War on Illicit Drug Legalization

War on Illicit Drug Legalization

ABSTRACT

The global war against drugs has been challenging and failed; therefore, leading to devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the globe. Five eras after the establishment of the United Nations Convention on Narcotic drugs, serious reforms and improvements in international, regional, national, and local drug policies are needed instantly. Wide-ranging costs on oppressive methodologies and criminalization techniques targeted at producers, traffickers, consumers, and cartels of illicit drugs have been unsuccessful in sufficiently limit consumption or supply of illegal drugs. Any impending or apparent conquests in the process of suppression of certain drug trafficking agencies are promptly refuted by the emergence or presence of other sources or traffickers. Exploitive approached directed at drug users confine the actions taken by the Public Health to lessen HIV/AIDS, overdose fatalities, and mental illnesses, among other harmful consequences of drug use. The expenses of different governments on the futile decrease of supply approaches and incarceration dislocate more cost-effective and evidence-based investments in detriment decline and demand. Alternative and conventional policies must be disseminated internationally to alleviate this challenge of transcontinental drug trafficking to help reduce fatal health issues linked to drug use and abuse.

Recent polls show that the majority of people are in favor of the legalization of marijuana. In 2013, a survey by Gallup established that most people would wish that the government legalized cannabis. This was against the backdrop of some states passing regulations to decriminalize marijuana, including Washington and Colorado (Juan Carlos, 2019). The poll confirmed what many people were already aware of and found out that 58 percent of the American citizens want their governments to legalize the plant (King, 2014). With most Americans agreeing that it is high time that marijuana should be legalized. As an appointed drug czar, I seek to retaliate that marijuana should be legalized. Although some nations such as Mexico and California are in support of the legalization of drugs such as cocaine and marijuana, I would not support the notion of legalizing illicit drugs.

From the perspective of the supporters of the legalization of drugs, first, they argue that enforcement of the marijuana laws is discriminatory and biased towards some races. Maybe people would not have problems with the criminalization of the plant if authorities enforcing the laws conducted themselves in a racially neutral manner. The enforcement exercise is also unnecessarily cruel, as evidenced by a large number of lives destroyed because of the marijuana prohibition laws (United Nations Office of Drug Control, 2010). The over half a million people arrested on charges of marijuana possessing, peddling, or other related activities are driven away from their families and jobs and jailed, ending up being hardened criminals in the end. Lastly, marijuana laws are likely to impede legitimate criminal justice objectives (Kamin, 1105). The prohibition of marijuana has led to the creation of an underground economy where illegal activities that are not related to the plant, but conducted by people engaging in marijuana use or sell, go unreported. With all these reasons, supporters of marijuana ground their arguments on why they believe marijuana should be legalized in our country.

From the ongoing, I would strongly oppose the legalization of illicit drugs because, as leaders, our responsibility is to protect the lives of our citizens and to fight any policy that would advocate for the criminalization of narcotics. After all, statistics show that marijuana is the most heavily used illicit and illegal drug in America (BMJ. 2017). Almost a hundred million citizens have admitted to trying smoking marijuana, with about thirty million Americans admitting to having consumed the drug, making marijuana the second most smoked mood-altering or recreational drug. Criminal justice policy management will impact future drug consequences in several ways. From assessment, it is evident that the streets of North America are inundated with illicit, illegal drugs for pain, and unhappiness. One does not need to dig deeper within the society to realize there is a sub-culture that prevails, predominantly among our young generation that embraces the use of narcotics. When some management or authority presents this social legalization of drug abuse, it would unsurprisingly allow drug addicts to support the notion of legalization with arguments such as marijuana offers medical benefits for individuals with chronic pain.

The criminal justice policy and management seek to suppress the drug trade. International drug use is progressive globally, directed explicitly by organized crime. Despite the amounting discussions that existent policies have failed, in accomplishing real consequences, a majority of policy-formulation agencies at both the local and global levels have usually avoided deliberating on alternative solutions or extensive analysis. Due to deficit in leadership and organization on drug policies, it is the role of criminal justice management or INTERPOL with the collaborations of commissions for makes more severe and useful systems and strategies to respond to the intensifying occurrence of drug production, dissemination, and use.

The criminal justice policy management and INTERPOL assist both domestic and foreign law enforcement departments that have the authority to counter illicit drug trafficking, production, and abuse of illegal drugs. The criminal justice system is responsible for the detection and imprisonment of fugitives of drug use and traffickers. The criminal justice management would impact future drug policies positively in the sense that it is delegated with the responsibilities to investigate issues concerning the trends, trend routes, organizations, production, and distribution of drug trafficking.

Intended and unintended consequences

The objective of the illegalization and criminalization of illicit drugs is to provide positive outcomes. Studies show that most of the marijuana smokers are jazz musician (Bagley, 2015). These kinds of music played by jazz musicians are inspired by cannabis. Studies show that the more women smoke marijuana, the more they feel attracted and sexually closer to males, dancers, and entertainers. The smoking of marijuana has also been associated with the escalating rate of violence and murders cases on various occasions.

