Ending the misery caused by drug trafficking requires full legalization – legalizing the production, transportation and sale of currently illegal drugs – not just decriminalization. The biggest obstacle to reform is uncertainty about how a legal market works. Looking at this crisis, I slowly but surely realized that full legalization may not be the right answer to the war on drugs. Perhaps the U.S. simply cannot regulate these potentially lethal substances in a legal environment. Perhaps some form of prohibition – albeit less stringent than the one we have today – is the right way to go. Human rights organizations and legal experts have argued that drug prohibition inevitably leads to police corruption. [131] [132] [133] [134] The main solutions to the drug problem are supply-side and demand-driven. Supply-side solutions include initiatives to pressure drug-producing countries to stop exporting illicit drugs, intercept drugs before smugglers can get them across U.S.
borders, pass tougher drug laws, crack down on drug traffickers, and sentence drug manufacturers and traffickers to long prison terms. Demand-side solutions include education and drug treatment. A more radical approach proposes legalization (in other words, removing the drug offence from the penal code) as the only viable solution. Few things restrict people`s freedom as much as the consequences of violence, drugs and crime in society. Several drugs such as dimethyltryptamine,[148] morphine,[149] and GHB[150] are illegal to possess, but also inherently present in all humans as a result of endogenous synthesis. Since some jurisdictions classify drug possession so that the drug is present in all concentrations in the blood, all residents of these jurisdictions are technically in possession of multiple illicit drugs at all times. [151] This is exactly what anti-legalization activists have warned against: companies obtain a dangerous and addictive product, market it irresponsibly, and advocate lax rules. The government`s regulatory response has stalled. The government has even collaborated with pharmaceutical companies in some cases – under the influence of lobbying, campaign contributions, and drug-funded interest groups. And people became addicted and died. Drug money has been identified as the main source of income for terrorist organizations.
Critics say legalization would eliminate this central source of support for terrorism. [130] While politicians accuse drug users of being a major source of terrorist financing,[116] no clear evidence of this link has been presented. U.S. government agencies and government officials have been caught trafficking drugs to fund U.S.-backed terrorist actions at events such as the Iran-Contra case and Manuel Noriega, but the isolated nature of these events prevents them from being major sources of funding. [109] Unfortunately, the U.S. government – including the Clinton administration – has done little to improve the debate. Although he has always opposed a withdrawal of the ban, his position does not appear to have been based on a thorough examination of the potential costs and benefits. The belief that legalization would lead to an immediate and dramatic increase in drug use is so taken for granted that no further studies are needed. But if this is indeed the likely conclusion of a study, there is cause for concern, other than the criticism that relatively small amounts of taxpayers` money have been wasted to demonstrate what everyone believed all along? Would such a result in no way help to justify the continuation of the existing policy and to convincingly silence those – certainly never more than a small minority – who are calling for legalisation? Alex Shum, an importer of hemp tissue, “believes the way to legalize marijuana is to sell marijuana legally. If you can buy marijuana at your local mall, IT`S LEGAL! So they will make everything imaginable from hemp.
As Keith Humphreys, an expert on drug policy at Stanford University, once told me: “There are always choices. There is no framework in which there is no harm. We have freedom, pleasure, health, crime and public safety. You can squeeze one and two — maybe even three with different medications — but you can`t get rid of them all. You have to pay the piper somewhere.” The legalization of drugs could lead to a desperate need for rehabilitation centers, which could be disastrous for our economy, even without taking into account the human damage in the form of lives lost and endless addiction problems. In addition, the doors would be open to individuals over the age of 18 who may abuse heroin, fentanyl, crystal methamphetamine and pharmaceuticals. There would be no reason to control opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants or other medications if drugs such as heroin were readily available. What to do with pharmacists? Maybe doctors would recommend medication, and patients would buy what they want instead of what they need. Drug prohibition violates civil liberties. The Supreme Court has ruled that because drugs are a horrible thing, it is acceptable to bend the Fourth Amendment (which deals with search and seizure) to make it easier to obtain convictions in drug cases. When I started as a drug policy journalist in 2010, I was very interested in legalizing all drugs, from marijuana to heroin to cocaine.
It all seemed so obvious to me. Prohibition had failed. Over the past decade, millions of Americans have been arrested and, in many of these cases, jailed for drugs. The government has spent tens of billions of dollars a year on drug policies – not only to monitor and arrest people and possibly destroy their lives, but also on overseas operations in which armed forces have attacked and destroyed people`s farms and ruined their livelihoods.