Drug policies in Latin America

Introduction

Drug prohibition refers to policies that constraint get access to and criminalize the sale and possession of certain mood-altering compounds, for example marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. Intoxicants have been utilized in most societies all through annals, and for most of annals, such use has been ruled by communal made-to-order, other than lawful penalty. In the 20th 100 years, although, Western nations taken up a sequence of increasingly restrictive policies on the use and sale of certain drugs, restrictions that have become nearly universal. Libertarians have are against such restrictions because of their hurtful consequences and because they violate one-by-one rights. (Duke 35)

Discussion

The street to prohibition started with lexicalization, with both the American and British authorities restricting distribution by individuals other than health professionals before banning the compounds outright. In 1868, the British Parliament enacted the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, and in 1914, the United States passed the Harrison Narcotic Act. Both constrained the sale of opiates and certain other drugs by any individual other than pharmacists. By the 1920s, America's Harrison Act, which had restricted the consumption of opiates except by physician's prescription, had become a more general prohibition on their use when the enclosures understood the proceed to permit prosecution of physicians who prescribed drugs to addicts. (Hamowy 01)

During the identical time span, America presented alcohol prohibition. In 1920, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and its enabling legislation, the Volstead Act, ostracized the construct, transportation, and sale of beverages containing more than 0.5% alcohol. The famed evangelist Rev. Billy Sunday greeted Prohibition ecstatically: “The reign of tears is over. The slums will shortly be a memory. We will turn our jails into factories…. Men will stroll upright now, women will grin and young children will laugh. Hell will be eternally for rent.”

Illegal Drugs

Countries that produce or trade illegal drugs present violent crime rates that are notably larger than those in otherwise similar countries. Countries where the raw materials for illicit drugs are easily obtained or produced (such as Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru) or countries located close to high drug consumption centers (such as Mexico in relation to the United States) have frequent and highly profitable opportunities for the commercialization of drugs. Since this trade is illegal, its operation is characterized by violence and all sorts of criminal activity. Contract enforcement in drug activities depends on violent means, because the drug trade does not have recourse to the legal courts. Like-wise, competition among producers and traders regularly takes the form of fights, kidnappings, robbery, and destruction of property. Moreover, drug trafficking uses corrupt government officials to facilitate its operations. (Lynch 12)

The rising production and trade of cocaine in Colombia (to satisfy a growing world demand) may be the most important factor explaining the increase in violent crime rates in this nation in recent decades. As Colombian drug cartels moved to dominate the international cocaine trade, its rate of homicides increased from 15 per 100,000 population at the beginning of the 1970s to 80 ...