Drug, Crime, Prohibition Essay -- essays research papers

Drugs, Crime and Prohibition Do drugs really cause crime, or is it our governments way of controlling the communities? Many people blame drugs for every problem in our society, but is it the true evil in our society? No one person can answer that question. There are only opinions and supposed theories on this issue. We have been taught over the years that drugs were bad and that they only affected the poor and less fortunate, and turned them into crazy criminals, but this isn’t true to any extent. The laws controlling and prohibiting drugs are the true reasons. Would our crime levels decline if drugs were legalized to some extent, or would we just increase the destruction of our country? Over the past fifty years, prohibition has been proven to actually increase crime and drug use instead of its intended purpose, which was to extinguish the use of illicit drugs in the United States. We constantly here of prison over crowding, and why is that? Most of our prisons are filled with drug offenders, ranging fro m use to distribution of supposed illicit drugs. What is our country coming to? The purpose of this research paper is to view the advantages and disadvantages of the legalization of illicit drugs in the United States. I will examine each side of this major problem plaguing our fine country from past to present. People wake everyday to their normal and monotonous life without even thinking about what they are doing. They do not realize that they have been conditioned by the government and its laws to obey and follow the supposed norm of society. What is the norms of society, and who set the guidelines for them? No one can explain how these norms came about, they only know that they must follow them, or they could get in trouble with the law. We are going into the twenty first century, and we still follow laws that were passed hundreds of years ago. Why is this? We are a highly advanced country, but we spend time, lives and money on abiding by laws that were around before the automobi le was even invented. I will begin with the history of our drug control policies, which have failed miserably, and examine the drug-crime connection. Policy History Drugs have been in this country since the beginning of time in some shape or form, which was used for personal and medicinal use. Usage of marijuana has been reported to date back to the founding of Jamestown (1). Ge... ...ugh a drug epidemic. Drug related murders and violent assaults are on the rise, but this isn’t caused by drugs, rather by the laws that prohibit them. By prohibiting drugs, we are only causing the prices of drug to rise, which means addicts must cause crimes to support their habit. The illicit drug trade market is the second largest business in the world, bringing in over 500 billion dollars a year. Opposers of legalization argue that tobacco and alcohol kill more because of its legality and availability(3 ). The solution in their eyes is in education and early prevention. Drug use among America’s children in on the rise, and education is a perfect logical way of lowering their usage. Children need to be taught the effects and dangers of drugs when they are young. Children are the future drug abusers if something isn’t done. Violence and drugs are thought to be one in the same in most peoples eyes, but is this true. Drugs do not turn people into monsters, but rather bring out their criminal tendencies. No one argues that legalization would end violence that is associated with drugs, but it would simply end the violence associated with the black market. Many dealers become dealers