Pros and Cons of Legalizing Drugs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Pros and Cons of Legalizing Drugs - Essay Example The government starts experiencing constraints in sustaining its citizens and therefore is forced to result to heavy borrowing from other nations, non-governmental organizations, World Bank among other financial institutions. The resulting effect is a huge deficit in the balance of payments, which in turn leads to bad debts (Parks 2009). b) High costs incurred- The costs incurred by the government in following up and arresting drug traffickers are high. It involves the use of machines like vehicles and detectors, to track the criminals and this means expenditure has to be incurred. When these criminals have been arrested and prosecuted, they have to be retained in the cells and provided with the basic needs. If any of them falls sick, they have to be taken to the hospital by the government and it settles their medical bills. This all are extra costs incurred which should have otherwise been saved (Bean 2010). Many nations find it unreasonable nowadays to arrest and prosecute drug offenders as that is not helping in any way to reduce the vice and hence the urge to legalize drugs. The graph below compares the total number of people jailed for drug abusing in U.S.A and the total number of people arrested and jailed by the European Union for all offenses:Medical expenditure by the government increases since many fall vic tims of drug abuse. Many of them become addicted to the drugs to a point whereby they cannot do without them, and this means rehabilitation is the only solution to save their lives. The sensitization programs that the government may decide to organize to enlighten the people on the effects of drug abuse and ways of avoiding drug abuse are very costly. c) Increased mortality rate- Due to drug legalization, many drivers will be under the influence of drugs when driving. This increases road accidents hence leading to loss of lives of many civilians and traffic jams in the roads. In addition, since it is legal to use drugs, many people will result to abusing them. Drug abuse may lead to death of the victim at the end because the drugs have their side effects on human health. For example, many people have been abusing pharmaceutical products that are legal and this has resulted in the death of the individuals. These deaths reduce the population of a country, which should have provided the country with enough labor force to maximize output thus profits (Parks 2009). d) Increased war with other nations and terrorism- Many terrorists do abuse drugs so that they can stimulate their bodies for the plans ahead. Many of these drugs affect the reasoning capacity of an individual and