Should Drugs be Legalized?

Should drugs be legalized? Maybe not? If we legalize drugs will there be more insecurity? Would we all become drug addicts? This topic has brought a lot of discussions in favor and against legalizing drugs, especially for marihuana.

Through the years, countries have fought against drug trafficking, especially the U.S., which has a federal law enforcement agency tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. known as the DEA or Drug Enforcement Administration.

Even though all the fighting and battling, drug trafficking is still alive especially in Latin American countries. At present drugs are not legalized in any American country with the exception of some states in the US. This means the strategy of prohibiting drugs is not working and if we continue in this same process we will not be doing anything. Maybe the best option is to try another strategy. That’s why legalizing drugs might be the best option.

It may sound crazy to legalize drugs. You might think that drug trafficking will increase if this occurred. But no! You’re wrong. Think about it this way. First, combating drugs and drug trafficking is really expensive. “The Colombian State spent $970,480 million pesos in 2015 in the fight against drugs. In 2013 that figure was $ 1,174,651 million and in 2014 it was $1,140,019 million. This figure represents a high amount of money wasted on trying to eliminate drugs by prohibiting them.

Now think that if drugs were to be legalized, their price will lower. Why? Because people will be able to buy drugs easier and won’t require to obtain them through illegal actions which are basically the reason why drugs are so expensive. The amount of money people can obtain by acquiring drugs for others is extremely high and that’s what motivates them to continue this deal. Yet the legalization of drugs will defeat this business by lowering the price of this substance. That’s why legalizing drugs might be the best option to end drug trafficking and drugs.

This situation is similar to the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. At first, alcohol was banned and people were so obsessed with alcohol that they would do whatever to obtain some. When alcohol was finally legalized, things calmed down and people started to regulate by consuming what they thought was the right amount.

The best option, as you can all see, is to simply legalize drugs. Even the former president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos said, “We must reinvent this war against drug trafficking and drugs and one of the most effective ways is to remove the prohibition from everything that has to do with drug trafficking today and rationalize it in order to have better control of it.”