This was a paper that I recently wrote for my European Philosophy class. Some of the elements are obviously joking as this was supposed to be written in a satirical style, but at the same time, they are all true and serious.
“The end of our Nation’s social and economic problems”
written in the satirical style of Jonathan Swift, By Vinny Troia
Today, I will propose a solution for many of our nation’s problems through a single law. Poverty, immigration, welfare, homelessness, war and healthcare concerns would all slowly be eliminated after the passing of this law. No more would we have to worry about our economic conditions and the welfare of those who are unable to provide for themselves; No more would we have to worry about the war on terror and the many ways that we are inadvertently funding it; And no more would we ever have to worry about a system of government poised on controlling what actions we take with our bodies in the comfort and privacy of our own home. Today, I propose that all of these concerns would be alleviated with the legalization of drugs in our society.
First and foremost, it becomes a question of ease. Throughout history, man has used its technological advancements towards easing the process of achieving its goals. Why should this situation be any different? We have put so many ineffective safeguards to try and prevent the use of drugs, that all we have actually accomplished is the increase of a person’s individual anxiety and reasoning for additional use of those substances. Why should I be put in harm’s way for indulging in something that I choose to do in the safety and comfort in my own home?
Let’s consider an average drug deal. At any given time, the person trying to acquire the drugs is constantly worrying about either: the fear of being arrested, purchasing bad product, or even being put in a compromising position by people whom they don’t trust. There is always an underlying fear of that black market society because those situations have all occurred in the past. The legalization of drugs would eliminate those crimes, including additional crimes of feuding drug lords trying to control segments of land through their narcotic influence.
These people who are so careful and cunning in their businesses might actually be put to good use once their products became legal. It would open a completely new market of opportunity for people who have always felt like ‘they don’t have a chance.’ We now have a way to make these people productive members of our society and stop them from complaining that they have never been given any opportunities for success. New businesses would spring from the ground and poor communities would improve through the new lack of crime and increased revenue generated for their cities. New corporate leaders would emerge and lead their communities in much the same way that they already have been; the difference is that there would be secure government regulation to ensure that the consumer is protected.
However, their protection should be limited to the quality and consistency of the product that they choose to use. Users will always be users and addicts will always be addicts. There are plenty of people in our current day who spend every dollar they have on alcohol or gambling. The fact that they choose to abuse legal products does not make their additions better or worse. If we truly want to help these people then we need to educate them and we need to provide new avenues of help for them. We need more money to accomplish this, and even though it may seem like a ‘catch 22’, that money will come from the newly taxed revenue which would be generated by the same products which we are trying to help them avoid.
Fortune magazine estimated the potential tax earnings from legal marijuana sales at $11 billion per year, and that only accounts for taxes on the marijuana, not including taxes on the income generated by the legal sellers, distributors, and producers (Kupfer, 1988); and that’s just marijuana! The resulting income given back to the local community and state would be much higher if all products were legalized, and as a result, we would ultimately divert a significant portion of our existing tax dollars for more appropriate uses. According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 249,400 inmates for drug offenses in 2006. That means states spent approximately $16,846,970 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,149,144,050 per year (Sabol, 2007). Over 6 trillion dollars on imprisonment, which could be used towards the development of education, medical facilities, and other community projects!
Our economy is down and we need a way to boost it, immediately. We need a way to create jobs and products that would reduce the amount of items which we import. Drug crops would breathe new life into all segments of our society from farmers to large scale entrepreneurs and corporations. Most importantly, it would regulate where the money was going and how it was being used.
Personally, I don’t like the idea that whenever someone I know is purchasing something that will do nothing more than increases the happiness of their evening, those profits are funding terrorism! Terrorist organizations in almost 30 countries now finance their activities, to a greater or lesser extent, through the highly profitable trade in prohibited drugs. With the decline of state-sponsored terrorism, terrorist groups were forced to find other means to finance their activities, and could nonetheless reap enormous profits from the sale of prohibited drugs. 3
The United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention estimate that the retail value of the illegal market is $400 billion per year, which would put it ahead of the petroleum industry. 4 It’s time for us, as a society, to group together and start profiting from the events that we already know are occurring, and will occur regardless of our efforts. What’s more is that we, as a people, don’t have the right to dictate what a person can choose to do with their lives.
Professor Luke Schwarz of Stamford University wrote: “According to our constitution, one of our most cherished rights is the right to ‘the pursuit of happiness.’ However unappealing or shallow pursuing it through mind-altering substances may be, we must still protect people’s right to do so. Although no article of the constitution explicitly secures the right to ingest such substances, there is likewise no provision for Congress to legislate against such ingestion. The ninth and tenth amendments clearly state: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” and “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Therefore, personal rights need not actually be in the Constitution.” 5
So why are drugs illegal? I can’t answer that question. I can only say that I know how these laws have affected me and those around me. John Stuart Mill, in his essay ‘On Liberty’, argued that: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”
I can tell you first hand, that I have never injured another person, nor would I put myself in the position to injure anyone; but my potential actions of self indulgence would still be considered illegal. The legality of what I choose to do with myself can, and will, put me in a more dangerous position when, and if, I choose to engage in those activities. My risk would increase through the dangerous situations of purchasing a product under unknown and unsupervised settings, and the potential harm of using an untested and un-regulated substance, ultimately leading my money to help fund anti-American groups who would use our own money to wage a war against us.
