The argument about banning drugs , and more from drug policy reforms, is the subject of considerable controversy. The following is a presentation of the major drug policy arguments, including those for drug law enforcement on one side of the debate, and arguments for drug law reform on the other. Arguments for and against drug bans discuss which systems are more effective at protecting human rights, preventing drug abuse and violence, and which systems are more ethical.
Video Arguments for and against drug prohibition
Efficiency
Effective drug laws
Proponents of the banning claim that drug legislation has a record of success that depressed illegal drug use since its introduction 100 years ago. Drug alcohols have the current user rate (last 12 months) as high as 80-90% in populations over 14 years, and tobacco historically has a current usage rate of up to 60% of the adult population, but the current percentage of drug use in illicit countries- OECD countries are generally under 1% of the population except marijuana where most are between 3% and 10%, with six countries between 11% and 17%.
In the 50-year period following the first 1912 international convention banning the use of opium, heroin and cocaine, US drug use in addition to cannabis was consistently below 0.5% of the population, with marijuana increasing to 1-2% of the population between 1955 and 1965. With the advent of the counter-cultural movement of the late 1950s, where the use of illicit drugs was promoted as an expansion of the mind and the use of non-hazardous drugs, the forbidden sharply increased. With illicit drug use culminating in the 1970s in the United States, the "Just Say No" campaign, beginning under the protection of Nancy Reagan, coinciding with recent illicit drug use (last month) decreased from 14.1% in 1979 to 5.8% in 1992., a drop of 60%.
In March 2007, Antonio Maria Costa, former executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, drew attention to Swedish drug policy, arguing that:
Sweden is a great example. Drug use is only a third of the European average while spending on drug control is three times higher than the EU average. For three decades, Sweden has had a consistent and coherent drug control policy, regardless of which party is in power. There is a strong emphasis on prevention, drug laws getting tightened, and widespread treatment and rehabilitation opportunities available to users. Police consider drug crimes serious. Governments and the public must maintain their courage and avoid being ostracized by misguided notions of tolerance. They should not forget the fact that illegal drugs are dangerous - that is why the world agrees to limit them.
In Europe, Sweden spends the second highest percentage of GDP, after the Netherlands, on drug control. UNODC argues that when Sweden reduced spending on education and rehabilitation in the 1990s in the context of higher youth unemployment and declining GDP growth, the use of illegal drugs rose but recovering spending from 2002 once again a sharp decline in drug use as shown student surveys. In 1998, a poll conducted by SIFO of 1,000 Sweden found that 96% wanted a stronger government action to stop drug abuse, and 95% wanted illegal drug use.
Criticizing the government that has loosened their drug laws, Antonio Maria Costa, speaking in Washington before the launch of the World Drug Report in June 2006, said:
After years of drug control experience, we now know that a coherent long-term strategy can reduce the supply, demand and trafficking of drugs. If this does not happen, it will happen because some countries fail to deal with drug problems seriously enough and pursue inadequate policies. Many countries have drug problems that they deserve.
Maps Arguments for and against drug prohibition
Inefficiency
Ineffective drug laws
One of the most prominent early counterpart critics in the United States was August Vollmer, founder of the School of Criminology at the University of California, Irvine and former president of the International Chiefs of Police Association. In his book 1936 The Police and Modern Society , he expressed his opinion that:
Strict laws, spectacular police impulse, strong prosecution and jailing of addicts and vendors prove not only useless and costly as a means of correcting these crimes, but they are also unjustifiable and very cruel in their application to drug victims who poor. Repression has encouraged these underground representatives and resulted in smugglers of narcotics and supply agencies, who have grown rich from this evil practice and who, by cunning methods, have driven traffic in drugs. Finally, and not the least of the crimes associated with oppression, the helpless addict has been forced to commit crimes in order to earn money for drugs that are completely inseparable for their comfortable existence.
The first step in the plan to alleviate this terrible suffering is the formation of Federal control and dispensation - at the expense of - customary drugs. With a lost profit motive, no effort was made to encourage its use by a narcotics personal dispenser, and the drug dealer would disappear. New addicts will be quickly discovered and through initial care, some of these unfortunate victims may be saved from being incurable.
Drug addiction, such as prostitution, and like liquor, is not a police issue; never existed, and could never be solved by the police. This is the first and last medical problem, and if there is a solution it will not be found by the police, but by competent and scientifically trained medical experts whose sole purpose is the reduction and likelihood of this crushing destructive appetite. There should be intelligent treatment of the incurable in outpatient clinics, inpatient admissions to respond to therapeutic measures, and the application of preventive principles that the drug applies to all human worms.
Stephen Rolles, who writes in the British Medical Journal , argues:
Consensus develops in the field of medicine and beyond that the prohibition of the production, supply, and use of certain drugs not only fails to achieve the intended purpose but is also counterproductive. Evidence suggests that this policy not only exacerbates many public health problems, such as counterfeit drugs and the spread of HIV and hepatitis B and C infection among injecting drug users, but has created a larger set of secondary dangers associated with the criminal market.. It now includes a large network of organized crime, endemic violence associated with drug markets, law enforcement corruption and government.
