Essay, Research Paper: Legalized Drugs

I resolve that the use of drugs in our country should be legalized. Most illegal drugs are just as dangerous and harmful as legal ones. The wide spread propaganda that illegal drugs are "deadly poisons" is a hoax. There is little or no medical evidence of long term ill effects from sustained, moderate consumption of uncontaminated marijuana, cocaine, or heroine. These drugs have been consumed for centuries and if they caused any chronic progressive or disabling diseases, they would have shown up in clinical practice and on the autopsy table.
Probably the most addictive substance in our civilization is tobacco, which kills nearly one million people per year, in the U.S. alone, yet it has never been suggested to become illegal. Another legal, abused drug is alcohol. One out of every sixteen, abuse alcohol and it is the number one killer of fifteen through twenty-four year olds in related driving accidents. Alcoholism is the third leading cause of early death, after cancer and heart disease. Alcoholism is a fatal disease, has no cure, and is the number one drug threat in the U.S.
The media mainly focuses on the "junkies" of society, but they make up only a small portion of the consumers in the one-hundred and fifty billion dollar per year illegal drug market. The actual large portion of these users are ordinary people who are typically employed, productive, responsible and not significantly impaired from leading normal lives. These drug users and not addicts, just as the vast majority of alcohol users are not alcoholics.
During the middle 70's research on drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, did not point clearly to health hazards. Those who have favored legalization thought that certain drugs could be used responsibly by most people. By arresting and punishing such people, society has made criminals out of people who would normally be law abiding citizens.
There are many benefits. The government could be gathering millions through taxes of these substances rather than spending billions of dollars trying to control them. If certain drugs were legalized, there would be a dramatic change in drug related crimes. The outlawing of drugs has produced major criminal activity including muggings and murders, which people do to get money to pay for their costly habits. People would have no reasons to commit these crimes, because the cost would be reasonable, for instance, a dose of cocaine that would normally cost fifty dollars would then now cost only about fifty cents. Legalization would immediately put drug lords, drug rings, and other drug related crimes to a halt, because obtainability would put them out of business. People who would substitute these drugs for tobacco for alcohol would be better off from a bodily health standpoint, and also people around them. Cocaine and heroine users do not pollute the air and rarely abuse their spouses or children while under the influence of these drugs.
I came here today to inform you of the facts and opinions of today's legal and illegal drugs. In many countries where drugs are legal, crimes and addiction rates are drastically lower than those of the U.S.