Is Drug Legalization the Best Option?

Drugs are any medicines or substances that are introduced into the body and have physiological effects on it. These substances or remedies have been around for a long time, since the first days of human civilization. They were obtained from different plants, materials made by animals and some minerals. But back then they were used, not only as medicinal remedies, but also they would implement them in religious rituals, which made the holy leaders the managers of them most of the time. But they soon became an addiction since “drugs produce a surge of dopamine in a part of the brain called the basal ganglia” (M. Carmona, 2022). For example Ecuadorians started consuming cocaine and would mix it with other drugs so it would be easier for the substance to get into the bloodstream. And this addiction sadly has continued to happen until today, which made drug dealers (cartels) start to arise. So with this essay I will prove how the legalization of drugs will be a major influence on drug dealers. A cartel is a criminal agreement between groups that supply drugs illegally, and these cartels are what drug dealers are so proud to be a part of. These groups or organizations have existed for over 50 years now, and one of the first major ones to ever exist was the Medellín cartel, led by Pablo Escobar, which originated in Colombia in 1970, when colombians started to sneak in small amounts of cocaine into the United states. Soon after the claim of cocaine became so big, that it caused the expansion of the trade, making the cartel buy airplanes and islands to hide their merchandise. Then the fight between the Medellín gang and another drug cartel called Cali, also from Colombia, made Pablo Escobar's cartel to break, and as a consequence Escobar became one of the most wanted people worldwide. His disappearance made the Cali cartel take over the power in Colombia. This cartel was more indirect and refined compared to the Medellin; they even got to a point where they took away Medellin´s popularity and made everybody see how violent of a cartel it was, and helped the police force capture Escobar. But shortly after countless members of the Cali cartel began to be arrested and by 1990 it was almost completely dissolved. And finally in 1993 Pablo Escobar was killed by a police officer in Colombia. Then also around the 1970´s Mexico was trafficking a lot of marijuana, but thanks to the U. S. power in Colombia for detaining the movement of drugs from South Africa, they rose with the sales of cocaine. One of the first Mexican cartels was the Tijuana cartel, put together in 1980 by the Arellano Félix family, which became really well-known for exporting marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine into the United States. The birth of Mexico's largest cartel can be traced back to Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, nicknamed "The Godfather", who served as a liaison to the notorious Medellin cartel. Gallardo went underground after cartel co-founder Rafael Caro Quintero was convicted of murdering U. S. Army agent Enrique Camarena in 1985. The Drug Enforcement Administration, and then the drug lords, later held a summit among Mexico's major drug dealers. The conference divided Mexico into "plazas" or regions controlled by various drug lords. The agreement strengthened key players in the trade, including the Sinaloa Federation and the Arellano Felix brothers of Tijuana. Since then, drug lords have disappeared one after another, new groups have risen as loyalties reduced, political protections shift, and assassinations and arrests have occurred. Cartels have always been a huge problem to the economy of Mexico, because they offer consumers higher than competitive prices. They can also support inefficient companies within an industry and prevent the adoption of cost-cutting techniques that lead to lower prices. Also they discourage new entrants and act as barriers to entry. Lack of competition with fixed prices leads to lack of innovation. Companies seek to improve their production or products to gain a competitive advantage. With cartels, these companies have no incentive to do so. And if it was not enough, the consumption and sale of drugs have also been a very big issue to people´s health, especially to teenagers, over four in ten adolescents know someone who has been addicted to drugs. Drug abuse or addiction is a disease that affects a person's brain and behavior and results in uncontrolled use of drugs and medicines, both legal and illegal. Itbegins with the experimental use of recreational drugs in social settings, and drug use becomes more frequent in some people. For others, especially opioids, drug addiction sets in when they take prescription drugs or receive them from someone who holds a prescription. And all of these drug problems create a huge impact among the society, both economic and social. So to conclude, the legalization of drugs can be a good option only for the economy, due to the fact that the cost of consuming it and obtaining it will be a lot less than it is right now, it will decrease because there will be more places to buy it as well as it will be cheaper, as a result of the market competition. But on the other hand, health wise legalizing it could be a big mistake, because there would not be a way to be able to control the production or sales of the drugs, you could obtain it anywhere, making it easier to increase the percentages of drug abuse and addiction. And for the cartels and the social part it would also be a bad option, since they will not have a market anymore, and the organized crime would rise a lot, as well as the insecurity in Mexico, jeopardizing innocent people's lives and their cities. Therefore in order to keep everyone safe, in my opinion, the best option, regarding the legalization of drugs, is to not legalize them at all, and continue with the system we know nowadays.