Drug Legalization
Drug LegalizationEvery year 100,000 babies are born addicted to cocaine. I hope to show you through this paper that legalizing drugs would only bring more problems to our already corrupt world. I have several arguments against the legalization of drugs such as: the many medical myths of marijuana; crime, violence, and drug use go hand in hand; an individual’s choice to use drugs; and the increase in government due to the legalization of drugs.
There are over 10,000 studies proving the harmful addictive effects of marijuana. Yet there is not even one that shows marijuana having any medical value whatsoever. There are numerous consequences to marijuana use such as: general apathy, memory loss, hostility, increased aggressiveness, and premature cancer. Marijuana offers both the intoxicating effects of alcohol and the long term lung damage of tobacco. The shocking association between marijuana use and the use of harder drugs is very convincing. Twelve to seventeen year olds who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who do not. Sixty percent of adolescents who use marijuana before age 15 will later use cocaine. Many of the chemicals in marijuana are very toxic, psychoactive chemicals that are virtually unstudied and often appear in uncontrolled strengths. Marijuana has been promoted to assist people with the treatment of AIDS when in fact scientific studies prove that marijuana damages the immune system. Therefore causing HIV-positive marijuana smokers to progress to full-blown AIDS twice as fast as non marijuana smokers. The medical movement has greatly contributed to a changing of attitudes among teens that marijuana is harmless. This softening in anti-drug attitudes has led to a 140 percent increase in drug use among high school aged students.
My second point is that crime will not be reduced by legalizing drugs. “Studies show a correlation between drug use and crime — violent crimes such as, homicide, assaults, and domestic violence. Why is this? It’s quite simple — drugs cause violent behavior.” (Gargaro, 2). A study done by the National Institute of Justice states that of males arrested in 1993, the percent testing positive for drugs at time of arrest, ranged from 54 percent in Omaha to 81 percent in Chicago. Among females arrestees the percents ranged from 42 percent in San Antonio to 83 percent in Manhattan. Proponents for drug legalization state that drug users commit crimes to pay for drugs. They believe that if drugs were legal then the black market and criminal activity associated with drugs would be virtually eliminated. How exactly would this work? Government would obviously place a legal purchasing age on drugs just as they have for alcohol and tobacco. For example if the legal purchasing age for drugs was 18, then drug traffickers would still go after those 17 and under. In...
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