Why Drugs Should be Made Legal During the 1920's, laws prohibiting alcohol sales and consumption did very little to stop people form getting their hands on a bottle of rum. Instead, the streets became the battlegrounds for organized criminals. Innocent people were being killed and public officials corrupted. Prohibition was a mistake and hopefully we are wise enough as a society not to try to repeat the same mistake. However, we are making the same mistake by trying to fight the war on drugs. Today, drug laws are doing very little to stop people from consuming illegal drugs. Like Prohibition, the war on drugs has been a failure. It is time to re-legalize drugs. By doing so, we would be able to regulate it, increase revenue for the government, and reduce crime.Regulation is the control of a product. The government should regulate who can use drugs, how one can get it, and who produces it. Drugs should be regulated in the same way as alcohol. There should be an age restriction of 21 on all drugs that are deemed illegal today. Like alcohol, drugs should be made available for purchase at liquor stores. And as for who would produce these legal drugs? As it stands today, individuals produce drugs. Whether it is the cartels in South America or your neighbor in his garage, quality control cannot be imposed upon them. This is very similar to the days of Prohibition. As the production of alcohol moved away from the corporation and into the hands of the individual, the product became more lethal. Alcohol killed thousands of people during the twenties because it was made improperly. Like wise drugs, like heroin, are doing the same today. If we moved the production of drugs out of the individual's hands and into the professional chemist's and pharmaceutical company's hands we would be increasing the purity of these drugs, making it safer to use. The drugs would also be cleaner and measured out properly. People will use drugs, it is i...
