The world would be a much better place if illicit drugs didn't exist, but they do, so we must deal with them. Our challenge is to do so in a way that will advance our national interest. Our failed war on drugs is doing just the opposite; America must respond to that reality with a basic change in approach. Legalization is the only practical way to bring about positive results. The money legalization would generate to fight drug abuse would make harm reduction, rather than the twice-failed policy of prohibition, the fulcrum of our drug policy. The failure of prohibition as public policy stems from its transformation of some citizens' cocktail-hour-like drug use and others' medical and psychological problems into crimes. It is no less devastating than if we made both possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages illegal. Social drinkers and alcoholics alike would suddenly be criminalized (Eldredge, 1998).
Illegal drug deaths are outnumbered in thousands by the deaths of people who .
used legal drugs. In a typical US year, tobacco kills about 390,000 people, alcohol kills .
about 80,000, and sidestream smoke takes credit for about 50,000 deaths per year. These .
numbers are far higher than those of illegal drugs. Cocaine kills about 2,200 and Heroin .
kills about 2,000, these are not that high considering Aspirin by itself kills about 2,000 .
people per year (Schaffer, 1998). Marijuana, has never in US history had a reported or recorded death at any time. All illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 people per year, or about 1% of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco. Tobacco kills more people by itself than all of the people killed by all of the illegal drugs combined in the last century. .
The drugs likealcohol and tobacco have proved to be more dangerous and life threatening .
than those like Marijuana.
Another common myth with illegal drugs is that they increase ones ability to.
behave and react violently when using them or experiencing the "high" or "low" off of them.
