The topic is “Should all drugs be legalized?”, I want the essay to argue that yes, they should.
The main focus of this essay and the strongest argument should be for criminal reasons.
Additionally, I want to tie in health reasons, as well as economics.
The format is the following:
Hook: A story that we can refer to throughout the essay to help strengthen our argument.
Followed by statistics and facts, why this is a big problem and its impacts
Then background to understand why it is a problem
Then the solution
Some arguments that could be included for pro legalization:
– Manufactured legally, rules and regulations are set, people will know what is in it (good for health)
– Less crime and corruption
– People can ask for help without being afraid of punishment
– Jail or incarceration just makes the user worse off, doesn’t make it better.
– The three most dangerous drugs are illegal, why should opioids be illegal+ alcohol, smoking cause more deaths
– What about people who need opoioids?
-Much of the harms associated with drug use is caused not by intoxicating drugs, but by the fact that such drugs are illegal.
-People who are punished for drug use are more likely to continue using drugs.
-Prohibiting drugs increases price of production for manufacturers, so cost of production and distribution increases, causing it to require higher income, and those who dont have it will be involved in criminal acts just to be able to afford it. (drugs are inelastic).
– drug users will buy illegally rather than legally -> more likely to be overdosed or laced with something else, even more harmful for health.
-alcohol and tobacco is worse
– Prevents further studying of drugs and maybe discovering the benefits of them
A good source on criminalization:
– https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1837&context=facpub
Other sources attached.
Lecture 6: crime
Lecture 7: economics
No charts or graphs or images just writing.
