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Fredrick Cambell, an attorney, stated legalizers’ spirit perfectly by stating, “Legalization would not mean that addictive drugs would be legally available to everyone. The purpose of legalization would be to place better controls on access to such drugs. Addiction would be recognized as a disease or physical addiction . . . For non-addicts, the substances would remain illegal in the some way that it is now criminal to sell or use prescription drugs without a prescription.” Legalization simply means the entire illicit drug trade would become legal: making, buying, using, pushing, possession. Yet as any pharmacist or drug company knows it can be regulated. If heroine and cocaine were legalized, and were available over the counter, the price must be held to government intervention to be sure addicts or anyone else can easily afford all they want. Illicit drugs are considered immoral not because they harm people; plenty of approved substances have that drawback. Illicit drugs are immoral because users feel better than normal and because people fear the allure. If we want a free society to function, we must permit people to make bad decisions and suffer the consequences. People have a right to ruin their lives. We might even benefit from a little humility when judging people, finding paths to happiness different from our own. The truth is the tougher enforcement gets, the worse trouble will get. The answer is to let go. Dangerous drugs, however, must be accepted as a part of the American heritage. Just as Prohibition created organized crime, today’s drug laws keep organized crime alive. Before drugs were illegal, Americans handled them with few problems and treated them as a fundamental right in their production, distribution, and consumption. All of the hard drugs were legal before 1914, and there were few addicts. Drug houses did not blight neighborhoods, no drug gangs were on street corners and “drug related” crime did not exist. This is talking about America just before World War 1, when it was a country suffering from many problems. Our own history proves we have nothing to fear but much to gain from legalization. Foreign experiences with drug legalization are encouraging, but the differences between them and the US may be more important than the similarities. For example, India is a country with a long history of social marijuana and opium use, but drugs attract no blame for their problems. The same can be said of opium in Iran. In the country of China unsatisfactory levels of national productivity in the nineteenth century have been attributed to widespread opium use. After the country of Hawaii became an American territory it legalized the opium trade making drugs legal to anyone. Consumption rose somewhat, but the High Sheriff pointed out that they were better served with legalization. In the US the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 federally prohibited marijuana even though it became widely and acceptably used in the 60’s and 70’s. The Controlled Substance Act of 1970 placed all illicit and prescription drugs into five categories called schedules. Marijuana was placed in Schedule 1, defining it as having a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use in treatment in the US, and a lack of safety under medical supervision. At the time of the Act marijuana had been illegal for more than three decades and its medical uses were forgotten so the definition was false. There are many positions on the legalization of drugs and perspectives on the issue of what should be done now. Some people feel drug abuse should be treated as a heath problem rather than a law enforcement issue and eliminate criminal penalties. A favor goes out to taking more aggressive measures to prevent drugs from crossing our boarders to help regulate sales and hopefully allow them to be used for medical purposes. In order to this is has been suggested to demand international cooperation in cutting off the drug supply even though this might hurt the economy of several countries where it is legal to grow drugs. It seems impossible to stop the supply of drugs and so there has to be a way to dry the appetite for them. In many communities, law enforcement officials are currently outnumbered. The use of illegal drugs can partially be linked to school failure, AIDS transfer, and injuries to self. The harm done by drugs is predominantly caused by the fact that they’re illegal. Decriminalizing will permit the law to regulate and control them easier, while law enforcement officers will focus on other issues. While some citizens feel legalization will increase drug abuse, both users and anti-drug crusaders want to avoid pain.
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