Legalization & Decriminalizations of Drugs

The debate about legalizing and or decriminalizing drugs has been ongoing for years. The biggest question is what drugs should be legalized and what drugs should be decriminalized and why. For a while in history many drugs that are outlawed today were legal to use. They became illegal not because of what the drugs did to you but who they were associated with. “Why are some drugs legal and other drugs illegal today? It's not based on any scientific assessment of the relative risks of these drugs – but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.” (drugpolicy.org) According to this site anti-opium laws that were made in the 1870’s were directed at Chinese immigrants, the first anti-cocaine laws in the South made in the early 1900’s were directed at black men, and the first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and Southwest in the 1910’s were directed towards Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans. The site goes on to say that this has caused a problem with disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing practices between the Latino and especially black communities.

Not all drugs have been illegal they were used for different things in the in the medical community and in some surprising ways. Methamphetamine for example “became popular in the medical community in the 1920s, where it was used for stimulating the central nervous system, raising blood pressure, and enlarging nasal passages”(casapalmera.com) It was also said to have been given to soldiers in World War II in order to combat fatigue and improve endurance and mood and even prescribed by doctors to help fight depression after the war. The abuse began in the 1930’s after being marketed as an over-the-counter drug named Benzedrine (casapalmera.com)

Cocaine “was a popular medical drug in Europe for decades before it became popular in America. In 1886, “Coca-Cola” was introduced and contained syrup derived from coca leaves. That same year the Surgeon-General of the United States...