Wednesday, October 6, 2010
push drug dealers to the endangered species list!
My interest in legalizing marijuana stemmed (pun intended) from the show Weeds on Showtime. Before watching this show, pot was an enigma to me and I rarely thought about it because it didn’t affect me in my day to day life. Many people in the United States don’t smoke pot on a regular basis so analytical thought pertaining to the subject of marijuana is not very common. Hence, the reason for my blog! In Weeds the main character begins to sell marijuana on a small scale and throughout the show different drug dealers are introduced. One in particular stood out to me: U-Turn. He completely abuses his power as a drug dealer and the amount of control he has over the people around him is absolutely frightening. My want to exterminate lethal drug dealers such as U-Turn was exacerbated by this clip: WARNING: there is very profane language in this clip so if foul language offends you, please refrain from watching. I’m not the only one that is advocating for the legalization of drugs in America. Former DEA Agent Russ Jones reflects on the legalization of drugs in the article “It’s time to call off the war on drugs”. He is a strong advocate for the legalization of drugs because in the past four decades the United States has made 38 million NONVIOLENT (keyword people) drug arrests and increased the prison population by 25%. Ross commiserates “When I arrested a rapist or a robber, the community was safer. When I arrested a drug dealer, all I did was create a job opening.” Ross asserts that there is no benefit to society when drug dealers are put in jail, it just causes a shift in the responsibility of drug dealing to another person. I am not totally going out on a limb here and saying that legalizing marijuana would help society and so on and so forth; there is legitimate proof that legalizing and regulating drugs decreases the abuse of said drug. In Switzerland, heroin is regulated and deaths and overdoses caused by the disease were reduced by 50 percent and drug crimes were reduced by another 60 percent. Obviously drug crimes were reduced since the heroin was readily available, but the decrease in overdoses and deaths really shows that abuse of the drug is definitely reduced if it is regulated and legalized. How do humans learn? BY EXAMPLE. So let’s get crack-a-lackin folks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree with your thoughts about legalizing marijuana. Although it is a harmful drug, just as alcohol and tobacco are, I believe that decriminalizing it would alleviate many problems that we are experiencing, dealing with drugs, in America today. If we look at prohibition, it is evident that criminal activity rose due to alcohol being illegal and many were arrested for producing it. When prohibition ended though, much of this activity ended. If the government took control over the trade of marijuana, I think there would be similar effects to the end of prohibition. Many, many nonviolent people (as you mentioned) are incarcerated due to possession of drugs, filling up our prisons with people who don’t need to be there. Additionally, I believe that drugs should be a public health issue, not one that is dealt with by just throwing people into jail. What I don’t understand though, is what you mean by wanting to “exterminate lethal drug dealers” and how you think out judicial system should go about doing that.
ReplyDeleteTo answer Elaine's comment :)
ReplyDeleteI believe the way to exterminate lethal drug dealers is to take away their livelihood. If the government grew, sold, and regulated marijuana than drug dealers around the country, like U-Turn, would have increasingly less leverage over the people around them. Dealers gain power because they have a solid customer base and a large amount of money is coming in, so they think they are invincible. Money corrupts most people, its human nature. The legalization of pot would eliminate dealing as an affluent profession. Currently the government is trying to discourage drug dealing by arresting people for possession of pot and intent to sell, but the black market for marijuana is so large that it is very hard to completely stop the drug from being sold. If the government regulates the distribution of marijuana then drug dealers would most likely lose their leverage because people can obtain the drug through other, LEGAL, means.