legalization of weed
...to the problem, but it is this proposed solution that has society divided. People often blame the criminal justice system for not doing enough to catch drug offenders and incarcerate them. At times they feel that if the problem is out of their sight, it disappears. The truth is that even if the justice system locks up every drug offender, the problem is not solved. Even inside jails and prisons, drug offenders continue their illegal sales and drug use. The fact that drugs are still used and sold in correctional institutions is evidence that building more prisons will not stop America's drug problem (Ostrowski 28). The call for legalization or decriminalization is not new, but until recently, the legalization issue was carried by only a few proponents, including libertarians, advocates of separate treatment of marijuana, and some cautious economists. Most advocates of drug legalization justify their position on great evidence that criminalization under current policies simply have not worked. They also point out the inconsistencies of banning some mind-altering and potentially addictive substances, while allowing others, mainly tobacco and alcohol, to be produced, sold, and consumed freely. Advocates for legalizing drugs point out the similarities between the war on drugs and Prohibition, the nation's other widespread experiment disrupting a wealthy industry in mind-altering substances. Some critics of the war on drugs say the drug issue has been clouded by the failure to distinguish between the health problems of drug abuse and addiction and the broader effects of a! legal ban on drugs (Nadelmann 84). Politicians are also challenging current drug control policy. Former Baltimore mayor, Kurt L. Schmoke, called for a nationwide debate on the legalization of drugs and for the first time ever, drug legalization was the subject of congressional hearings in Sept...