Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Current Events In Favor of a More Liberal Drug Policy In Favor of a More Liberal Drug Policy In William J. Bennett’s address entitled “Drug Policy and the Intellectuals,” Bennett maintains that the drug problem in America can be ultimately solved. In my opinion, the drug problem in America is one that cannot be completely resolved to the point where drug use no longer exists in America, but drug abuse can be alleviated. One effective way to do this would be to legalize the personal use of drugs that are more common and less potent (like marijuana), and to stop wasting time and tax dollars punishing minor offenders. Legalizing the use of soft drugs would help bolster the U.S. economy, partially because the government would have the ability to tax these drugs. This includes marijuana used for medicinal purposes, which, according to a 1995 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, can “counteract the toxicity of chemotherapy, treat migraines, minimize pain, and treat moderate wasting syndrome in AIDS patients.” The economy would also benefit from the legalization of drugs because fewer drug offenders would crowd the prisons, and the government could spend the money they saved from this reduction in prison populations on other public expenses. With drug busts running at 750,000 cases a year nationwide, (mostly for marijuana,) prisons are bulging, and those imprisoned for drug-related crime account for only a fraction of America’s drug users. In Elliot Currie’s essay, “Toward a Policy on Drugs,” she suggests that if the majority of drug abusers were incarcerated, it would cost the nation an extra 15 billion dollars. A policy that focuses on imprisoning all drug users and dealers is the type of policy that is prone to hurt America economically. Drug prohibition may be a factor that is actually encouraging the spread of harder drugs. As government officials and police officers become more skilled in capturing drug smugglers and dealers, the pushers find more efficient ways to transport and conceal drugs, creating a larger supply and often making hard drugs more accessible and affordable to the common user. Although the government has succeeded in raising marijuana prices from $20 and ounce in the 1960’s to $200 an ounce today, the price of cocaine has fallen from $50,000 a kilo in the 1970’s to $10,000 a kilo today. Also, the potency and composition of these drugs is often unpredictable. If the government legalized these more minor drugs, as Milton Friedman pointed out in his essay “There’s No Justice in the War on Drugs,” they’d have the ability to regulate them and make them less dangerous than they would have been if they’d been sold on the street. Bennett’s arguments against the legalization of drugs are somewhat one-sided. This may have been why I was more convinced by Friedman’s essay, which relied more on concrete facts than on the pretense that the opposing argument was trivial. In “Drug Policy and the Intellectuals,” Bennett says, “To call it a ‘debate’ suggests that the arguments in favor of drug legalization are rigorous, substantial, and serious. They are not.” He also says that drug use “destroys human character” and that citizens would be in a “perpetually drug-induced haze” if drugs were legalized. This assumption is a fallacy, and can in no way be proven without generalizing an entire subculture. Bennett also suggests that the legalization of even minor drugs would have devastating effects on American society that include a loss in worker productivity, higher dropout rates, and hospitals filled with drug related emergencies and accidents. So far these claims are just speculation. To get an idea of what the effects of legalization could realistically have on a society, we can look to the Netherlands as an example. While the Netherlands haven’t officially legalized drug use, they’re well-known for their more liberal drug policy that deals with users through social services rather than through court systems. The use of small amounts of marijuana and hashish is also tolerated in practice. This type of drug policy has seemed to work out well for the Dutch. According to the Netherlands Bureau of Statistics and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the percentage of Dutch adults that have used cocaine is 2.1 percent in the Netherlands, compared to 10.5 percent in the United States, a figure five times as high. Marijuana has been used by 15.6 percent of the Dutch population and 32.9 percent of Americans. Use has also remained steady in the Netherlands since 1976 while it has increased in the rest of Europe, despite prohibition efforts. These figures suggest that liberalizing drug policies doesn’t necessarily lead to increased drug use. A less conservative drug policy may be the more effective treatment for America’s drug problem. Even if the legalization of more minor drugs is an approach that lacks enough public support to be put into practice, decriminalizing personal drug use nationwide is an attainable option that would benefit the economy and make the inevitable sale of drugs less dangerous in the long run. Bibliography: Word Count: 823
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