NCJ Number
169262
Date Published
1998
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This chapter argues that legalizing drugs would reverse progress in the war on drugs and could increase the number of users.
Abstract
Legalizing drugs would reverse the substantial decrease in the number of drug users since 1979, when some 25 million had tried drugs in the previous year. Today that figure is 11 million, the result of stricter drug laws, stronger societal disapproval and an increased awareness of the devastation drugs can produce. According to research, fewer than 50 percent of high school seniors and young adults under 22 believed they could obtain cocaine "fairly easily" or "very easily." For the adult population the figure was 39 percent. Both figures could double or triple with the legalization of drugs. If millions become addicted in a period when drugs are illegal, socially unacceptable and generally difficult to get, millions more will surely become addicts when drugs are legal, socially acceptable and easily obtainable. In response to the argument that young people could be excluded from a free market for drugs, one need only cite society's failure to keep legal drugs out of the hands of children. Five million children smoke tobacco and 12 million teens drink alcohol.