Drugs Legalization
Should Drugs Be Legalized? For several decades drugs have been one of the
major
problems of society. There have been escalating costs spent on the war
against
drugs and countless dollars spent on rehabilitation, but the problem
still
exists. Not only has the drug problem increased but drug related
problems are on
the rise. Drug abuse is a killer in our country. Some are
born addicts while
others become users. The result of drug abuse is thousands
of addicts in denial.
The good news is the United States had 25,618 total
arrests and 81,762 drug
seizures due to drugs in 1989 alone, but the bad news
is the numbers of
prisoners have increased by 70 percent which will cost
about $30 million
dollars. Despite common wisdom, the U.S isn't experiencing
a drug related crime
wave. Government surveys show between 1980 - 1987
burglary rates fell 27
percent, robbery 21 percent and murders 13 percent,
but with new drugs on the
market these numbers are up. One controversial
solution is the proposal of
legalizing drugs. Although people feel that
legalizing drugs would lessen crime,
drugs should remain illegal in the U.S
because there would be an increase of
drug abuse and a rapid increase of
diseases such as AIDS. Many believe that
legalizing drugs would lessen crime.
They point out that the legalization of
drugs would deter future criminal
acts. They also emphasize and contrast
Prohibition. When the public
realized that Prohibition could not be enforced the
law was repealed. Drug
Legalization. Since the prohibition of marijuana in 1965
there has been
sparked a new heated controversy over the legalization
and/or
decriminalization of this and other banned substances. Many
politicians and
lawmakers as well as philosophers, doctors, students, etc.
have weighed the
facts and opinions and have come to a decision on which side
of the fence to sit
on. he arguments either for or against the legalization
of drugs seem to stem
from two main focuses of thought. These two main ideas
are that of
consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism is defined as
the position
that an action is right if it has good consequences and wrong if
it has bad
consequences. On the other side, is deontology, the position that
believes that
actions are right or wrong in themselves, regardless of their
consequence. An
easy way to simplify these definitions is to think about how
these two thoughts
would apply to murder. A deontologist would believe that
murder is wrong simply
because it is the taking of another’s life, that the
intrinsic value of murder
is bad so thus "murder is bad". A consequentialist
on the other hand would
look deeper at the motive and consequence of the
murder, then form an opinion
from there. Looking past the intrinsic value of
it, what if the one person that
was murdered, was killed because he had a
bomb that was going to kill 300
people? If believing in this channel of
thought, one might conclude that this
one sacrifice of life saved 300 others,
thus the overall outcome is good, so the
action was right. any classical as
well as contemporary philosophers maintain
opinions and ideals that can be
classified as either consequentialist or
deontological. Classical
philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and John Milton,
along with more modern
writers like Milton Friedman and Ethan A. Nadelmann are
all examples of
consequentialist thinkers. On the deontological side of the coin
reside such
well-known purveyors of classical thought as Aristotle and Edmund
Burke,
along with contemporaries like William J. Bennett and James Q.
Wilson.
The two main ideas of thought held by the two divisions of these
gentlemen have
a great deal to do with their positions on the legalization of
drugs. It is
important to keep in mind that while the opinions of Friedman or
Bennett, for
example, are known because of their writings and expression of
these opinions,
we are only assuming at this point what an older philosopher,
like Aristotle for
example, would think about the controversy. The
deontologist way of thought
would conclude that the use of illegal substances
is a bad thing and should be
banned from usage by authority. Aristotle for
example believed that the job of
government was to make people virtuous and
good. A consequentialist, on the
other hand, would not shun the drug use
itself as bad, rather look past the use
of the drug and place their opinion
on the outcome of the usage of the drug. The
consequentialist way of thought,
coupled with Mill’s idea of the "Harm
Principle" makes for a "deeper"
look into the right or wrong of drug use.
Loosely paraphrased, the Harm
Principle can be summarized as the rights of an
individual extend as far as
his neighbors’ face. Meaning that personal rights
are only endowed upon and
justly held by the bearer of these rights so as long
that they do not harm
nor infringe upon others’ rights (Mill). In keeping with
this, a
consequentialist would conclude that the use of drugs and the
legalization to
further the use of these drugs are not a bad things so as the
consequences
were not ill and no one but the user was possibly
harmed.
Bibliography
Bonevac, Daniel. Today’s Moral Issues.
California: Mayfield Publishing
Company, 1999. Mill, John Stuart. On
Liberty: Annotated Text Sources and
Background Criticism. Ed. David
Spitz. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
1975.