Discussions

Respond to these 3 classmates, saying what you liked and agreed with what they wrote.

  1.   I still believe in the prohibition on drugs in that if a drug is made illegal people will get upset and find a way to get it. I think it is better that we make it legal and put a tax on it to help to economy and create jobs. I do believe that that war on drugs has created the most crime and suffering in that there are two sides divided: the good people vs. bad people, and that's exactly what we as a county don't need. It is a very tricky road though because we could make all drugs legal and decriminalize it but what would come to our future from doing that as a country? If we do that we can only hope that people will be moral good and use the drug as recommended.  If we did decriminalize it, would we see those who use to be criminals for affiliating themselves with drugs to continue to sell drugs legally or would they find a new way of making money illegally like for example, I read an article about how gangs, mobs, or just people who sold illegal drugs stopped and went over to selling people. They would convert to human trafficking because they say that drugs can only be sold only once but people can be sold 6,7,8 times in a day.  What the point of that is, will the criminals be good or continue to do something else illegal after the decriminalization of drugs? I'm not sure, but that's what Portugal is testing out now because starting in 2001 they made all drugs basically legal. So we have a study of making drugs legal for 19 years now in Portugal and I don't think that is enough time to now test it on the U.S. I think that it could be tested in a state first in that the U.S can start it off slow to see if it could be a positive or negative result for the country. In my opinion though I don't think it will work because making drug that are insanely addictive and harmful to your health is something I think needs to be controlled or regulated. Because people nowadays (especially younger people) don't have the ability to decide right from wrong. If all drugs are legal than I feel it makes it easier for people to say yes to drugs and that means the U.S drug use would increase exponentially possibly causing more deaths which is not very good. 

2. The majority of Americans still believe in prohibition for the drugs that are classified as substances and certain chemicals which the FBI has classified these categories into 5 schedule drugs. However, I do believe that sooner or later that cannabis should make it's way out of a Type 1 drug due to not having the same characteristics as some of these hardcore drugs under this category like heroin, LSD, ecstasy, methaqualone, and peyote. My statement stands that the war on drugs is still a real thing as one-fifth of the incarcerated population is drug related charges but I don't believe it is what creates the most crime and suffering. After seeing the Portugal video it may bring down crime rates drastically to go ahead and decriminalize drugs but it's not an effective way to handle drug use in America because numbers will triple if that becomes the case. The issue with crimes related to drugs is that sometimes these offenders get more than two chances and walk out with a slap on the wrist when in reality crime charges should be taken more seriously. Some may agree that it would be cheaper to just stop the war on drugs that has coast us in the millions by the federal government but the epidemic of drug participants has to slow down. Law enforcement should make the approach that in take back in the day in the Escobar era when Miami was heavily experimenting with cocaine. As a evaluation, drugs have been normalized in society today which makes the fight on drugs ten times harder. 

References: 

Pearl, B. (n.d.). Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers. Retrieved September 28, 2020, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/

3. At this point with all the studies conducted I believe that decriminalizing marijuana will help apart on the war on drugs and also allowing the people to get out of our already packed jail system. Anyways, my viewpoint on the decriminalization of drugs is at this point, we are doing more damage than good on both sides of the equation. The war on drugs probably has cost the U.S. billions of dollars and packed our jail system. While on the other hand addicts/users are overdosing, creating black markets, and killing each other over drugs. With all that being said I somewhat agree with what Portugal has done. The decriminalization of drugs can maybe work in the U.S. but you would have to have a bunch of parameters around it. Some of those parameters are signing a waiver understanding what you're doing is stupid and you will deal with all issues that come your way, a usage limit, also implement a huge tax on it so if you do want to do it you will pay a boatload of money, and last we will have designated an area where are these illegal drugs can be consumed, and this area can not be near any residential areas or schools. So with all that being said maybe the decriminalization of drugs can possibly benefit the U.S. but only time will tell. I would like to see Portugal stats on drug use in the later future and see if what they did is actually a success.