LISA CUMBIE/Art Editor
GLORIA SHELLER
Assistant Perspectives Editor
Since the 1980s, the United States has been battling the war on drugs. While the catchy phrase has somewhat lost its meaning, the immense impact that drugs have on people’s lives certainly has not.
I don’t support the people who don’t want to contribute to society and all they do is sit on their couches, high all day. However, a lot of our nation’s monetary and criminal problems could be eased with the legalization of marijuana.
At first, one may think, how can legalizing a substance actually reduce the abuse of it, solving some problems? Well, look back to the prohibition era in the 1920s, when with the passing of the 18th Amendment the sale and the consumption of alcohol became illegal. Such an act lead to the birth of a black market, full of powerful gangs and a lot of violence.
Weird. This sounds a lot like what is happening these days.
According to CNN on Jan. 26, a tunnel stretching from a warehouse in Tijuana to a warehouse just across the border in California was found with two tons of pot stashed inside.
This time, it was just two tons, but who knows how long the tunnel has been there and how much trafficking has occurred literally underground with no regulations. That leads me to think of how many other drug crimes go unnoticed.
Actually, the crime trickles down from the drug tunnels to transportation. According to the Suffolk News-Herald, a Virginia paper, a trucking company was found carting marijuana around the country to states such as Arizona and Virginia.
By marijuana being legal and considered a viable commodity in the United States, drug tunnels wouldn’t even have to exist. Prohibition was unenforceable due to the black market and much of the illegal activity in the drug world these days is unseen because the layers of secrecy. As the Food and Drug Administration regulates alcohol, with the legalization of marijuana any questionable drug transactions could be brought to the attention of the FDA, which could oversee imports.
Furthermore, transport companies wouldn’t be considered criminals, but legal companies contributing to the economy.
The illegality of marijuana puts gangs into a very powerful position. Gangs, often linked with drugs, have a monopoly of sorts in the buying and selling of drugs. Because gangs typically have no problem using violence, police officers often have to get in the middle of scraps between members.
But police officers don’t arrest people with less than an ounce of marijuana (that still seems like a lot of pot).
Cops aren’t going around taking in every person in posession of marijuana like some people might believe. Rather they write tickets, which is pointless. The ticket is a fine of about $500 that isn’t going to mean much to a kid willing to spend equally outrageous amounts of money on pot.
Making marijuana legal, would let the police worry about arresting hard criminals who are breaking into houses and causing serious problems in society. They wouldn’t be spending their time stopping every high school kid they see with pot.
The issue about the legalization of certain drugs has been debated tenfold, but it is an issue worth looking at time and time again. Drugs unfortunately touch more than just the lives of those who use them and it’s important to keep as many people safe as possible.
I don’t feel like getting my identity stolen besause some person needs drug money. Let them take out a loan and add more to our economy.
02-02-2006