Introduction
For close to four decades now, the American government has been trying to find a lasting solution for the drug abuse problem in the country. In his office days, President Richard Nixon identified drug abuse as a threat to the security of the nation. At the time, Nixon was concerned by the sudden surge of drug related arrests among young people and the relation that the trend had on the high rate of street crime at the time.
The American president felt that there was need to come up with a policy to fight the rising cases of drug abuse especially among young people. Despite the visible success of the Nixon campaign in the first few years of its implementation, the program lost its appeal causing the problem to escalate further. The reason why the program was not successful was partly due to some human rights campaigners who were calling for the legalization of drug use. (Grim, 2009)
According to the results of a poll released recently, majority of Americans want the usage of some drugs legalized. According to the findings, the people claim that if the drugs are made legal then they can become a source of income through taxes.
According to proponents of the legalization debate, the billions of dollars used by the government can be channeled into other development projects in the country. Further, they claim that some of the illegal drugs are not as dangerous as people depict them to be. In supporting their claim, they give an example of a substance like marijuana, which they claim to be less harmful than cigarettes.
On top of this, there are those who point out to the medicinal value of some outlawed drugs. The people in this category claim that outlawing a drug that is known to contain medicinal value is tantamount to denying the affected people medication and therefore the particular drugs should be legalized to make their access easy. (Grim, 2009)
Although some arguments presented by the advocates of drug legalization might be valid, there are other factors, which should be considered before they are adopted. As an individual, I am completely against the legalization of drugs. By looking at the claims presented by the legalization crusaders, one does not fail to notice that their claims are unfounded.
On the claim that the government would earn extra income from taxing the illegal drugs, one is led to ask what would then happen if all illegal substances were taxed to generate extra revenue for the government.
I believe that the government can look for other ways of raising revenue without legalizing the harmful drugs. On the other hand, although some of the banned drugs are known to have medicinal value, legalizing them would only lead to their abuse. What makes this people’s claim irrelevant is that the market is full of other legal drugs that can alleviate pain.
This leaves people with no doubt as to the motives of those calling for the legalization of drugs. Majority of the crusaders are actually owners of cartels that make money from the sale of the drugs. By organizing demonstrations to call for the legalization of drugs, what these people are trying to do is to take the attention of the authorities off their back. (KidsHealth, 2010)
According to researchers, drugs do no good for anyone. However, these drugs have been known to cause more harm to young people and who sadly are the biggest users of these drugs. By legalizing the drugs, the government would only be making them more accessible to young people hence increasing the problems associated with the drug usage.
According to experts, abuse of drugs is known to be a leading cause of heart diseases among young people. If the drugs were legalized, their usage would increase since the drugs would be readily available. This would in turn increase the rate of heart related deaths in the community. On top of this, drug users are known to perform poorly in school as compared to other students.
Even among adult users, drugs are known to impair ones reasoning ability something that in turn leads to doing dumb things. On top of this, drug usage is directly linked to the rising rate of crime in our country. By legalizing drugs, the rate of crime would definitely go up causing more insecurity for the nation. (KidsHealth, 2010)
Conclusion
The drug problem is not a new issue in America. For a long time, the government has been trying to look for ways to fight the vice. However, their efforts have been hampered by people who claim that banning the drugs goes against the constitution call for the protection of human rights. Although some of the claims presented by those calling for the legalization are legitimate, majority of them have ulterior motives in their calls.
If the government heeded their calls and legalized the drugs, then the problems associated with drug usage would definitely go up. These problems include drug related deaths and the rising rate of crime that is associated with drug usage. In order to protect the majority, the government should therefore fail to heed the calls made by these crusaders.
References
Grim, R. (2009) Majority of Americans Want Pot Legalized: Zogby Poll. Web.
KidsHealth. (2010) What You Need to Know About Drugs. Web.