American Drug Laws- Do They He :: essays research papers fc

American Drug Laws: Do They Help or Hurt? I believe the drug laws are in serious need of reform. We tend to forget that alcohol is a drug and that at one time it was prohibited without success. Also, I believe that a civil body of government rather than a criminal one should regulate drug use. It is a social problem, not a criminal one. As a largely victimless crime they should not have their civil rights taken away just because they like to take drugs which we have arbitrarily made illegal. Drugs are very expensive because they are illegal. Their procurement and use fuel crime and violence, which could be largely eliminated if organized crime did not have a monopoly and the free enterprise system could control the market. Potency regulated by licensed drug companies would prevent unusually pure substances from causing accidental overdose. There is an epidemic of unnecessary deaths from this cause. This problem is exacerbated by the fear users and bystanders have of seeking a highly effective antidote for drug poisoning that is universally available at hospitals. The U.S. drug laws violate our right to privacy, cost millions in tax revenue, overloads the criminal justice system, and are ineffective as a deterrent to drug use and trafficking. Laws that govern drug use are patently arbitrary and have their bases in racial prejudice and the comfort index of old male legislators. The first opium regulatory laws were enacted in San Francisco in response to Asian immigrants entertaining married white women in opium dens (Hamowy). The American and European tolerance for tobacco and alcohol use while fearing "counter-culture" marijuana, cocaine, and heroin is a strong prejudice based on ignorance of the comparative human misery caused by the inevitable misuse of mind-altering substances. Alcohol and tobacco cause more illness and death each year than all the illicit drugs combined. Legislative attempts to curb alcohol and tobacco use by children makes some of these very vulnerable people desire their use, but the age-restrictive and the accompanying time-of-purchase limits on widely abused drugs are the best that society has devised. Our knowledge of education techniques to encourage abstinence or moderate use of drugs is extremely inadequate. Laws for prevention of illegal drug use are wildly unsuccessful and have resulted in making drug-related criminals the majority of incarcerated offenders in U.S. prisons. The result of illegalizing use, and not necessarily abuse at all, is a 100% increase in drug criminals in the last ten years (Hamowy) for use of substances which have no more, and probably less, intrinsic potential for abuse.