Milton. (1 November, 1991). “Economic Freedom, Human Freedom, Political Freedom.” CalState East Bay College of Business and Economics [speech]. Full text transcript available 7 February, 2006 from Harrison, Lana; Backenheimer, Michael & Inciardi, James. (1995). “Cannibis Use in the United States: Implications for Policy.” Cannabisbeleid in Duitsland, Frankrijk en de Verenigde Staten. Peter Cohen & Arjan Sas (Eds.) (1996). Amsterdam, Centrum voor Drugsonderzoek, Universiteit van Amsterdam. pp. 254-258. Available 7 February, 2006 from Inciardi, James & Saum, Christine. (Spring 1996). “Legalization Madness.” Public Interest. N. 123, p. 72+. Full text article available 7 February, 2006 from Maguire, Kathleen & Pastore, Ann (Eds.). 1994. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1993. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, USGPO. Rasmussen, David & Benson, Bruce. (Fall, 1994). “The Economic Anatomy of a Drug War: Criminal Justice in the Commons.” The Independent Review. V. 1, N. 2. Full text article available 7 February, 2006 from < http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=36&articleID=483> Read More