Is legalization worth playing? The arguments on both sides are compelling. What should we do if we cannot accept or clearly reject the legalization of drugs? One approach proposed as reasonable is to suspend the verdict, acknowledge that legalization advocates are partly right (that the war on drugs has proven ineffective in reducing drug abuse and drug-related crime), and recognize that it`s time to explore new approaches. However, the situation could be much worse than what I have proposed so far if we legalized the use of drugs other than opiates. So far, I have only looked at opiates, which usually have a calming effect. If opiate addicts commit crimes, even if they receive their drugs for free, it is because they cannot meet their other needs in any other way; But, unfortunately, there are drugs whose use leads directly to violence because of their psychopharmacological properties, and not only because of the criminality associated with their distribution. Stimulant drugs such as crack cocaine cause paranoia, increase aggression and promote violence. Much of this violence takes place in the home, as the relatives of crack cocaine sufferers will testify. I know this from my own knowledge of the emergency room and in the wards of our hospital. Only a person who has not been attacked by addicts who have become psychotic because of his drug could look with serenity at the prospect of a further spread of stimulant abuse. Would drugs be more available once prohibition is lifted? It is hard to imagine that drugs are more available than they are today. Despite efforts to stem their flow, drugs are accessible to anyone who wants them. In a recent government-sponsored survey of high school students, 55 percent said it would be “easy” for them to get hold of cocaine, and 85 percent said it would be “easy” for them to get marijuana.
Access to drugs is particularly easy in our inner cities, and the risk of arrest has been shown to have a negligible deterrent effect. What would change with decriminalization is not so much the availability of drugs as the conditions under which drugs would be available. Without prohibition, it would be easier to help addicts who want to quit their habits, because the money currently wasted on law enforcement could be used for preventive social programs and treatment. Even the legalizers` argument that allowing the purchase and consumption of drugs as freely as Milton Friedman suggests will necessarily lead to less government and other government interference in our lives does not hold water. On the contrary, if the use of narcotic drugs and stimulants were to become virtually universal, which is by no means impossible, the number of situations in which, for reasons of public safety, mandatory checks on persons would have to be carried out would increase enormously. Pharmacies, banks, schools, hospitals – in fact, all organizations that deal with the public – may feel compelled to check their employees` drug use regularly and randomly. The widespread use of these drugs would increase the legal status of countless public and private bodies to interfere in our lives; And the freedom of interference would be far from having increased, but would have decreased considerably. In fact, in the 1990s and 2000s, the federal government urged doctors to prescribe opioids as part of the “Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign” campaign, when pharmaceutical companies misleadingly marketed opioids to treat chronic pain. And in some cases, various levels of government have eased access to opioids after lobbying pharmaceutical companies — passing laws requiring insurers, for example, to cover drugs. Then I started reporting on the opioid epidemic. I have seen friends of family members die of a drug overdose. I`ve talked to people who can`t get rid of the years of addiction that often started with legal prescription drugs.
I spoke to doctors, prosecutors, and experts about how the crisis really started when big pharma urged doctors and the government to accept their drugs. However, let`s look at what happened in Colorado, where seemingly benign marijuana was legalized. The full 2016 report on marijuana legalization in Colorado can be found on the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (rmhidta.org) website.