Decriminalizing Drugs

August 17th, 2010 | Add a Comment

Drugs continue to be an issue that has not yet been tamed. Jail time, rehabilitation, prevention programs and stricter policies just don’t seem to be helping any. A different approach needs to be taken, but what is it? Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, believes decriminalizing illicit drugs will “drastically reduce crime and improve health.”

There seems to be a plentiful amount of evidence showing that the prohibition of drugs has not been successful in reducing health issues or crime rates. According to Prof. Gilmore decriminalization “doesn’t increase the number of drug users,” instead the objective is to help the high number of people already addicted, rather than locking them up. He thinks we should treat addiction as a health issue rather than criminalizing people.

Instead, he advises that someone caught in possession of drugs would receive a fine from a civil court instead of facing criminal charges.

When Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001, they had a cut in overdoses and a decrease of young users. The government does not think decriminalization is the right tactic, but Gilmore believes a drastic move needs to be taken to address the “greatest policy failure.”

I think decriminalizing it is not the right approach. I feel as if the government is taking a middle of the road approach to drug sales and possession, and that shouldn’t be the case. In Europe I know they take drug possession very seriously and if caught you automatically go to jail. The jails are nasty and no one enjoys being there, there are not too many people that are institutionalized there like there are in the States. Laws are set in place for a reason and there should be no middle of the road approach.

I think if the government really wanted to tackle this problem, they could, not completely but they could do a lot to decrease it. I don’t think it is as big of an issue for the government as they make it seem. They make so much money off drug addicts; police, jail workers, attorneys and lawyers. What would happen if the drug problem significantly went down? The government wouldn’t be making as much money, that’s for sure. We function and thrive off of the world around us, and if there weren’t these criminals to cause problems, there wouldn’t be as many jobs and there for hurt the economy even more. It is a larger issue than many think, and many politics are behind it.