War on Drugs
Over the past fifteen years our policies and laws have been showing some improvement in fighting drugs. One statistic shows that “experimentation among high school students has dropped from 12% a decade ago to just 1%” (Benoit and Richard), but in the same time there are some weaknesses we should eliminate and add better laws and policies. Drugs are one of the worst things around right now and they have a lot of negative effects on drug addicts and the surrounding communities. Even with all those problems and the harmful affects that come with drugs, there are a lot of people who want the drugs to be legalized and made available to everyone. These people are maybe missing an important point about the other factors that may result from legalizing drugs. Will legalizing drugs reduce the rate of crime and violence or is it going to stop black-marking drugs. There are other countries that have already legalized drugs and never realized any perceived beneficial results. In many cases, these countries have reported increase crimes rate and violence. In addition, other products, like tobacco and alcohol, that were legalized never showed the expected results; however, contributed to the increase in crimes and health damages. In comparison to other’s experiences and reported facts worldwide, it is clear that we should not legalized drugs.
Laws and policies have been working and showing improvement since long time, “users who spent $110 billion on drugs in 1988 reported spending far less in 2000 just $63 billion representing a 43% decrease. The use of illegal drugs peaked in the United States in 1985, when 25 million Americans confessed to current use of illicit drugs. By 2000, that number had dropped to 15 million representing a reduction of 40%” (Macready 47). Another study shows that “annual health care expenditures for alcohol-related problems amount to $22.5 billion. The total cost of alcohol problems is $175.9 billion a year compared to $114.2...