This conclusion has been reached by a series of committees and reports including, in the UK itself, the Police Foundation, the Election Committee for Domestic Affairs, the Prime Minister's Strategic Unit, the Royal Society of Arts, and the UK Drug Policy Consortium. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime also recognizes many of the "undesirable negative consequences" of drug enforcement.
Editor of British Medical Journal , Dr. Fiona Godlee, gave her personal support to Rolles' call for decriminalization, and the argument received special support from Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians. , which says we should treat drugs "as a health issue rather than criminalizing people" and "this can drastically reduce crime and improve health".
Danny Kushlik, head of external affairs at Transform, said senior medical professional interventions were significant. He said: "Sir Ian's statement is another nail in a ban box Hippocratic Oath says: 'First, do no harm' Doctors are obliged to speak if the result shows that the ban imposes more danger than reduces."
Nicholas Green, chairman of the Bar Council, made a comment in a report in a profession magazine, where he said drug-related crimes cost the UK economy about £ 13 billion a year and that there is growing evidence that decriminalization could free the police. resources, reduce crime and recidivism and improve public health.
A report sponsored by the New York Lawyers Association, one of the largest local bar associations in the United States, argues about the issue of US drug policy:
In spite of the vast public resources issued to enforce compliance laws against users and distributors of controlled substances, contemporary drug policy appears to have failed, even in its own way, in a number of important matters. These include: minimal reduction in consumption of controlled substances; failure to reduce violent crime; failure to significantly reduce drug imports, distribution and sales of street drugs; failure to reduce the availability of drugs that extend to potential users; failure to prevent individuals from being involved in drug trafficking; failure to impact on the substantial profits and financial opportunities available to individual entrepreneurs and lower organizations who are organized by engaging in drug trafficking; the expenditure of an increasingly limited number of public resources in the pursuit of costly "punishment" or "law enforcement" policies; failure to provide meaningful care and other assistance to the perpetrators of substance abuse and their families; and failure to provide meaningful alternative economic opportunities for those interested in drug trafficking due to lack of other means available for financial progress.
In addition, more and more evidence and opinions suggest that contemporary drug policy, as pursued in the last few decades, can be counterproductive and even harmful to communities whose public safety seeks to protect. This conclusion becomes clearer when one distinguishes the losses suffered by society and its members directly caused by the pharmacological effects of drug use on human behavior, from the harm resulting from policies seeking to combat drug use.
With the help of these differences, we see that existing drug policies seem to contribute to the increase in violence in our community. It does so by allowing and, indeed, causing drug trafficking to remain a source of lucrative economic opportunities for street traders, drug bullies, and anyone willing to engage in illicit, forbidden, black market trade.
Meanwhile, the effect of this policy serves to stigmatize and marginalize drug users, thereby inhibiting and undermining the efforts of many individuals to remain or become members of a productive and successful employed society. Furthermore, current policies not only fail to provide adequate access to treatment for substance abuse, but in many cases have provided such care, and other medical services, are more difficult and even dangerous to pursue.
In response to claims that the ban could be successful, as claimed by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime, which drew attention to Swedish drug policy Henrik Tham has written that sometimes in the country it is important to emphasize drug policy as success, like the Swedish case in which this idea is important, serves the function of reinforcing a threatened national identity in a situation where the traditional 'Swedish model' has been subjected to increasingly severe attacks both domestically and internationally. "Tham questioned success of the Swedish model - " The shift in Swedish drug policy since about 1980 "... (more difficult to accept nolle prosequi for small drug crimes)... " towards a more stringent model has been in line with the official point of view has been successfully compared with earlier, more malleable drug policy.However, the systematic indicator available shows that a prevalence of drug use has increased since around 1980, that the decline in drug incidence was mainly characterized during the 1970s and some indicators showed an increase during the 1990s. "
Leif Lenke and BÃÆ'¶rje Olsson from Stockholm University have conducted a study showing how drug use has followed youth unemployment in close relationships. They note that unlike most of Europe, Sweden lacked the widespread youth unemployment and persisted until the early 1990s financial crisis, suggesting that unattractive future prospects could contribute to increased drug use among young people. CAN, the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs, reports in 2009 states that increased drug use has continued since the 1990s with a slight decline in mid 2000.
Professor emeritus in criminology at the University of Oslo, Nils Christie, showed Sweden as an international drug policy hawk in a 2004 book. He said that Sweden served the role of a welfare alibi for, and lends legitimacy to the US drug war. Adds that the US and Sweden have a tremendous influence on UNODC as the largest donor country. Sweden is the second largest donor financing 8% of the UNODC budget behind the European Commission in 2006, followed by the US. In 2007 and 2008 Sweden was the fourth largest donor, behind the European Commission, US, and Canada. In 2009 this was the third, when the US withdrew a portion of its funding.
Sebuah editorial di The Economist berpendapat:
fear [legalization] is largely based on the notion that more people will use drugs under the legal regime. That presumption may be wrong. There is no correlation between the severity of drug laws and drug-taking incidents: people living under a harsh regime (mainly American but also British) take more drugs, not less. Disgraceful drug fighters blame this on alleged cultural differences, but even in somewhat harsh-like countries make little difference to the number of addicts: Strong Sweden and more liberal Norway have the same exact addiction rate.
Antonio Maria Costa's conviction that "nations have drug problems they deserve" if they fail to follow the 'Swedish Model' in drug control has also been criticized in Peter Cohen's work - Seeing the UN, kissing mouse.
