Our drug laws also make the drug trade more dangerous. Banning the lawful sale of drugs means only criminals, like Mr Mokbel, sell them. As the penalty for selling drugs increases, so do the risks. Illegal drugs aren’t expensive to make, but because only criminals manufacture them, traffickers can increase their prices. Our drug laws make criminals very wealthy.
What’s worse is that drug dealers can’t turn to the law if someone breaks the rules – meaning they’re more likely to turn violent if a deal goes wrong. Moreover, illegal drugs are sometimes manufactured with dangerous impurities. In effect, our drug laws are empowering hardened criminals to sell dangerous drugs to the public.
Every attempt to clamp down on drug use has failed. Despite the fact that some 6700 drug offenders were in prison in 2018, the number of people who have used drugs in the last year has remained stable at about 15% of the population for the last three decades. Penalties have increased, major traffickers were jailed, and police and a few lawyers have repeatedly broken the law. But nothing has changed.
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If anything, arresting Mokbel and other drug dealers made their competitors who were still st large far wealthier, as prices increased in the short term after his operations came to a halt.
It’s time to reconsider our drug laws – they’re clearly not working. Instead of prohibiting drugs, we should consider a system that permits them to be legally and safely manufactured and sold. It’s worked without issues for Canada, Uruguay and ten American states including California. Why not here?
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