Drug Control Policies and Decriminalization

Today, the problem of drug legalization becomes an issue of the day. Looking at the entire range of society's current attempts to deal with licit and illicit mind-acting substances, there are tensions in the system wherever one's glance falls. Recent attempts to legalize drugs do not take into account the negative impact drugs accessibility will have on the society in general and on a particular individual. The major spheres of concern include: popularization of drugs through legalization causes widening drug users audience and increases addition, it involves a teenage group, drugs increase a threat of car accidents like drunk driving which is the major cause of death in Americans. To avoid these things drugs should not be legalized.

Legalization of drugs will allow wider audiences to use drugs more often and in more quantity. This will lead to increase number of drug addicts. Cannabis is often presented as being a 'natural' and safe alternative to other drugs - but 'natural' doesn't equate to 'safe' or 'harmless'. Opium is 'natural' - it can be directly extracted from the heads of poppies. Cocaine comes from the leaves of a shrub. People should not be seduced into believing that 'natural' always means 'good'. Everything people put into their bodies has an effect. There was an option that drugs can be spited into "stronger and weaker varieties" (Marijuana News, 2005). Nevertheless, this policy was opposed by Sir Ian saying: 'We would be arguing strongly not for a double classification in terms of strengths' (Marijuana News, 2005) So, if all the drugs are so harmful, they should not be legalized. The problem is that drug legalization can increase number of drug addicts. Many people, having kicked a habit, can start to use drugs again - especially when they find themselves back in the same environment.

The other argument against drug legalization is accessibility of drugs for a teenage group. If drugs are easy to buy, teenagers will buy them in greater quantity. This explains by the fact that for most of them, drugs represents "adulthood", a stylish and trendy way of life. Today teenage drugs usage becomes a social problem which requires a special attention of society, and prevention measures accepted on the governmental level, instead of legalization of drugs. It is possible to compare this situation with alcohol abuse. Today, teenage alcohol abuse becomes the major problem in the USA and the UK, so legalization of drugs will worsen this problem. According to the recent report "the age of youths using marijuana is falling. The teens aged 12 to 17 said on average they started trying marijuana at 13-1/2" (Fox, 2004). So, if drugs is legalized the age of young addicts can falling even more. Advocates of drugs legalization suppose that: "Despite this increase in spending on drug control from $65 million to currently $19 billion, and the imprisonment of 30,000 people for a marijuana offense, marijuana usage has remained relatively unchanged regardless of arrest rates going up or down." (Marijuana News, 2005). On the contrary, if teenagers are used to drugs today, in future it will cause a great national problem and require more spending on social drug treatment and prevention programs. Unfortunately, advocates do not take into account the facts that "the number of children and teen-agers in treatment for marijuana dependence and abuse has jumped 142 percent since 1992" (Fox, 2004). It is not thought that cocaine, Ecstasy or cannabis have these addictive properties, yet people do report becoming dependent upon them in just the same way.

More and more people will drive under the influence of drugs and as the most important it will lead to more accidents on the roads. Drugs like heroin and alcohol, on the other hand, are considered to have strong addictive properties. Unlike alcohol, it is more difficult to determine condition of a driver without special analyses. So, more people will force to use drugs instead of alcohol. For instance, the responsibilities of cannabis users include the following paragraph: "avoid cannabis use that puts you or others at risk, such as when driving, at work, or in public places"(Marijuana News, 2005). So, if the use were legal it would lead to an increase number of deaths on the roads. To avoid this situation, drugs should be prohibited and police control should be stricter.
To conclude, the drug use should be decriminalized and governmental control should be stricter than ever to stop this disease of civilization. The facts and recent studies prove the fact that drugs are not so safe as supposed to be. Drugs should be prohibited, because their legalization can lead to negative outcomes (teenage addiction, increasing number of drug users and careless driving) which will require more money to spend on treatment programs in future.

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