In the 2011 report, the Global Commission on Drug Policy states that "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and communities around the world".
Prevention
Arguments prohibiting the use of illegal drugs
A 2001 Australian study, from 18 to 29 years old by the NSW Crime Statistics Bureau and Research shows that the prohibition of blocking drug use. 29% of those who never used marijuana cited the illegality of substances as their reason for never using drugs, while 19% of those who have stopped using marijuana cited their illegality as their reason.
Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the US ONDCP argues,
Controls and restrictions help keep prices high, and higher prices help keep relatively low usage levels, as drug use, especially among young people, is known to be price sensitive. The relationship between price and level of adolescent substance use has been well defined with respect to alcohol and tobacco taxes. There is literature that suggests that rising cigarette prices lead to decreased usage. "
The DEA believes that "Legalization has been tried before - and failed miserably," Alaska's experiments with legalization in the 1970s caused state youth to use marijuana at more than two other youth levels nationwide, prompting Alaska residents to vote again to criminalize marijuana in 1990. "
Drug Free Australia calls the Netherlands an example of drug policy failure because its approach is soft. They argued that the Dutch idea of ​​being soft on cannabis sellers, thus creating a "market segregation" of drug traffickers had failed to stem the initiation of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and amphetamines, said that, in 1998, the Dutch had the use of marijuana and cocaine third highest in Europe. According to Barry McCaffrey of the US Office of National Drug Policy, Dutch tolerance has allowed the Netherlands to become a crime center for the manufacture of dark synthetic drugs, especially ecstasy, as well as homes for the production and export of marijuana with THC worldwide. reported 10 times higher than normal. Gil Kerlikowske has proven that, where once there were thousands of cannabis cafes, now there are only a few hundred. The rate of use of cannabis, in 2005 was only slightly higher than in 1998, while other European countries have accelerated their past, more likely, Australian Free Drugs argue, as a result of the increased intolerance of marijuana in the Netherlands than the growing tolerance. Drug Free Australia also believes that the reduction of cannabis use by the UK after softer legislation may be more a result of heavy British media exposure to strong evidence of a link between marijuana and psychosis.
The argument that the ban does not discourage drug use
It has been suggested that drug law reform can reduce the use of harsh drugs such as those in countries such as the Netherlands. According to the 2009 annual report by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the Netherlands is one of the lowest cannabis or cannabis users in Europe, although Dutch policy on soft medicines became one of the most liberal in Europe, allowing the sale of cannabis in " coffee shop, "which the Dutch have allowed to operate for decades, and ownership of less than 5 grams (0.18 oz).
The UK Crime Survey statistics show that the proportion of children aged 16 to 24 using marijuana decreased from 28% a decade ago to 21%, with its declining popularity accelerating after the decision to lower the drug to class C was announced in January 2004. BCS figures, published in October 2007, shows that the frequent proportion of users in the 16-24 age group (ie using marijuana more than once a month), fell from 12% to 8% in the last four years.
American teens drink alcohol and smoke less and do less of a drug than their predecessors in more than 40 years of tracking. The use of marijuana falls between 8th and 10th grade children, although marijuana is an average among high school students, according to the annual American Survey of Future Monitoring surveys.
Gateway drug theory
The argument that marijuana is a gateway
"2008 Marijuana Sourcebook" from the US Drug Enforcement Agency stated that recent research supports the gateway hypothesis that certain drugs (such as cannabis) act as gateways to use 'harder' drugs such as heroin, either because of social contact or because of higher search increases. Proponents cited such studies of 311 similar sex-twins, in which only one twin smoked marijuana before the age of 17, and where such early marijuana smokers were five times more likely than their twins to switch to harsher drugs.
The argument that marijuana is not a gateway drug
In the American Journal of Public Health, Andrew Golub and Bruce Johnson of the National Development and Research Institute in New York wrote that young people who smoke cannabis in the generations before and after baby boomers do not seem to be moving to harder. drugs.
Researchers from the Independent Rand Policy Center for Rand Research in Santa Monica, California, looked at data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse between 1982 and 1994, concluding that teenagers who use hard drugs do so whether they have tried marijuana or not.
A twin study (of 510 pair of identical twins) adjusted to additional confounders such as peer use, found that marijuana use and association with hard drug use later on existed only for identical twins. This study shows that the causal role of cannabis use in the use of hard drugs in the future is minimal, if any at all, and the use of marijuana and drug use using the same influencing factors as genetics and the environment.
Health
Health arguments for drug laws
Proponents of the ban argue that certain drugs must be illegal because they are dangerous. Drug Free Australia for example argues that "drugs are substances that are inherently dangerous as evidenced by the nomenclature of harm reduction." The US government has stated that illegal drugs are " much more lethal than alcohol " say " even though alcohol is used by seven times as many people as a drug, the number of deaths caused by the substance is not According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), during the year 2000, there were 15,852 drug-induced deaths, slightly less than 18,539 alcohol deaths. "The ratio of illegal opiates to alcohol and tobacco in Australia was similar, with 2 deaths per hundred opiate users per year versus 0.22 deaths per hundred for alcohol (9 times less) per year and 0.3 for tobacco (7 times less).
