hought of a legal market is horrifying. In a society such as ours that is already stained with the abuse of legal intoxicants such as alcohol and nicotine, another legal narcotic would be a senseless choice. A close friend of mine moved to Europe and even married a European citizen so he could get heroin legal. He is now back in the U.S. in recovery and his story goes to show that drug addicts will flock to places where their choice of drug is legal. Speaking of the United States, one of our own states, Alaska, for a while legalized marijuana but the citizens quickly voted to make it illegal again when it got out of hand. (Finley 1). In our country, millions of dollars are spent on drug rehabilitation of substance abusers with alcohol, a legal drug, being at the top of this list. According to the DEA "Drug control spending is a minor portion of the U.S. budget, and compared to the costs of drug abuse, spending is minuscule" (DEA-ten claims). In reference to the whole industry of recovery, Arthur Hyde, LPC and Director of Fountainbleu Treatment center reported that "The majority of people who enter into rehabilitation programs DO NOT enter because of the illegal aspect - quite the contrary, the illegal aspect is a trigger prevalent in the use of drugs themselves. Furthermore, more people enter due to health reasons, mental and physical, and even these seem to have as a primary factor - alcohol abuse" (Hyde on Addictions). Alcohol is a legal substance and if we look at the problems in our society from it's abuse, it would be frightening to think of what would happen if narcotics or any other drugs became legal too.Alcohol is acceptable in this society because of the class of people that use this legal drug. Legalization of anything depends on what class of people are using the drug itself. "....when drug users are perceived to be members of a majority, especially one enshrouded in respectability-a more compassionate approach towa...
