Drug legalization

SIGNIFICANCE: The "War on Drugs" in the United States, which remains ongoing even after the government sought to distance itself from that term, is a massive social commitment that has, especially in the case of certain drugs such as marijuana, come to the forefront of political and public debate. Fuller understanding of the debate over issues of legalization should help both those who support and those who oppose current drug policy to clarify their perspectives.

Since the early twentieth century, American society has sought to control the problem of drug abuse largely through its criminal justice system. During the 1970s and 1980s, sharp increases in drug use and the emergence of such dangerous new drug menaces as crack cocaine fueled what has been dubbed a "War on Drugs." This led to massive increases in state and federal narcotics enforcement efforts and stiffer criminal penalties for drug offenders that in turn led to sharp increases in prison populations. These increases have especially affected the Federal Bureau of Prisons. As of 2024, approximately 44 percent of inmates nationally, or 64,498 prisoners, were drug offenders—up from 16 percent in 1970. While supporters argue this is a necessary means of protecting society, critics argue that legalizing and regulating all or some drugs would be more effective and fair.

Arguments: Pros and Cons

Proponents of the War on Drugs defend it as necessary to prevent the spread of drug abuse and its associated problems. However, its critics argue that the programs are expensive, ineffective, counterproductive, and sometimes immoral. Some critics also argue that most, if not all, drugs should be made legal and regulated by methods similar to those in place for alcohol and tobacco products. Legalization arguments are most common and popular for "soft" drugs such as marijuana (cannabis), which have been shown to have relatively low addictive properties or other negative health consequences and may even provide some benefits.

Opponents of legalization, or prohibitionists, often note the social ills associated with illicit drugs in defending their illegal status. They point out that most prison and jail inmates are involved with illegal drugs, that even so-called minor drugs such as marijuana have been shown to have serious negative health effects, and that illicit drugs devastate the most disadvantaged communities. To address these problems, they argue, harsh penalties for drug crimes help to deter prospective drug users and traffickers.

Critics reject the prohibitionist logic and the deterrence theory. First, they question whether the criminal justice system itself is the appropriate place in which to respond to what is essentially a medical and personal problem. They cite the example of alcohol and tobacco products containing nicotine. Like illegal drugs, those substances pose serious health challenges to their users and generate enormous costs to society, but society addresses those problems through means other than arrest and punishment.

Drug war critics also note that, despite massive efforts by drug enforcement agencies to combat drug use, research surveys have suggested that drug-use patterns have remained remarkably stable since the War on Drugs programs began during the 1970s. Meanwhile, they argue, the drug war has endangered the lives of valuable law-enforcement personnel and wasted precious financial resources. Prohibitionists respond by pointing to marginal decreases in the use of some drugs during the 1990s as possible evidence of the drug war's success. However, their critics counter that those decreases may be attributable either to improvements in the national economy that alleviated the social conditions that tend to drive drug use or to mere changes in drug fashions.

Critics also contend that the War on Drugs contributes to the problems that prohibitionists use to justify current policy. The crucial problem with attempting to control drugs through law enforcement is the demand for illegal drugs, which inevitably entices people into the lucrative illicit drug trade. Drug addicts commit crimes to support their habits and must enter the dangerous criminal underworld to purchase their drugs, whose prices are made artificially high by the fact of their being illegal. Drug traffickers engage in extortion, kidnapping, and murder to establish and defend their illegal trade. These factors essentially guarantee a close link between illicit substances and crime, but advocates of legalization suggest that this link could be broken by careful regulation and the development of a legitimate industry.

Among the other arguments advanced in favor legalizing drugs is the desire to protect the health and safety of addicts. Because illicit drugs are unregulated, there can be no guarantees of their purity and their safety to the people who use them. Another line of argument concerns the impact of drug law enforcement on the innocent. For example, the use of incarceration to punish drug crimes disrupts the families of incarcerated drug offenders, often worsening the conditions of poverty and instability that breed youth criminality—including drug offenses—thereby tending to perpetuate the cycle of drug use that the drug war is intended to end. Critics of current drug policies argue that if drugs were legalized and regulated, the current black market, and most of the crime, health risk, and social cost associated with drug use, would be greatly reduced.

There is significant evidence that, under the current drug legislation, arrests disproportionately affect Black over White communities, though drug use and sales are fairly equal between populations. Black men are incarcerated in state prisons on drug charges at approximately thirteen times the rate that White men are; that figure increases to about fifty-seven times for federal prisons. Part of this disparity is caused by police targeting low-income communities, which have a higher population of African Americans and other minorities. Those in favor of legalization, or at least decriminalization, argue that such measures would alleviate the cycle of poverty and incarceration that the illegal drug culture creates in these communities.

Prohibitionists counter with a number of effective criticisms at those who support legalization. First, even if it is true that prohibition has failed to eradicate all drug use, legalization could easily result in increased levels of use as the legal consequences of drug crimes are removed. Second, government's legalization of drugs might send a message, especially to young people, that drug use is acceptable, thereby encouraging the spread of drug abuse and addiction.

Some proponents of legalization argue that mere drug use should be legal in any event, because drug use, by itself, carries no personal culpability in the same sense as robbery or murder. However, prohibitionists dispute that mere use is a morally neutral act, since a society in which drugs are commonly available would be less able to prevent drug use among the young and misinformed. They argue that even mere consensual use is part of, and certainly no solution to, the problem of drug abuse.

Deciding which side of the debate—prohibition or legalization—is most compelling may hinge on the answers to three difficult questions: What are the likely social costs of decriminalization? How do those costs compare with the costs of keeping drugs illegal? And, to what extent are drug crimes, such as mere possession or trafficking, punishable under an ethical system of law? The fact that the answers to these questions remain in sharp dispute demonstrates that the drug legalization debate is far from resolved.