DEA mengatakan:
Marijuana is much stronger than usual. In 2000, there were six times as many emergency rooms mentioning the use of marijuana as it was in 1990, despite the fact that the number of people using marijuana is more or less the same. In 1999, there were 225,000 Americans entering substance abuse treatments primarily for marijuana dependence, second only to heroin - and not much.... According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "Studies show that a person who smokes five joints per week may consume a lot of cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes every day." Cannabis contains more than 400 chemicals, including the most dangerous substances found in tobacco smoke. For example, smoking a single cigarette store some four times more into the lungs than a filtered tobacco cigarette.... Short-term effects are also harmful. They include: memory loss, distorted perception, problems with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor skills, decreased muscle strength, increased heart rate, and anxiety. Marijuana affects children's mental development, their ability to concentrate in school, and their motivation and initiative to achieve goals. And marijuana affects people of all ages: Harvard University researchers report that the risk of heart attack is five times higher than normal within an hour after smoking marijuana.
Many deaths from marijuana use, apart from car accidents during intoxication or violence and aggression, are more likely to be counted in the long run, as is the case with tobacco, where nicotine overdose and cannabis overdose are very rare. While ecstasy may have a lower direct mortality rate than some other illusions, there is a growing science about the dangers of ecstasy that have been recognized. Drug Free Australia argues that the distinction between "soft" and "hard" drugs is fully artificial, and "soft" marijuana or "recreation" marijuana does not reduce the extensive dangers of these substances.
Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of the National Drug Policy Policy (ONDCP) believes that in the United States, illegal drugs have cost $ 180 billion a year for health care, lost productivity, crime and other expenses, and that number will only increase under legalization due to increased usage.
Drug Free Australia claims that arguments that increase the health hazards of illegal drugs are the result of a lack of government regulation of their purity and strength not supported by evidence. In Australia, which has the highest per capita opioid mortality rate in the OECD, the study found that "an overdose is not just a simple function of dose or purity of heroin." There is no evidence of toxicity from the contaminants of street heroin in Australia. Drug Free Australia claims that other causes of death such as suicide, murder and accidents are the effects of the drug itself, not of their purity or vice versa.
Dependency
Australian Free Drugs argue "Regarding the freedom of choosing those who are addicted to drugs, it is important to recognize that addiction is defined as compulsive by nature and that addiction restricts individual freedom."... "As with alcoholism, drug addiction also serves to keep many such users functionally in poverty and often as a continuing burden on friends, families and communities, where it is thought that all defects are a burden to society. that most disabilities are not the result of choice, whereas the decision to recreate using illegal drugs is most often free, and with the knowledge that they can lead to an addiction abundance. "
Health argument for drug law reform
There is evidence that many illegal drugs contain relatively few health hazards compared to certain legal drugs. The health risks of MDMA (Ecstasy) have been exaggerated for example, the risks of marijuana use are exaggerated, and the health problems of using legal substances, especially alcohol and tobacco, are greater, even than for example cocaine use (occasionally cocaine use usually does not lead on severe physical or social issues or even mild).
Health benefits
Many experiments have demonstrated the beneficial effects associated with psychoactive drug use:
- There is evidence that MDMA (ecstasy) can treat or cure post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety in case of terminal illness.
- LSD has been extensively researched as a therapeutic agent, and has demonstrated its effectiveness against alcoholism, frigidity and other disorders. See psychedelic therapy.
- Researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospitals found members of religious groups regularly using peyote scored significantly better on some mental health measures overall than subjects who did not use hallucinogens.
- A 2007 study, by Santos et al. found that users of ayahuasca scored better on tests that measured anxiety and discouragement than people who did not use drugs.
Quality control
According to the World Health Organization report: "Since cannabis is an illegal drug, its cultivation, harvesting and distribution are not subject to quality control mechanisms to ensure the reliability and safety of products used by consumers.It is also recognized in developing countries, such as Kenya, the production of illicit alcohols can lead to contamination with toxic by-products or meat-eaters that can kill or have a serious impact on the health of users, the same is true of illicit drugs such as opiates, cocaine and amphetamines in advanced societies.
The government can not impose quality control on products sold and produced illegally. Examples include: the easier it is to make MDA derivatives sold as MDMA, a heroin user inadvertently injects brick dust, quinine, or fentanyl that heroin has cut off; and a heroin/cocaine overdose occurs because users do not know exactly how much they take.
Illegal drug injection leads to a needle rarity that leads to an increase in HIV infection. The easy cure for this problem, while enforcing the illegality of drugs, is the Dutch policy to distribute free needles. Money spent on rising health costs due to HIV infection and drug bans itself causes drought to the community.
The study of the effects of heroin prescribing to addicts conducted in many European countries shows better success rates than other treatments available in terms of helping long-term users establish a stable, crime-free life. Many patients can find work, some even start a family after years of homelessness and delinquency.
Block for research
The illegality of many recreational medicines can inhibit new, more effective and possibly safer drug research. For example, it has been proposed that a drug with as many desired effects as alcohol can be made with fewer adverse health effects.
