"Death and Neglect" - Legalization of Drugs Will Save Many Lives, While Solving a Huge Economic Issue

September 16, 2014

English 214

Death and Neglect

The tyrannical cartels of Central America only exist because we fuel their reason; by this I mean that the United States is one of their top consumers. The violence and wrath of the cartels isn’t something that’s shown in the center of the media (main news stations), mainly because this violence happens across our borders and into the poverty-stricken place that is Mexico and Central America. This nation turns a blind eye to these crimes just because they aren't harming our people, but is the cost for getting drugs really worth the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent men women and children?

 Since 1971, this phony war on drugs was lasted more than 40 years. This “war” hasn’t resolved any differences at all and if anything, has critically worsened the situation in Central America. In 2011 alone, 13,000 people lost their lives to cartel-related slaughters. Can you imagine being woken up in the middle of the night, with a gun pointed to your head, tied and gagged, and forced to watch your daughter and wife raped and brutally murdered, all just to send a message to people to “not mess with the cartels?”

It’s a travesty that something like this could even exist in our world. The cops can’t even stop these insane people, in numbers the cartels total up to 100,000 armed psychopaths and the Mexican and Central American police tally up to a mere 85,000.

  The best way to attack these people wouldn’t be by force, it would be by legalizing all drugs in the market. Now, I know this idea sounds crazy because you’d think more people would abuse drugs, but rather the opposite occurs. Cartels and Black Markets will decrease, lose their profit and will have no reason to reign terror anymore, on top of that, drug-related violence and incarcerations would dramatically decrease. It’s estimated that legalization would reduce government expenditure by about $41.3 billion annually, and generate $46.7 billion in tax revenues per year. Not only is this an economic benefit for the U.S. but also this same law was applied in Portugal in 2001 and they prospered.

The fines for drug-related crimes went down, and incarceration minimized as well. People who are repeated drug offenders are sent to rehabilitation centers to get clean. In five years alone, teenage drug use declined, as did HIV infections due to sharing needles for drug use, overdose and death on drugs like heroin decreased by more than half, and people looking for help in treatment was gone up two-fold. Imagine how the numbers would change for the U.S.? Besides the cartels disappearing, we would have street crime due to selling drugs, fighting over drug turf, and innocent bystanders getting caught in the middle would be near to non-existent. Gangs would lose income as well, which would move people to have to get jobs and provide for their families in more honest ways, and be able to contribute to society.

This phony war on drugs needs to come to an end, and we need to realize that legalization is the best way to end the reign of the cartels, take away an unnecessary cost, fuel our economy and most importantly end a great deal of terror and violence inside and beyond our borders.