Legal Issues

In the last few decades, one of the most vibrant sectors in both developed and developing countries is the drug sector. This has led to swift growth of informal trade in the sector. War on drugs has been a litigious issue since its inauguration by the government of the United States. There has been controversy on the enacted laws and their effectiveness. Several instigators have put forth arguments concerning the authenticity and indiscretion of war on drugs as far as the laws are concerned.

Some factions allege that the war on drugs has been effective on the grounds that it has hoarded the communities and families making them more productive and improving social and moral conditions.
The drug act control policy whose objective is to institute policies to exterminate the use of illegitimate drug use has flunk in its objectives. Hager (2007) in his speech on The drug war and the constitution quoted Alexander Hamilton who had asserted that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. (p. 43)

As far as drugs are concerned there has been disparity in the sense that certain drugs have been declared illegal while others that are equally detrimental are legal. An example of this is the consumption of tobacco and alcohol that have few restrictions despite them being harmful to peoples health and more addictive than other drugs like cocaine. Hager goes on to say that  to render such drugs as alcohol and tobacco illicit then new powers must be granted to the federal government of which they have never been capitulated  by neither the state nor the people. He also bases his argument about marijuana on scientific grounds claiming that there has never been evidence that marijuana leads to disruptive and vicious behavior thus its prohibition is based on defective evidence. There is no enough justification to render heroine and cocaine as illicit if at all the consumption of alcohol and tobacco is justified.

In Gonzales V. Raich, case demonstrated clearly that the anti-drug law was futile and reprehensible. The United States Supreme Court decreed that under the commerce clause of the United States constitution it stipulated that congress had the right to interdict the use of cannabis even where states approve its use for therapeutic rationale. Cannabis is a drug known for increasing appetite and counters nausea among HIV and chemotherapy patients. The federalism argument proves controversy in a similar case impeding with their right to produce and use of medical marijuana arguing that the Act was not constitutional as applied to their demeanor.

Laws against drugs are ineffective on the grounds of racial biasness contiguous to minority. Although drug free zone laws are intended to present a secure haven for youths, this is not the case as the laws contribute to high levels of racial discrepancy in the use of internment and subject people of color to rigid punishment than whites engaged in the same deportment. Drug Policy News showed that since the drug free zone laws were implemented cases of arrests in relation to that have augmented instead of decreasing. A statement by Roseanne Scotti, Director of the drug policy alliance, New Jersey brings out the fact that the laws have not been up to snuff. According to her

Drug-free zone laws across the country fail miserably at their intended goal of protecting youth from drug activity. What the laws have succeeded in doing, however, is to create an intrinsically unfair system with different penalties for the same crime, with the severity of the penalty being based on geography and, ultimately, on race.

There is also a clear incongruity between religion and anti drug law which renders it ineffective. Drugs like peyote and ayahuasca are used by most people with religious motives and are actually permissible in the United States for Native American church. It is absurd beyond reasonable doubt in the sense that, nothing entails that accountable and earnest exercise of freedom of religion, requires official affiliation with an established denomination.

Critics show that though enactment of drug laws is meant to reduce the rate of drug abuse, there are contrary evidence to this as it has infact led to the increase of the same .Andreas Von Bulow, a lawyer and a German writer forfeits that almost every grave crime of terrorism is funded by illicit drugs but he differs that embargo can diminish the phenomena. According to Levine (n.d) stated in his relation to his undercover work that people counted war on drugs to increase market price as they weed out inefficient dealers. They found U.S interdiction effort as laughable and the only thing they feared is effective demand for a reduction program.

Conclusion
Clearly as much as the anti-drugs laws are there and has benefited many, it is also evident that they have failed to convey their intent thus rendering them ineffectual. Certain laws have to be amended to strengthen the anti-drug laws that have been manipulated.