Misleading health statistics
The United States Department of Drug Administration (DEA) states that illegal drugs are "far more deadly than alcohol", arguing that "even though alcohol is used by seven times more people than drugs, the number of deaths caused by these substances is not far off. separate, "citing figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), claiming" during 2000, there were 15,852 drug-induced deaths, just under 18,539 alcohol-related deaths. "
However, the use of numbers like DEA is still questionable. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association gave an alcohol-induced death rate in 2000 as 85,000 - more than four and a half times greater than DEA's preferred figure. The DEA argument also ignores tobacco, causing 435,000 deaths in the US in 2000. And, the CDC definition of "drug-induced death" includes drug use, accidental overdoses, and medically determined drug deaths illegal). The analysis of drug-induced deaths for the 20-year period 1979-1998 found mostly to be caused by an accidental overdose, and suicide by drug taking, which together accounted for about 76 percent of all deaths. Considering the deaths from non-illegal drugs leaves only 21 percent of drug-induced "drug-induced" deaths due to "illegal" drug use.
The claim that marijuana is much stronger than usual is also dubious, with "frightening figures" tilted by comparing the weakest marijuana of the past with the strongest today. The figures on the emergency room say the use of marijuana can be misleading as well, since "mentioning" a drug in an emergency department visit does not mean that the drug is the cause of the visit.
Medical use
A document published for the non-profit advocacy organization of Europe Against Drugs (EURAD) argues that "one can not choose medicine" and that the basis of scientific consent is essential. He said that the EU rules set strict criteria for drug acceptance for medical purposes:
All active ingredients must be identified and their chemistry determined. They should be tested for purity with a set limit for all impurities including pesticides, microbes & amp; mushrooms and products. These tests should be validated and reproduced if required in an authorized laboratory. Animal testing will include information on fertility, embryo toxicity, immuno-toxicity, mutagenic and carcinogenic potential. The risks to humans, especially pregnant women and nursing mothers, will be evaluated. Sufficient safety and efficacy tests should be performed. They should state the method of administration and report the results of different groups, ie healthy volunteers, patients, special groups of elderly, people with liver and kidney problems and pregnant women. Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) should be stated and include effects on driving or operating the machine.
Arguments against medical use of illicit drugs
According to Janet D. Lapey, MD, of the Concerned Concern for Drug Prevention, "Because of the placebo effect, patients may mistakenly believe that the drug is beneficial when it does not.This is especially true for addictive drugs and mind changing like marijuana. marijuana withdrawal occurs, consisting of anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances and appetite, irritability, tremors, diaphoresis, nausea, muscle spasm, and anxiety.Often, people who use marijuana mistakenly believe that the drug helps them fight these symptoms without realizing that actually marijuana is the cause of this effect.Therefore, when an anecdotal patient reports a drug to have a medicinal value, this must be followed by objective scientific research. "
The US Drug Abuse Administration also said:
There is a growing misconception that some drugs can be safely drunk. For example, intelligent drug dealers have learned how to market drugs like Ecstasy to young people. Some people in the Legalization Lobby even claim that such medicines have medical value, although there is no conclusive scientific evidence.
Arguments for medical use of illicit drugs
Most of the psychoactive drugs that are now banned in modern society have medical uses in history. In natural plant remedies such as opium, coca, marijuana, meskalin, and psilocybin, medical history usually dates back thousands of years and through cultures.
Psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin (the main ingredient in most hallucinogenic mushrooms) are the subject of new research interest because of their therapeutic potential. They can alleviate various untreatable mental illnesses, such as chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and alcohol dependence. MDMA (Ecstasy) has been used for cognitive enhancement in people with Parkinson's disease, and has shown potential in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.
Lack of access to controlled drugs
Under the ban, millions of people find it very difficult to get controlled medications, especially opiate pain relievers. The 1961 United Nations Convention on Narcotic Drugs requires that opiates be distributed only by prescription, but this is not practical in many areas.
According to the Transnational Institute, June 2008:
According to the International Narcotics Supervisory Board (INCB) and the World Health Organization (WHO) there is now an unmet demand on opiates. Ironically, current drug control regulations inhibit access to controlled opiate drugs for therapeutic use. Many patients can not access equivalent morphine, methadone or opioids. Global medical morphine consumption will increase five times if countries will make morphine available at the level of needs calculated, according to WHO recent estimates.
Menurut New York Times, September 2007:
Under Sierra Leone law, morphine can only be handled by a pharmacist or physician, explains Gabriel Madiye, founder of a nursing home. But in the whole of Sierra Leone there are only about 100 doctors - one for every 54,000 people, compared to one for every 350 in the United States.... "How can they say there is no demand when they do not allow it?" He [Madiye] asked. "How can they be so sure that it will be out of control when they have not even tried it?"
Economy
Economic arguments for drug law
DEA believes that "compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction - whether it be in taxpayer dollars or in pain and suffering - government spending on drug control is minimal."
Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said:
The economic argument for drug legalization says: legalizing drugs, and generating tax revenues. This argument gets support, because the national administration is looking for new sources of income during the current economic crisis. This legal and tax argument is unethical and uneconomical. It proposes bad taxes, generation to generation, in marginalized groups (lost due to addiction) to stimulate economic recovery. Does this partisanship also support legalizing and burdening other seemingly stubborn crimes like human trafficking? Modern-day slaves (and there are millions of them) will surely generate good tax revenues to rescue failed banks. The economic argument is also based on poor fiscal logic: reducing drug control costs (due to lower law enforcement expenses) will be offset by much higher spending on public health (due to surging drug consumption). Moral of the story: do not commit a malicious deal.