Legalization Trends

While a few activists suggest that virtually all substances should be legalized, the debate has typically centered on "soft" drugs, especially marijuana. While organized movements supporting the legalization of marijuana long existed, the issue gained traction after California became the first state to allow the use of medical marijuana in 1996. The marijuana legalization movement grew considerably in the twenty-first century, first for medical use but eventually for adult recreational use as well. In 2012 Colorado and Washington became the first states to approve of measures allowing legal recreational marijuana use.

By July 2023, thirty-eight US states (as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands) had legalized medical marijuana in some capacity, while twenty-four states as well as the District of Columbia and two territories had legalized recreational use for adults. For the most part these developments were achieved through voter ballot initiatives, but in January 2018, Vermont became the first state to legalize marijuana through a legislative act. An additional fifteen states had some kind of legislation on the decriminalization of marijuana for nonmedical use, removing the criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the drug. However, marijuana remained illegal at the federal level, creating some conflict and confusion. For example, the administration of President Barack Obama in 2013 ordered federal law enforcement agencies to largely avoid acting against state laws regarding marijuana possession, but the administration of President Donald Trump rescinded that guideline in 2018. The administration of President Joe Biden avoided immediately taking on the issue of marijuana reform after taking office in 2021 despite widespread support from Democrats.

Legalization or decriminalization of drugs, especially marijuana, continues to be a national topic of conversation. In the states where marijuana possession has been partially or fully decriminalized, money has been saved through reduced arrests and, in the case of Colorado, money has been made by marijuana tourism and tax revenue from its sales. Further, some legalization proponents suggest that the decision to use drugs is a function of complex personal and social factors, of which prospective legal penalties are only a small part. By this reasoning, decriminalization might not result in the dramatic increase in consumption that prohibitionists fear. A growing body of research also began to suggest that certain other illicit drugs—especially hallucinogens such as psilocybin (mushrooms), LSD, and MDMA (ecstasy)—could have potential medical uses, making their legalization more attractive.

Critics of strict federal drug regulations also continue to challenge the idea that legalization "sends the wrong message." First, by the logic of this prohibitionist argument, the use of all dangerous substances, including nicotine and alcohol, should be subject to the criminal law. However, American society does not rely as strongly on the justice system to impress on the public the undesirability of the use of those substances. Furthermore, it is argued that there are more constructive ways to send the desired message, including public awareness campaigns about the social consequences of drug abuse—much like those already used to discourage cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse. Reflecting the increasing popularity of such arguments, by 2024 the Pew Research Center reported that approximately 88 percent of Americans favored legalizing marijuana for medical use or recreational use. Fifty-seven percent of American adults felt that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use.

In November 2020 Oregon made history as the first US state to decriminalize possession for personal use of all drugs, not just marijuana (which was already fully legalized in the state). Though drugs such as heroin and cocaine remained illegal, simple possession would face civil penalties including fines and possible mandated therapy rather than jail time. Proponents of this move cited common arguments such as the failure of drug prohibition to prevent drug abuse, the cost savings to the criminal justice system, and the racial and ethnic disparities under traditional drug enforcement policies. Opponents echoed the usual arguments against decriminalization and legalization, and also suggested it might attract drug users to the state. Many observers suggested Oregon would serve as an experiment that would inform decriminalization and legalization efforts elsewhere.

Bibliography

Downes, Lawrence. "The Great Colorado Weed Experiment." New York Times. New York Times, 2 Aug. 2014. Web. 9 Dec. 2015.

Gray, James. Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2001. Print.

Hartig, Hannah, and A. W. Geiger. "About Six-In-Ten Americans Support Marjuana Legalization." Pew Research Center, 8 Oct. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/08/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/. Accessed 9 Sept. 2019.

Hartman, Michael. "Cannabis Overview." NCSL, National Conference of State Legislatures, 6 July 2021, www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/marijuana-overview.aspx. Accessed 3 Aug. 2021.

Husak, Douglas. Legalize This! The Case for Decriminalizing Drugs. New York: Verso, 2002. Print.

Kain, Erik. "The War on Drugs Is a War on Minorities and the Poor." Forbes. Forbes.com, 28 June 2011. Web. 9 Dec. 2015.

Lopez, German. "The Spread of Marijuana Legalization, Explained." Vox, 22 Jan. 2018, www.vox.com/cards/marijuana-legalization/what-is-marijuana-decriminalization. Accessed 26 June 2024.

"Most Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana for Medical, Recreational Use." Pew Research Center, 26 Mar. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/03/26/most-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana-for-medical-recreational-use/. Accessed 26 June 2024.

"Offenses." Federal Bureau of Prisons, 22 June 2024, www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics‗inmate‗offenses.jsp. Accessed 26 June 2024.

Schaler, Jeffrey A., ed. "Should Drugs Be Legalized?" In Drugs: Should We Legalize, Decriminalize, or Regulate?, New York: Prometheus, 1998. Print.

Trebach, Arnold S., and James A. Inciardi. Legalize It? Debating American Drug Policy. Washington, D.C.: American UP, 1993. Print.

Westervelt, Eric. "Oregon's Pioneering Drug Decriminalization Experiment Is Now Facing the Hard Test." NPR, 18 June 2021, www.npr.org/2021/06/18/1007022652/oregons-pioneering-drug-decriminalization-experiment-is-now-facing-the-hard-test. Accessed 26 June 2024.

Wilson, James Q. "Drugs and Crime." Drugs and Crime. Eds. Michael Tonry and James Q. Wilson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990. Print.