Should drugs be legalised from a teenage perspective?
The prospect of the idea of drugs being legalised has been heatedly debated all over the globe in various different countries. The idea of legalising drugs seems to be controversial to the matured generation however I thought it would be inciting to explain what teenagers (our countries future generation) perspective on the matter would be.
Personally I believe a majority the older generation neglect the fact that drugs are very accessible to teens and not much of a challenge to be obtained. For this reason, I think if such a majority of teens have this accessibility to drugs then it would be senseless to not try have some monitoring system of these dangerous substances being misused by teenagers. According to a recent study 37% of teenagers ages varying from 11-15 have admitted to taking drugs. This number continues to increase by 11% every year and as it would be almost unmanageable to completely rid the drug abuse of teens I believe there should be some way of monitoring it. By legalising drugs, we could ensure the substances in the drugs is a great deal safer than what it is now. I am not suggesting legalising drugs to the teenage population however teens will find ways of obtaining drugs legal or illegal, so it seems imperative we ensure the drugs are safer than they are at this current point in time as it could harm teenagers fresh, healthy organs if the substances are exceedingly intoxicating.
An additional reason to why I believe we should legalise drugs would be because it would vastly reduce the amount of gang related offenses to the law. I think this because gangs tend to naturally trade drugs amongst each other however, when a member of the gang feels robbed or cheated from some sort of trade of drugs it can lead to violence which has led to murder on countless occasions. Recent studies show that 40% of gang related crime has been associated with the abuse of drugs. This shows that almost half of gang related crime is associated with drugs however if we legalised drugs this number could very easily reduce by an immense amount as there would no longer be a need for gangs to sell drugs as it would be sold in shops. A large majority of people are missing the general idea, that having drugs illegal is evidently causing more harm than if it was legalised. Teenagers however in this generation are finding accessibility of drugs from these particular gangs and putting themselves in real danger because the majority of these situations result in the teen not being able to satisfy the gangs expenses for the drugs which can lead to an immense amount vulnerability and danger for a young teen. This however would not happen if drugs were legalised, a teenager would not resort to gangs for drugs as they would’ve undoubtedly found some other, and much safer, source for the drugs.
Overall I believe that an extent of the matured generation is slightly naïve to how accessible drugs are to teens of this age and how having drugs illegal is instigating further and palpably worse crimes than taking or selling drugs. I think if we legalised drugs it would show an understanding of the inevitable actions amongst our society and be able to control and regulate the safety of it. This would be my answer to “Should drugs be legalised?” from a teenager’s perspective.