Gil Kerlikowske, the current director of the US ONDCP, argues that legalizing drugs, then regulating and taxing their sales, will not be effective fiscally.
Tax revenue collected from liquor when compared to the costs associated with it. Federal federal taxes collected from alcohol in 2007 amounted to about $ 9 billion; the state collected about $ 5.5 billion. Taken together, this is less than 10 percent of over $ 185 billion in alcohol-related costs of health care, lost productivity, and criminal justice. Tobacco also does not carry the economic burden when we impose taxes; each year we spend over $ 200 billion on social costs and collect only about $ 25 billion in taxes.
Former ONDCP directors John P. Walters and Barry McCaffrey accused billionaires George Soros, Peter Lewis and John Sperling, financing pro-pot movements or legalizing drugs. "These people use their ignorance and incredible amount of money to influence voters," said Walters. Billionaire US financier, George Soros said in his autobiography, "I will build a tightly controlled distribution network where I will make most of the drugs, excluding the most dangerous ones like cracks, legally available.". Promotion of the legalization of strong and drug-funded drugs in the media and schools about safe 'safe use of illegal drugs'. shows that drug bans are in the midst of battles waged by those who receive not only from drug users but also greatly promote acceptance of drug use itself.
Prohibition of jute industry
The opposition to the legalization of hemp, which uses marijuana genus crops for commercial purposes, centers on the fact that those who wish to legalize the use of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes alone present it as their Trojan horse for that purpose:
Alex Shum, an importer of hemp cloth, "feels that the way to legalize marijuana is by selling marijuana legally.When you can buy marijuana in your neighborhood shopping center, it is LEGAL! So they will produce every possible thing from hemp.
In a Huffington Post interview, Mark Kleiman, "Pot Czar" from the state of Washington, said he was worried that the National Cannabis Industry Association would prefer profit rather than public health. He also said that it could be a body of predators such as the lobbying arm of the tobacco industry and alcohol. Kleiman said: "The fact that the National Cannabis Industry Association has rented K Street's own lawsuit [lobbyist] is not a good sign."
Economic arguments for drug law reform
The US effort on drug bans began with a $ 350 million budget in 1971, and in 2006 was a $ 30 billion campaign. These numbers include only direct expenditure of banning ban, and thus represent only part of the total cost of the ban. The $ 30 billion figure is rising dramatically after other problems, such as the economic impact of holding 400,000 prisoners for violation of bans, are taken into account.
The war on drugs is very costly for such societies that prohibit illegal drugs in taxpayer money, life, productivity, law enforcement inefficiency to pursue crime, and social inequality. Some advocates of decriminalization say that the financial and social costs of drug enforcement far exceed the damage caused by the drug itself. For example, in 1999, nearly 60,000 detainees (3.3% of the total jailed population) convicted for violating cannabis laws were behind bars at a cost to taxpayers about $ 1.2 billion per year. In 1980, the total prison and prison population was 540,000, about a quarter of its current size. Drug offenders accounted for 6% of all prisoners. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, drug offenders now account for nearly 51%.
It has been argued that if the US government legalizes marijuana it will save $ 7.7 billion per year in spending for enforcement of the ban. In addition, the legalization of marijuana will generate tax revenues of $ 2.4 billion annually if taxes are taxed like all other goods and $ 6.2 billion annually if taxes are charged at rates comparable to alcohol and tobacco.
Creation of drug cartels
Mass arrests from local cannabis farmers, for example, not only increase the price of local medicine, but reduce competition. Only large retailers who can handle large-scale shipments, have their own small fleet of aircraft, troops to defend caravans and other sophisticated methods that evade police (such as lawyers), can survive by this free market regulation by the government.
... That's because it's forbidden. See, if you see drug war from a purely economic point of view, the government's role is to protect drug cartels. That's literally true.
Effects on producer countries
The "War on Drugs" The United States has greatly increased political instability in South America. The huge profits generated from cocaine and other South American medicines are mostly because they are illegal in the rich neighboring country. It encourages people in relatively poor countries in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil to violate their own laws governing the cultivation, preparation and trafficking of cocaine to America. This has enabled criminal, paramilitary and guerrilla groups to reap huge profits, exacerbating serious and political issues of law and order. In Bolivia, the current political revival of current president Evo Morales is directly linked to his grassroots movement against American-sponsored cocadinalization and criminalization policies. However, coca has been cultivated for centuries in the Andes. Among its various legitimate uses, coca leaves are chewed for mild stimulants & amp; the effects of appetite suppression, and soaked as a tea known to reduce the effects of human altitude sickness. Rural farmers in poor areas where coca historically cultivated often find themselves at the difficult and potentially violent intersections of government-sponsored eradication efforts, illegal cocaine producers & amp; traders seeking coca supply, anti-government paramilitary troops trading cocaine as a source of revolutionary funding, and the historic difficulties of rural subsistence farming (or the typical alternative - leaving their land and fleeing to urban slums). In some areas, coca farmers and other crops are often destroyed by US-sponsored treatments (usually sprayed from the air with varying degrees of discrimination), whether farmers directly supply the cocaine trade, thus damaging their livelihoods. Agricultural producers in these countries are further encouraged to grow coca for cocaine trade by disposing of subsidized agricultural products (fruits, vegetables, wheat etc.) produced by Western countries (especially US and European Union agricultural surpluses) (see BBC reference , below), which reduces the price they can receive for alternative crops such as maize. The net effect could be a price depression for all crops, which could make farmers' livelihood more precarious, and make coca coca inventory cheaper.
