So I'll be just elaborating more on my contentions on why drugs should be legalized worldwide.
Firstly, with drugs being illegal, crime becomes a much more serious issue. As drugs get traded, large drug cartels makes a huge profit of margin, while at the same time engaging in drug wars and huge murders, such as the Valentine's Day Massacre of the Prohibition. More troubling is the fact that police are ineffectual in solving drug conflicts, largely because of huge amounts of corruption within the police force. Police feel attracted to drug gangs because of the amount of money that can be gained, which happens largely through six steps: firstly, supply goes down so the price of drugs goes up. Secondly, forcing the drug market undergrounds destroys the flow of information needed for an efficient market, which means that consequently drug cartels can charge monopoly prices with huge profit margins. Those huge profits then attract people like the police to help drug cartels. Due to that, supply becomes easier to access, marketing is much stronger and the price falls as demand rises, leading to the authorities cracking down on the drug business. Due to that, the authorities crack down on amateurs who don't have connections to the police and aren't efficient, leaving huge drug cartels in control with connections to corrupted officials, making it impossible to eliminate suppliers. Greater enforcement simply leads to the smaller, weaker drug dealers being out of business but increases the incentive for organized crime to continue. Corruption is one of the huge reasons why the Prohibition failed and had to be repealed.
Secondly, stronger, synthetic and legal or illegal narcotics start being produced. Synthetic drugs have an advantage over non-synthetic drugs in three ways: firstly, it's much easier to produce drugs than having to grow them. Advanced meth labs have become much more efficient than growing coca leaves or cannabis. Secondly, the prices of more potent drugs are higher than the prices of less potent drugs, and because the price has to increase to justify the risk of transportation, the supply starts moving towards more potent drugs. Lastly, these drugs are easier to smuggle in, and in the case of designer drugs which are drugs that give the same high, are more dangerous but are not illegal under current law, don't even need to be smuggled in. For example, synthetic cannabis is 10 to 100 times more potent that regular cannabis but is legal in much of the USA. Because of that, the supply of less potent drugs such as regular cannabis is lowered, and stronger, much more profitable drugs come in such as heroin essentially succeeding opium. Even worse is the fact that in the current state of the law, officers are mainly enforcing drug busts on marijuana because marijuana is the bulkiest illegal drug, making it the easiest to detect. The problem with that is it drives drug users to harder drugs due to the fact that harder drugs are easier to smuggle, and yet again in the case of designer drugs, not illegal at all. Drugs become only more potent the more we enforce them.
Lastly, it's important to realize that the costs of drugs are mainly internalized by the user. The user has the free choice to determine what he or she wants, as long as it's a victimless crime, which is a principle that countries of liberty stand firm on. A huge philosophical idea is that of the harm principle, which simply states one can be completely sovereign over their own body as long as they don't hurt anyone else. That is what the status quo of the law is, and what the law should be so long as we realize that people can choose what they want for the body. Self destructive behavior should not be made illegal, because there is no sense of justice, and the deterrent itself isn't even that strong considering there are designer drugs, leaving an inefficient justice system.