Community issues

Illicit drug use introduces unintended consequences to the whole society as it impacts the healthy lifestyle by causing distraction and making individuals engage in undesired conducts that violate social welfare. Addicted consumers may engage in crime to acquire money in attempts to serve their addictions. Drug use has adverse effects on the health of the users, loss of production, as well as the loss of societal customs and values. Law enforcement regulations and policies on drugs based on efforts to reduce these risks per person or by inflicting penalties on criminals. Health concerns among users and victims of illicit medications persist in spreading as a result of lacking information in the black market. Most of the drug-associated deaths are accredited to the availability of variable purities of the same product. Law enforcement would help to eliminate this problem by ensuring the existence of a legal market with quality control. The strict he rules, the stringent the drug business is, and the greater the profits because of the higher risks, and the more the probability of people engaging in the offensive deals.

As observed, the unintended outcomes include ethical issues in the criminal justice system. In some scenarios, drug use is alleged to cause passive conduct or violence, and sometimes, people may question the purpose of drug policies (Carnegie Mellon University, 2014). For instance, it raises ethical issues when a drug user has jailed the question is, should they be detained or protected from the danger of drug use through rehabilitation programs? Throwing drug users in prison exposes them to more risks of diseases, sexual harassment, undesired living conditions, and physical violence. Ethical issues here arise because one can ask. What exactly are the laws and policies protecting people from?

The unintended outcomes entail the growth of an extensive and violent illicit black market, which is supported by influential people in the authority systems and funded by the escalating profits of disseminating the international demand for illegal drugs. The massive policy shift has resulted from the use of scarce resources to support different law enforcement agencies targeted at addressing criminal behavior (Carpenter, 2014). Another unintended consequence is the aspect of geographical dislocation, also known as the balloon effect. Substance displacement arises once consumer intends to shift from using a particular drug to the other since affording the usual substance might have been disillusioned by the increasingly stringent policies on the availability of that substance, for instance, surrendering to law enforcement force.  Unintended consequences would also lead to unexpected deaths of law enforcers; this would be triggered by political influence. Statistics show that most drug traffickers have robust support from the political arena. Some governmental powers have an impact on how the illegalization of drugs is conducted. Officers involved in the investigation of drug trafficking may be silenced through death to stop interfering with the running of the business (Bagley, 2015). Consequently, the business blooms, and this affects the innocent community members. Also, drug cartels may engage in corruption activities and offer bribes such that whenever they are caught engaging in illicit drugs, there are no legal actions taken because they have connections within the political system.

The UNDOC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) suggests that the international statistics of persons who will be engaging in illicit drug use will possibly increase by 25% by the year 2050. The rate of this rise will be connected with the rapid population growth within the urban cities, and most victims will be women due to increasing campaigns on the abolition of cultural obstacles and the promotion of gender equity and equality (World Drug Report 2014)

Recommendations

It is crucial to focus on breaking the idea and taboos to seek open discussions that would stimulate the enactment of policies that would substantially minimize the production, distribution, and consumption of illicit drugs. Further criminalization and punishment of drug users should be replaced with the endowment of rehabilitation centers and treatment facilities. The government should support research with bodies of control of drugs that are targeted to disrupt the power of organized crimes to certify the safety and well-being of their citizens. The government should pay attention to punishing the drug cartels and distributors instead of drug users.

Conclusion

Misconceptions regarding drug use and dependency should be challenged instead of reinforcing to disclose the magnitudes that are intensely rooted in the understanding of public view regarding drug-associated problems. Current regulations against the war on illicit drugs have failed. Therefore, policy-makers should formulate new strategies towards tackling this international issue (University of Huddersfield. 2014). Getting drug abolition approaches to function effectively is neither a subject of intellectual or hypothetical discussion. Since drug-associated items are predominant and, most specifically, increasing within international communities, policy makeover should be established hastily to help abolish the problem of global drug production, distribution, and use.

References

Bagley, B. M., & Rosen, J. D. (2015). Drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence in the Americas today. University Press of Florida.

Bigo, Didier. 2000. Liaison Officers in Europe: New Officers in the European Security Field. In Issues in Transnational Policing, ed. J.W.E. Sheptycki, 67–99. London and New York: Routledge. Print.

BMJ. (2017, January 17). The war on drugs causes massive human rights violations: Experts discuss the devastating effects of prohibition and their reasons for reform. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 30, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170117192705.htm

Carnegie Mellon University. (2014, March 4). How social media shaped the ‘drug war’ in Mexico. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 30, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140304130027.htm

Carpenter, T. G. (2014). Bad neighbor policy: Washington’s futile war on drugs in Latin America. St. Martin’s Press.

Fedotov, Y. (2014). World Drug Report 2014. UNODC United Nations Publication Sales, (2012).

Juan Carlos Gachúz Maya, “U.S.-Mexico Drug Trafficking: Globalization, Cooperation and Challenges”, Revista de Estudios en Seguridad Internacional, Vol. 5, No. 1, (2019), pp. 21-35.

King, Stewart. 2014. Crime Fiction as World Literature. Clues: A Journal of Detection. 32(2): 8–19. Print.

United Nations Office of Drug Control, (2010). “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Threat Assessment”. United Nations, Vienna. http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/tocta-2010.html

University of Huddersfield. (2014, May 1). Battle against drug smuggling: Physicist’s new                       research lends a hand. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 23, 2019 from             www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140501101048.htm