The US should play a dominant role in reducing the production of drugs throughout the world. The fact is that drugs are a huge threat to the public welfare, and any good parent aspires to keep their children away from drugs. The debate ensues when one attempts to define just exactly how that is to be accomplished. The only logical way to reduce the production of drugs is to take away the incentives that propel a person to produce them, or to sell, or for that matter, to use them.
Let's start from the bottom of the totem pole. People use drugs because they are exposed to them and they are readily available. Drugs are readily available for purchase because there are huge profits in selling them because drugs are illegal. Drug dealers are able to get their hands on the product for the same reason that users are, it is available to them. It is available to them because it is being produced, whether locally or abroad is of no consequence. People are producing drugs because there are huge profits in the aspects of production. Again, this is because it is illegal.
The question is then posed: How does the fact that drugs are illegal make them worth more? Well, the explanation is simple. If something is illegal, then there are risks associated with trafficking the substance, it also makes the substance rarer. These two things in themselves raise the value of any given substance which is subjected to sanctions, or can be criminally prosecuted. The buyer has to pay for the supply and demand aspect of the product, as well as the potential risk to those who manufacture or sell the product.
In turn, high profit margins attract the criminal element. An element that is not subject to any sort of licensing procedures or profit documentations. This creates a no holds barred business structure which is ran by criminal enterprises. Such enterprises have no rules, and do not pay taxes on the profits they make. For these reasons drugs have come to be a plague to the civilized world, associated with other evils such as, prostitution, murder, money laundering, extortion, and corruption. Also the United States government looses out on billions of dollars in taxes in an undocumented, underground market that is ran by unscrupulous criminals.
In this light, the answer then is not criminalization, but regulation and education. By legalizing drugs you accomplish several objectives. You narrow the profit margin associated with the the production or sales of drugs. Suddenly the amount of lets say marijuana, which currently can be purchased for one hundred dollars on the streets, suddenly can be purchased for the price of a pack of cigarettes in a convenience store. Also, the drug would then be produced and sold by business men who would be subjected to strict regulations and licensing procedures. This means that store owners would be reluctant to sell the product to anybody under the general age requirements as determined by the general public, due to the fear of losing their right to sale the product and thus forfeiting the associated profits. Whereas a criminal drug dealer who is already risking his freedom would sell the drug to your Jr. High student just to turn a profit.
Production would also be regulated, insuring a safer product for the users. Where as criminal drug dealers are free to cut their product with any dangerous substance they choose without having the education to see the potential results of their action on the user, and perhaps not even caring. The potency of any given drug could also be regulated in order to insure that users within the age requirements only have access to substances within the potency levels as deemed acceptable by the governing bodies. Remember, as of right now, that user can be anybody, including your school aged sons and daughters. Under this program such risks would be reduced significantly.
The government would then receive billions of dollars in taxes that they are not currently receiving. Money that is currently being allocated by criminals, to other dangerous criminal activities. Large portions of this income flux could be utilized for drug treatment programs, programs which are now being paid for out of the tax monies taken from you checks every week. Other portions could be used for advertisement and aversion programs that would educate children and the public of the dangers associated with substance abuse. This is something we know works, because we can see its current impact on the profits of the tobacco industry.
As an added bonus, we would save millions of dollars that are currently being wasted to house drug offenders in state prisons. These are non-violent offenders, who's only known crimes have been to fall victim to the perils of a drug industry that is being ran by the criminal element. These offenders could then take advantage of the substance abuse counseling which would be financed by those who chose to market the less dangerous substances that they are addicted to. California prisons are currently overloaded with such offenders, to the point that conditions in these facilities have been deemed unconstitutional by the courts.
As profits drop and regulations narrow, the production of drugs begin to decrease rather than increase, as they are under the current conditions. The pandemic begins to subside. Not over night, but in time it is possible to perhaps annihilate drugs, or isolate them to realms of little significance, from our society, not because we are forcing people to do something, but because we have shown them that it is better not to do them. All of this is possible with regulation, rehabilitation, and education. The current policy of criminalization has only illustrated itself to be fuel to a growing fire. It is time for a new approach to an old problem.