“The U.S. government estimates that the cultivation and trafficking of illegal drugs directly employs 450,000 people in Mexico. Unknown numbers of people, possibly in the millions, are indirectly linked to the drug industry, which has revenues estimated to be as high as $25 billion a year, exceeded only by Mexico’s annual income from manufacturing and oil exports.”
(Source: The Atlantic, 12.09)
“In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a ‘war on drugs,’ the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.”
(Source: Wall Street Journal, 12.26.09)
The legalization of drugs is the only way to eliminate the violence and the underground economy and to gain some tax revenue from the activity. Criminalizing the distribution and consumption has NOT worked. Clearly.
I heard that cocaine alone is a multi-billion dollar industry in the US alone. It’s obvious that drug use cannot be stopped by legislation alone, so we need to find other ways to help people. I think drugs are the result of a lack of better options. If people have things to to that are more important to them, they will naturally prefer them to drugs.
I don’t think legalizing heroin, cocaine,and some other drugs is an option. Marijuana-yes maybe, but in general people who choose to abuse drugs do so to overcome some emotional problem. It’s only cultural acceptance that makes it different to get drunk because your girlfriend dumped you, vice smoking opium because your girlfriend dumped you. Neither choice is good, but we view alcohol as “OK” or even “good” in general, but other substances as “bad”. Then again, nobody really thinks marijuana is bad but we still judge, don’t we?
But the problem is never the drugs is it? It’s always been why we use the drugs. Because there is an emotional/psychological payoff for getting high. This has always been a fact of humanity since the first caveperson saw his wolf-dog eat a toad and bark at inanimate objects for 3 hours, then they ate a toad and hallucinated so hard they forgot for a few hours he was brutishly killing, raping, and pillaging their way across the paleolithic era and would probably die at age 23 from being eaten by a sabre tooth tiger.
Drug abuse prevention must start at the “demand” side of the supply/demand equation. As long as someone will cough up a buck for an intoxicant, someone will risk their life to earn that buck.
This is a much bigger cultural, emotional health, and psychological health issue. We need to help people to be healthy, as much as possible, then and only then will there be a small dent made in the drug trade. It’s a very difficult, very expensive, extremely long term solution. But that doesn’t pay very well or win elections, now does it?