After providing the bulk of the world's poppy for use in heroin production, Afghanistan changed from producing almost no illegal drugs in 2000 (after a ban by the Taliban), to cultivate what is now 90% of the world's opium. The Taliban is currently believed to be strongly supported by the opium trade there.
Furthermore, the sale of illicit drugs generates dollars outside the formal economy, and putting pressure on currency exchanges keeps the dollar low and makes the export of legal products more difficult.
Prohibition of hemp industry
The War on Drugs has resulted in the banning of the entire hemp industry in the United States. Rami, which is a special cultivar of Cannabis Sativa, has no significant psychoactive substance (THC), less than 1%. Unaware that the factory had been banned a few months earlier, Popular Mechanics published a 1938 article entitled The New Billion-Dollar Crop anticipating the explosion of the hemp industry with the invention of machinery to help process it.. Recently, the government's refusal to take advantage of hemp tax has been a critical point. Hemp has a huge list of potential industrial uses including textiles, paper, cords, fuels, construction materials, and biocomposites (for use in cars for example). Hemp has some disadvantages, however, one that is that long fiber in flax is only part of the bark of the outer tree, and this has contributed to hemp having only modest commercial success in countries (eg in Canada) where it is legitimate to harvest hemp.
The flax seed is very nutritious. Rare for plants, contains all essential amino acids. Rare for any food, it is a good source of alpha-linolenic acid, omega-3 fatty acids lacking in most diets.
The argument for drug law
While concerns sometimes state that "the fight against drugs" can never be won, there is a failure to recognize that other high-cost policing wars such as "lightning strikes" on acceleration can never be won. Such blitzs reduce and contain acceleration, as with the policing of illicit drug use. Failure to police speed up drivers only allows excessive danger to be inflicted on other individuals. Accelerating is not legalized simply because it can not be eradicated.
There is an argument that many crimes and terrorism are linked to drugs or drugs that are funded and the ban should reduce this.
Former US president George W. Bush, in signing the Act of Drug-Free Act Act of Action in December 2001, said, "If you stop using drugs, you join the war on terror in America."
The Office of the US National Drug Policy Policy (ONDCP) says that drug-related offenses may include violent behavior resulting from drug effects.
US Drug Enforcement Administration claims:
Crime, violence and drug use go hand in hand. Six times more murders are committed by people under the influence of drugs, such as those who make money to buy drugs. Most drug crimes are not committed by people trying to pay for drugs; they are done by people who use drugs.
The US Government initiated the Drug Use Drug Estimation (DUF) program in 1987 to collect information on drug use among urban detainees. In 1997, the National Institute of Justice expanded and revamped DUF research and named it the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program. ADAM is a network of 34 research sites in certain US cities.
The DUF study shows that:
- Frequent use of hard drugs is one of the strongest indicators of a criminal career.
- Offenders who use drugs are one of the most serious and active criminals involved in property crimes and violence.
- The early and continuous use of cocaine or heroin in adolescent years is a serious and persistent indicator of criminal behavior in adulthood.
- Those arrested who are drug users are more likely than those who do not use drugs to be reinstated at pretrial exemptions or fail to appear in court.
Criminal behavior can be a direct result of drug use that can cause emotional/brain damage, mental illness and anti-social behavior. Psychoactive drugs can have a powerful impact on behavior that can affect some people to commit crimes that have nothing to do with supporting the cost of their drug use. Drug use changes behavior and causes criminal activity because people will do things they would not do if they were rational and free from the effects of drugs. Paranoia-related cocaine is an example. If drug use increases with legalization, so do related forms of violent crime such as assault, anesthetized rider, child abuse, and domestic violence.
That higher price makes trading profitable for criminals recognized, but is denied by the argument that succumbing to the use of illegal drugs for this reason does not make more sense than giving up on those who keep traffic in human life, a business that is more expensive because of its illegality and therefore more favorable to criminals, but necessary for the rights of vulnerable citizens.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy says that the idea that our state prisons are filled with law-abiding people convicted of nothing more than simple possession of marijuana is a myth, "an illusion transformed and aggressively perpetuated by drug advocacy groups seeking to relax. " or remove American marijuana law. "ONDCP states that most inmates in state and federal prison for marijuana have been found guilty of more than ownership.Some people are convicted of drug trafficking, some for possession of marijuana along with one or more other offenses, and many of those who serve time marijuana appealed for ownership to avoid charges for much more serious allegations.In the US, only 1.6 percent of the country's prison population is detained for violations involving marijuana only, and less than one percent of all state inmates (0.7 percent) possession of marijuana as the sole cargo, a small percentage of the country's prisoners were the first perpetrators (0.3 percent).The numbers in US federal prisons were similar.In 2001, the majority of perpetrators convicted of marijuana crime were punished for trafficking and only 63 are serving time for simple ownership.
