As the nation's drug problem persists, issues continue to haunt communities. The question is will legalizing drugs really help or will legalization make problems increase in our society? If drugs remain illegal, a number of complications that could appear as a result of legalization will never occur. Keeping drugs illegal poses a lesser problem than legalization. Drugs should not be legalized not only because legalization is bad for the country but also because it is morally wrong.

Several problems would result if drugs were legalized. First, if drugs were to be legalized, they would be cheaper than they cost now. If they were cheaper, then the drug dealers would be pushed out of business. Apparently this looks like a good thing, but once drugs are cheaper, then more people will experiment and as a result of this become addicted. William Von Raub, a drug analyst, states "People start using drugs because they want to experiment"...[therefore]..."legalization could result in four to five million new drug addicts" (qtd. in Kronenwetter 60). A high increase of experimentation will occur as a result of a decrease in prices, and therefore there will be more drug addiction. Making drugs both le

Family Research Council. Articles. .

Wars are waged by armies using weapons to kill enemies. The primary goal of the National Drug Control Strategy is to educate young people to prevent them from ever trying drugs. Nor are drug- taking Americans the enemy - they require our help to break free of their addictions. -Police officers stop pushers from selling drugs to children - we are not at war with ourselves, we are protecting America's future ("McCaffrey").

Magginis, Robert L. "Medical Marijuana Across the Nation" Family Research Council .

Anderson, Scott. Should Drugs Be Legalized? 13 Sept. 1997 .

Pro-legalizers say that because the prices are so high for drugs, users need to steal and cheat. Their theory is that if drugs were legalized then the rate of crime would decline because there would be fewer robberies. However, according to a British study, drug abusers do not commit crimes just to buy drugs; there also are other reasons in effect. In Britain, in the mid-seventies, addicts received free heroin from a government clinic. The test was to determine whether the users would continue to steal or stop because they didn't need the money to buy drugs anymore since they were getting it free. The results indicated that they were convicted of crimes other than robbery while enrolled in this free drug program (McCuen 178). A study conducted for The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (NCASA) at Columbia University in January 1998 reported that, "49% of state inmates convicted of violent crimes were under the influence of drugs during their crimes, 51% of state inmates convicted of property crimes were under the influence of drugs during their crime" ("Family"). The fact is, the crimes that most drug abusers commit are due to behavior caused by drug usage and not a result of needing money because of high drug prices. So, it cannot be said that addicts commit crimes only in order to obtain money to buy drugs. Rather, it is because they are using drugs which leads them to abnormal behavior. This proves that crime is more correlated with behavior due to drug usage than the need to rob or cheat for drugs. The NCASA also found that 80% of prison inmates (1.4 Million) have histories of behavior problems due to the use of drugs ("Family"). This means that they high when they committed their violent or property crimes. Henceforth, the pro-legalization theory of crime decreasing when the drugs are cheaper is incorrect.

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Approximate Word count = 1858
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)