Also consider the enormous waste of law enforcement efforts that are spent on prohibiting drugs. If drug usage and trafficking was not a legal matter, law enforcement agencies would be able to allocate more time and effort to actually catching violent criminals instead of cracking down on college frat parties. Court systems too will be able to operate more efficiently as most of the non-violent cases involving drugs will be thrown out, and the courts can deal strictly with real criminals.
The prohibition of drugs has fostered an ideal habitat for rampant gang activities. The UN estimated in 2005 that USD 321.6 billion was being generated through illegal drug trade. The illicit drug market is so large that Joaquin Guzman Loera, a notorious Mexican drug lord, was named 60th of the 68 most powerful people in the world in 2010. His status does not seem to diminish even after the bloody crackdown by the Mexican government against drug cartels in recent years. A senior US Drug Enforcement Administration official recently assessed Loera to be the most powerful drug lord ever.
A large number of people have noticed the correlation between the prohibition and the abundance of gang activity. Gang activities are rampant precisely because of the global prohibition against drugs. Gangs are able to reap a huge profit from selling drugs because the demand for the drugs far outweighs the supply. The artificial scarcity of drugs is created by the prohibition. If drugs become legalized, the price of the drugs will plummet as the supply can be taken over by legitimate institutions and operating costs would be greatly reduced. The profit margins gangs currently enjoy will disappear and gang activities will inevitably diminish with legalization.
The only reason why drugs are kept illegal seems to be the public consensus that they should be kept illegal. The public needs to understand that individuals have right to do what they want with their body as long as the activity does not harm others. It’s about time the government abandoned its arrogant paternalism and let people make decisions about their lives on their own.
Legalizing drugs will solve some of the big problems society faces such as high incarceration rates, a bloated legal system and global gang activities. It will also introduce a series of new problems such as drug addiction and possibly increased expenditure on health care, similar to how cigarettes and alcohol contribute to this. It should be noted that legalization of drugs is not an open endorsement for use of drugs. There are many vices in life, but people permit them because we reject a totalitarian society and live a free society.