Proponents of legalization advance two theories as to how legalization will decrease crime in the United States, and both are dependent on the assumption that legalization will reduce the cost of drugs to the user.
Because drugs will no longer be a profitable business, and because addicts will be able to obtain their drugs from legal sources, the current fl market suppliers of drugs - gangs, foreign cartels, organized criminals, etc.-will fade away.
If drugs were legalized, addicts would no longer have to commit crimes to pay for their habit.
Drug testing is also a near universal feature of the criminal justice system in the United States, with most probationers and parolees required to undergo drug testing regardless of the nature of their underlying offense or history of drug use.
This proliferation has occurred despite the paucity of evidence that widespread suspicionless drug testing results in safer workplaces and schools, reduces substance abuse problems, combats crime, or is more effective at achieving these various goals than less costly-and less intrusive-alternatives (e.g., performance testing for workers, honest drug education and extracurricular activities for high school students, etc.).
Drug Policy Alliance, together with the ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project, and the National Advocates for Pregnant Women is involved in a variety of legal challenges to expansive drug testing policies and unreliable drug testing technologies.
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