Inasse Slaoui Bernadette Varela AP English Language 23 February 2023 A Modest Proposal: For preventing drug abuse and overcrowding in prison the United States of America must legalize all drugs. The War on Drugs was declared by the United States in 1973, and like the similarly unsuccessful War on Terror, it was riddled with inconsistencies and hampered by irrational policy goals. Forty plus years and a trillion dollars later, the U.S. has the largest prison population in the world and a racist two-tiered judicial system under which teenaged blacks caught with a few crack rocks do hard time in state prisons, while the bankers who launder the Mexican cocaine cartel’s blood-stained billions simply pay fines. The very meaning of unpatriotism …show more content…
Proponents of drug legalization, such as myself, argue that it could have a number of societal benefits. For one thing, it may help to reduce the number of weak addicts by making drugs more widely available and less valuable. As a result, employers would no longer have to worry about hiring people with drug addictions, potentially leading to a more competitive job market. Furthermore, legalization might contribute to economic growth by generating new jobs in the drug industry and money through taxes and regulations. Because more goods are being sold, the economy will benefit from more drugs being sold and becoming widely accessible. Despite the fact that they are currently illegal, drugs are still sold, but because they are legal, their exports do not benefit the American economy. In order to participate in the billion dollar drug trading industry, we would therefore need to legalize drugs in order to support the American …show more content…
There are currently laws against drug distributors being held criminally liable for overdose homicides. These laws, which are supposed to target major drug traffickers, are actually making it possible to prosecute friends, family members, partners in relationships, and co-users of overdose victims. In six years, from 363 reported prosecutions in 2011 to 1,178 in 2016, the number of people accused of or prosecuted for drug-induced homicide increased by more than 300 percent, according to a 2017 report by the Drug Policy Alliance. According to the Health in Justice Action Lab, by 2019, there were 26 new and expanded laws that reclassified overdose as homicide, murder, or manslaughter. These laws increase the number of overdoses because people are afraid of being charged with manslaughter; however, by legalizing all drugs, those who do unfortunately overdose will be more likely to be rescued before