Vidal argues that we as a nation shouldlegalize drugs. He is correct. Legalizing drugs can benefit the nation.
Legalizingdrugs can help the nation financially. For example, it can benefit taxes. Bymaking drugs legal, it opens up a professional business, which can then makedrugs taxable. As stated by Drug War Statistics, tax revenue that druglegalization would yield annually, if currently-illegal drugs were taxed atrates compared to those on alcohol and tobacco would be $46.
7 billion (“DrugWar Statistics.” Drug Policy Alliance, Accessed 19 Jan. 2018).In doing so,it allows more money to enter into the state. According to Business Insider,The state of California itself stands to earn a substantial chunk of cash fromlegalizing (Gilbert, Ben. “California Just Legalized, and It’s Going toHave a Huge Impact on the Economy.” Business Insider, 9 Nov.
2016). Legalizingcan also help by saving money. The illegal marketing opens doors for manycrimes, which results in spending money on entering criminals in prison.
Asclaimed by Drug War Statistics, the amount spent annually in the United Statesis fifty billion (+) (“Drug War Statistics.” Drug Policy Alliance,Accessed 19 Jan. 2018). Keeping drugs illegal only places a legal burden on oursociety that we cannot continue to afford. Onthe other hand, some drugs are typically illegal for a reason they are harmfulto take and can make the user act dangerously. Keeping them illegal helpsprotect our society and limit the amount of people from buying, which then theamount of accidents and deaths decreases. According to the InternationalOverdose Awareness Day, in the United States, 43,982 people die every year fromdrug overdose, an average of about 120 deaths per day (International OverdoseAwareness Day, Accessed 19 Jan. 2018).
The more we keep a restraint on drugs,the better our nation can be. Drugs are a burden to our society and the choicesof people should not endanger the lives of everyone else. However,legalizing drugs has more service to the nation than keeping them illegal.Keeping drugs illegal only causes them to be produced by criminals with nosense of standards. By selling them through pharmacies, it would mean a solidcontrol over who can buy them, whether they are of age or not and mostimportantly, whether they have a disorder, physically or mentally thatprohibits hem to take them.
By cutting out these people from the drug system,we can help create a safer environment. This also indicates that the state canknow who receives the drugs. Vidal’s claim about legalizing drugs iscorrect. It may benefit our nation in many ways, including protecting oursociety.
