Pot in America

[Taem]

“Most countries take the point of view that drugs are detrimental to society and must therefore be outlawed, even when such policies fail to eliminate drug use.”

Quote from wikipedia on why drugs are outlawed.

Within the last several years, I have discussed this very subject with a wide variety of people, both intellectual and humble. The quick and dirty consensus from almost everyone is that the current laws in America on drugs simply do not make any sense, and that relaxing these laws would benefit America by lowering crime and reducing the cost of incarcerating drug offenders. On a personal level, I’m not entirely sure why drugs are illegal in America at all.

So this touches off on quite a number of caveats and questions in general. I have a lot of points to make and I'm sure each of these points could spawn its own topic, so I'll try and be brief in each section to leave room for debate.

#1) CONSTITUTION

What Constitutional amendment does using drugs violate? If anything, I’d think quite the opposite, that the founders of our great nation assumed that in this land of freedom, we had some liberties.

For information on the War on Drugs, read this link. However, I found this article written up by Paul Hager to be quite enlightening.

#1A) Alcohol, tobacco, and nicotine:
These are all legal drugs assuming your of age. Tobacco, and nicotine, while highly addictive, I can see why they are legal not only because the effects are very short term, but negligible on the senses unlike ‘illegal’ drugs. But alcohol does not fit into this category, so you have a serious contradiction of interests here with how the legal system works in regards to illegal drugs; or better put, how can alcohol be legal while other drugs such as marijuana are not?
#1B) Alternatives:
There should be consistency in the system – either drugs should be legal or illegal, or perhaps only certain drugs should be illegal based on the danger they pose to a society if people abuse it. How about the speed limit on cars? Supposedly, it is illegal to drive over the posted legal speed limit, yet people do it all the time. They get a ticked citation for it. How about a method like this for drugs to keep people out of prisons and generate income?

#2) DANGERS

As brought up in Paul Hagers article, the danger drugs present to us (to society) can make them a liability to every person walking the streets. So how do you control something like that? This of course has to be a huge reason for keeping the ban on drugs prevalent, however I think the solution to this problem is obvious! DUI’s for driving under the influence, safety check points, breathalyzers that can detect multiple drugs… Oh wait, all of these already exist! :rollseyes:

#2A) Addiction:
One facet I haven’t touched on with legalizing drugs is the addiction factor to be considered that is inherent with the abuse of substances (and I’m sure some could argue video games and gambling quantify also). Drug addiction can be a life altering experience, ruining a families wellbeing for generations to come. But if people used drugs legally and recreationally, would the propensity to abuse the substance for the feeling of “breaking the law” still apply? How about some real world models: the Netherlands takes an interesting approach. Read the part about, “Implications of international law” for a possible reason America feels the need to be part of this War on Drugs. Seems the Netherlands has less of a problem than other countries do:

In the Netherlands 9.7% of young adults (aged 15–24) consume soft drugs once a month, comparable to the level in Italy (10.9%) and Germany (9.9%) and less than in the UK (15.8%) and Spain (16.4%), but higher than in, for example, Sweden (3%), Finland or Greece. Dutch rates of drug use are lower than U.S. rates in every category. The monthly prevalence of drugs other than cannabis among young people (15-24) was 4% in 2004, that was above the average (3%) of 15 compared countries in EU. However, seemingly few transcend to becoming problem drug users (0.3%), well below the average (0.52%) of the same compared countries.

#2B) Disease:
Of course with drug usage, disease transmittal goes up. For example, in prisons, those who share needles are 5.1% more likely to have AIDS than someone in prison who does not.
#2C) Change:
History tells us that in America, unless drug policies are enforced, people naturally choose to abuse substances leading to… well I’m not entirely sure, but in the 1920's and 1960's, America felt threatened enough by it to enact certain laws to forbid drugs! In a society of freedoms however, this should be a choice of the individual, however the country sees this as a threat to its way of life whenever a drug movement occurs. So if drugs were to be made legal, they would have to be treated similar to how I said in #1B: Alternatives.

#3) MONEY

I believe America could save lots of money by changing their policy on drugs and I state my reasoning below:

#3A) Incarceration:
The facts don’t lie! “253,300 for drug offenses” out of 1,296,700 inmates for state prisons. That’s 19.53% non-violent drug offenders. If drugs were legal, how much money could that save? Well on that link it shows how much each prisoner costs to feed and board, so you do the math! Besides this, I have heard that when an inmate goes to prison, this often causes them to become criminals if they weren't before, and better criminals if they were already. I'll have to scour the net to fact check this however.
#3B) Taxes:
Should the US government decide to make certain drugs legal and then apply a special tax to each sale thereof, the amount of income they could make as opposed to fighting this War on Drugs is staggering. One side of the coin creates costs, the other creates income… There are so many links to "cigarette tax" its ridiculous, so please don't ask me to post a link. Besides, everyone in America already knows cigarettes are taxed exorbitantly.

#4) WHAT ELSE?

So, if drugs were illegal for being bad for oneself (the ones which are legal suffer huge fines levied against them, i.e. tobacco), then why is skydiving, base jumping, and other obviously dangerous stunts legal?!? If we’re talking about personal well being and addiction, there is no other reason to be doing those things recreationally except for an adrenaline high; these people are adrenaline junkies, except for these people risking their lives, its legal. I don’t get it.

#SOLUTION#

It is in my opinion that if the powers that be decided to allow only naturally grown drugs for recreational use, banning chemically made or refined drugs of any sort, then this would:

*) stop a huge majority of drug trafficking (and consequently violence)
*) save a ton of money (on inmates, DEA)
*) earn a ton of money (taxes, if not direct sales of product)
*) reduce drug abuse (see my example of Netherlands/Amsterdam)

The laws for DUI’s would be the same for all drugs. Breathalyzers could be adjusted for THC (see my example above). Not much would have to change, and with the current laws for alcohol being the model for the rest of the recreational drugs, there would be no new drug movement similar to the 1920’s or the 1960’s so an social uprising would not be problematic.

[MISTAKE]
Fines for possessing chemically altered or refined drugs would have to be steep as a deep deterrent, such as an automatic 10-year prison sentence for possession or sales of if proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why do I say this? Because I believe some drugs are simply too dangerous for people to use without a prescription, especially chemically altered and refined drugs (i.e. crystal methamphetamine, heroine - originally from the opium plant, LSD, etc). That's the way I'd change the system if I had my way.
[/MISTAKE]

EDIT#2-MISTAKE: My bad. My bed time is 11:00-P.M., but I was writing this post at 1:30-A.M. and I guess I deleted part of my post and kept another part I meant to delete - ideas just flowing through my head. I actually started this document a few days ago and was trying to tidy it up and post it last night. Anyways, what I meant believe it or not - and I think you'll find this fits in better with everything I have been saying in this entire post - is that in my opinion, chemically altered and refined drugs should be monitored for potential backlash in society because of the danger they pose to others in regards to the potency and addictive quality they cause, and that people who abuse substances (any) continually to the determent of society or those around them should be cited, like a speeding ticket, and if enough of these build up, drug counseling and if that does not work, then prison time. Somehow, the part about monitoring chemically refined drugs got totally screwed up in that last part of my post and needed to be corrected.

EDIT: And one more final note; I'd like to point out that I personally don't use any drugs and only consume roughly four to six alcoholic beverages in a year so changing the laws on drugs would not benefit me personally, however I feel the pros outweigh the cons drastically in terms of everything I already said above (less prisoners = more money + less violence; that's one good equation).