Please imagine, if you were a mother, and your son used drugs under the drug legalization, how would you feel? In this situation, would you support drug legalization? In the real world, in America, over the past two decades the public attitude has changed: possession of small amounts of marijuana is legal in sixteen states, and twenty-two states have legalized it for medical purpose. In fact, drugs such as marijuana harm society in several ways, for example, through the various effects of intoxication, and damage to both victims’ families and their own individual social lives. Moreover, drugs harm general citizens through the costs to systems of health care, social care, and police (Nutt, The Lancet). Often, people who are proposing drug legalization are mostly affluent, well-educated and socially distant from drug addictions (Sadofsky 1). The public needs more accurate and overall knowledge about drug abuse’s influences, because they underestimate the harm to health and increase in crimes, and misunderstand the true meanings of human rights. Despite the recent trend, legalization of drugs and their abuse causes problems rather than solves them, and so legalization and resulting drug abuse should be prohibited.
Opponents of drug prohibition claim that prohibition caused the same unnecessary death, disease, crime and addiction as today’s prohibition and was equally futile in preventing the consequences of drug use, but they lack persuasive data. Barcott advocates for legalizing the drug, because that may lead to a decrease in crimes (2). In his words, those strict restrictions will recreate black markets behind the legal regulations. He treats people who suffer from drug abuse as patients rather than criminals, and argues that drug abuse is not a sign of criminal immorality, but a personal mental health issue. Furthermore, Campbell predicts while fostering restrictions on clean needles, the users may share dirty needles with others, and the quality of drugs may become difficult to control. Based on these possibilities, he states that “prohibition spreads HIV” (Par. 1).
Although these arguments present drug prohibition may cause these challenges, those challenges are unclear and we have some more effective ways to overcome them. First of all, “supply definitely generates increased drug use” (Sadofsky 3). Legalization would increase the number of drug users, which means it will only make a bad situation more dangerous. Even for the medical care, painkillers have a high potential for physical addiction. Painkillers, from the name might lead people to think this drug is just for healing and good for curing disease. That is true. Painkillers can relief patient’s pain and lead them escape from the challenges temporary, but at the same time, many people who develop an addiction to prescription painkillers are struggling with co-occurring mental illness, such as depression and anxiety disorder. Sabet (United States, 3) mentions that marijuana-crazed teens suffer from paranoia, too. Although drug laws may result in a black market that leads to an increase in violence and property crimes, this is a negative reason to allow drug abuse. Also, it is medically established that HIV is spread mostly through four bodily fluids. Therefore, we could prevent HIV from several other ways, not only by legalizing the drugs, because drug abuse is not the direct cause of HIV.
In the second argument, the opponents of drug prohibition claim that the adults have an inalienable right to place what they choose in their bodies (Campbell 2). They consider the system of legalization will better protect human rights. For example, Barcott, an American editor, environmental journalist and author, mentions that our grandparents and great-grand parents had the “wisdom” to end alcohol prohibition in 1933. He affirms that following the trends of legalization of tobacco and alcohol, it is better to legalize the drug and provide people the responsibilities of everyday life.
Although these points are valid and appeal to people’s passion of seeking freedom, tobacco and alcohol are explicitly different from drugs. As Sabet said in the third paragraph, the harm of drug abuse exceeds our imagination. Indeed, these days, African Americans have already gained certain rights to vote, women too, and LGBT people achieved the legal rights. With this general trend of increasing personal freedom around the planet, the only logical result is a steadfast mental and behavioral decline of humanity. However, expanding diversity and respecting human rights are totally different from legalizing the drugs, because people should not be allowed to have unlimited freedom. Most humans are not capable of wisely using their freedom, and so they must be restrained and managed by rules or by those who know what’s best for that individual more than the individual himself. For example, we need some certain laws to control our desires. Unless people are limited in the personal decisions they’re able to make, they will continue to hurt themselves and others. We have to be courageous and say no to the injustice.
In analyzing the impact of drug legalization, there are many bad influences that we can easily predict from legalization of drug use; people may use drugs more openly, misuse them more commonly, and underestimate the harmfulness of drugs. Other than those unclear problems (such as HIV spreading and crimes increasing) that may be caused by drug prohibition, there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the reality of legalization that we need to face: “Whose taxes will pay for the thousands of babies born drug-addicted?” “What responsibility will our society have to these children as they grow and have problems as a result of their drug use?” According to one research, nine-hundred billion dollars will be necessary to pay for the medical care and Medicaid for the victims of drug abuse. We need to consider: “Who has to pay for these increasing costs of medical care?” Also, it is worth to mention that most legalization experts cannot answer this question: “Can we set up a legalization pilot program in your neighborhood?” (Sadofsky 5)
In conclusion, now we do not have enough persuasive reasons to legalize drug abuse, yet many reasons show that drug legalization should be completely abolished. When we were small, our parents often made some “strict” rules to educate us. Sometimes we felt irritated by their teachings, but these rules come from the true concern for our happiness, health and security. If people truly care about others’ happiness, health and security, we need to prohibit drug legalization. If we are still against the prohibition of drug abuse, does it not seem we are still a little boy or girl who cannot listen to their parents’ teaching? Please give up the thinking of gaining money from drug users, because that is not the humane thing that we should do for others. Although in today’s world, there is a tendency to legalize drug abuse, people need to accumulate the accurate and overall knowledge about the drug first. Also, reconsider the true meaning of human rights. There are some people who agree with legalization, but in real life, they do not take any responsibly for drug users. The people who affirm legalization were not using the drug. They do not totally understand the harm of drug abuse. Turning a blind eye towards legalizing the drug and allowing them are same as using the drugs. Despite the recent trend, legalization of drugs and their abuse has more possibility to make the world better. Therefore, the inevitable responsibilities of our human beings are to prohibit the legalization and resulting drug abuse.