Detective inspector Eva BrÃÆ'¤nnmark of the Swedish National Police Agency, in a speech given to Drug Free Australia's first international conference on drug use, said:
Police have been able to resolve other crimes, such as robbery, theft, and robbery, by questioning the person arrested for drug use. Some even provide information about people who sell drugs, and police have seized a large number of drugs as a result of information from people brought for urine testing. Many interrogations of drug abusers also resulted in search warrants and restoration of stolen goods.
The argument that drug addicts of certain drugs are forced to commit crimes by prohibition should first and foremost highlight the fact that this argument presupposes and underscores the addictive nature of some illegal drugs (which supporters of legalization often underestimate), is addictive enough to create a criminal supply worthy. industry. Second, the increasingly addictive danger of drug use, which as outlined earlier will be the consequence of legalization and cheaper prices, far greater than the current ban on crime from prohibition. Needless to say, this argument is useless for substances such as LSD and mescaline, without addictive properties.
Although criminal penalties vary with rooting of drug use, it is not the most important eradication technique to solve the problem of drug abuse. To combat this problem, the application of treatment and support of group resources coupled with community support and understanding, has a much higher long-term potential to cure the growing epidemic that plagues the country, especially in rural areas.
Arguments for drug law reform
Violence and profit of drug dealers
The prohibition of protecting drug cartels as far as keeping distribution on the black market and creating risks that make smuggling profitable. As a former federal narcotics official Michael Levine states in connection with his undercover work with the Colombian cocaine cartel, from Lamar
- "I learned that not only are they not afraid of our war on drugs, they are relying on it to increase market prices and get rid of smaller and inefficient drug dealers They found US bans The only US action they feared was an effective demand reduction program.On one recording of a closed record, a top cartel leader, Jorge Roman, expressed his gratitude for the drug war, calling it "a fraud committed to American taxpayers "which is" good for business ".
Critics of drug bans often cite the fact that the end of alcohol bans in 1933 caused an immediate decline in killings and robberies to support the argument that drug legalization could have a similar effect. Once those involved in narcotics trafficking have legal methods of resolving business disputes, the number of murders and violent crimes can go down. Robert W. Sweet, a federal judge, strongly agrees: "The current policy of trying to ban the use of drugs through the use of criminal law is a mistake". When alcohol use was banned during bans, it led to gang warfare and spurred the formation of some of the most famous criminals of the era, among them the famous Al Capone. Similarly, today's drug dealers are resolving their dispute through violence and intimidation, something that legal drug vendors do not do. The prohibition of criticism also points to the fact that police are more likely to be damaged in systems where bribes are so available. Police corruption due to drugs is widespread enough that a pro-legalization bulletin has made it a weekly feature.
Drug money has been called the main source of income for terrorist organizations. Critics assert that legalization will eliminate the main source of support for this terrorism. While politicians blame drug users for being a major source of terrorist financing, there is no clear evidence of this link provided. US government agencies and government officials have been arrested for drug trafficking to finance US-backed terrorist acts in events such as Iran-Contra Affair, and Manuel Noriega but the isolated nature of these events deters them from the main source of financing.
Corruption
Human rights organizations and law graduates claim that the drug ban must inevitably lead to police corruption.
On July 2, 2010, former Interpol President Jackie Selebi was found guilty of corruption by the South African High Court in Johannesburg for accepting a $ 156,000 bribe from a drug dealer. After being indicted in January 2008, Selebi resigned as president of Interpol and was given an extended leave as South African National Police Commissioner.
Confidence stigma
Despite the fact that most drug offenders do not commit violence, the stigma attached to beliefs may prevent jobs and education.
Children are lured into illegal drug trafficking
Janet Crist from the White House The National Drug Control Policy states that anti-drug efforts "have no direct effect on the price or availability of cocaine in our streets". In addition, drug dealers showcase expensive jewelry and clothing to small children. Some of these children are interested in making money fast rather than working with legitimate jobs. The decriminalization of drugs will eliminate the "glamorous Al Capone-trader Al Platone which is a role model for young people".
The lack of government regulation and control over the lucrative illegal drug market has created a large population of unregulated drug dealers who lure many children into illegal drug trafficking. The recent National Drug and Drug Surveillance Survey in the United States reports that nationwide more than 800,000 12-17 year olds sold drugs for the previous 12 months before the survey. The 2005 Adolescent Risk Behavior Survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 25.4% of students worldwide have been offered, sold, or given illegal drugs by someone in the school property. Prevalence has been offered, sold, or given illegal drugs on school properties ranging from 15.5% to 38.7% across the country's CDC survey (median: 26.1%) and from 20.3% to 40.0% across local survey (median: 29.4%).
Although more than $ 7 billion is spent annually to capture and prosecute nearly 800,000 people across the country for marijuana offenses in 2005, the Federal-funded Future Monitoring Survey reports about 85% of senior high school seniors find marijuana "readily available." That number has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never falling below 82.7% in the three decades of a nationwide survey.
Environment
In relation to the cultivation of medicinal plants, eradication efforts in line with the drug policy ultimately forced coke, poppy, and cannabis farmers into more remote and ecologically sensitive areas. These plants, which generally grow far from the city center and the presence of the state, tend to deplete forest land and expand agricultural boundaries. Fearing for eradication, farmers are given incentives to accelerate the production cycle to absorb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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