Decriminalize Drugs Analysis

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Introduction
America has been at war with one of it’s most malicious enemies for decades and has yet to let up the fight. This enemy is destructive, taking thousands of lives a year. Drugs are everywhere, and criminals are making millions of dollars every year off of the illegal industry. The decriminalization of drugs has been discussed by many in America, but it has yet to be considered a legitimate option for our country.
Legalizing drugs has proven to be extremely successful in Australia, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Portugal and could very well show the same results in the United States. By success it is meant that these countries showed no rise in drug abuse rates, or the harms that are often associated with drug abuse, after …show more content…
In response to a ‘drug trafficking crisis’ in Latin America, Guatemala, Mexico and Columbia have called for a United Nations General Assembly Special Session in order to discuss the possibility of decriminalization, among other solutions (Gwynne, 2016). The legalization of drugs has proven to be successful and it’s methods are being put to use across the globe in order to better society, why not in America as …show more content…
Renowned American political scientist, James Q. Wilson, argues that legalization would increase drug abuse due to an acceleration of production and availability (Wilson, 1990). While enduring the Vietnam war, many soldiers used an increasingly common drug known as Heroin in order to cope with their conditions. Upon the return of participating soldiers, the American government was concerned the drug abuse would continue once the men retired from battle. In Against the Legalization of Drugs, Wilson uses Vietnam veterans to support this argument; the author refers to a ‘brilliant’ study conducted by Lee Robins, professor at Washington University, in order to determine whether veterans would continue their frequent heroin use once they returned to the States (Wilson,1990). The study revealed a great majority of the subjects discontinued their heroin use, as the drug was much harder to obtain within America. This perspective is entirely logical, however as mentioned in the previous section, the results from decriminalized countries contradict Wilson’s argument. The Czech Republic, Portugal, Australia, and the Netherlands all presented no increase in drug abuse rates and a substantial decrease in crime
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