drugs are bad
Such an issue stirs up moral and religious beliefs; beliefs that are contrary to what America should "believe". However, such a debate has been apparent in the American marketplace of ideas before with the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's. With the illegality of alcohol the mafia could produce liquor and therefore had considerable control over those who wanted their substance and service. The role that the mafia played in the 1920's has transformed into the corner drug dealers and drug cartel of the 1990's. The justification that legalized alcohol under Amendment 21 in 1933 should also legalize drugs in 1996. With the legalization of drugs a decrease in deaths related to drug deals would occur and also the price would lessen because bigger businesses could produce drugs at a cheaper price. Thus, reducing crimes that are committed to support a drug habit. Another drug that has played a major role in American society is nicotine. For hundreds of years, cigarettes have been a! popular legal drug within the United States. Only through legalization and education has the popularity and the use of cigarettes declined within the past ten years. Physically, the actual consequences of using illicit drugs is much less than of using dru
Ô Á Šand adulteration of supplies of drugs. Without some system of control, it is argued, that there is no way to guarantee the purity or strength of any given cannabis preparation. Wide variations in THC(deltac9cTetrahydrocannabinol) concentration could have deleterious effects on users. Inexperienced smokers, accustomed to lowcgrade domestic pot, could be adversely affected by the unexpected introduction of highcpotency Colombian or Jamaican supplies.(Schroeder, p.54) Today's drug consumer literally does not know what he is buying. The drugs are so valuable that the sellers have an incentive to "cut" or dilute the product with foreign substances that look like the real thing. Most street heroin is only three to six percent pure; street cocaine ten to fifteen percent. Since purity varies greatly, consumers caÔ produce the desired effects. If a personÔ percent heroin and take a five percent dose, suddenly he hasÔ nearly doubled hisÔ open market would face different incentives ! tly enjoy more lip service than funding. And it would encourage people with problems to seek help rather than take them underground. Any new approach to drugs must begin by replacing hype and demagoguery with information and analysis. It must discriminate between the uses and misuses of drugs. It mustÔ alsoÔ for paternalistic moralizing for hypocritical double standards.(Boaz, p. 135) Legalizing drugs would not be a panacea. Many people would continue to use them recklessly andÔjoin their ranks. But scare scenarios of a prostrate, addicted nation have no basis. Clearly, there will be some increase in drug use if drugs are made legal and accessible at a reasonable price. Yet the benefits of legalization will outweigh the negatives: less crime, less Ô available for greater rehabilitation efforts, fewer jail cells and prisoners, better utilization of law enforcement personnel, greater respect for the law, fewer corrupted policeman, and fewer deaths from impure substances. Further! the drug. Cigar tobacco is potentially more lethal; a standardcsize cigar contains about 120 milligrams of nicotine, twice the amount of a lethal dose. What apparently Ô ‰Ô ‰irony is that tobacco which can be seen as just of a danger if not more so than many illicit drugs of today is considered a "good" and perfectly legal drug among the American society. Á Šterrible, controlling substance that alters the mind and kills. This is a true statement; howeverÔ lead to more deaths in the United States than do illicit drugs. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that the official 1988 toll of drugccaused deaths in 27 U.S. cities, the best available measure of the nation's "drug problem," was, for cocaine products, 3,308; for heroin and morphine, 2,480;Ô course, for marijuana, zero. "Emergencycroom mentions" for cocaine in the same cities totaled only 62,141. For comparison, smoking killed 390,000 last year and alcohol killed at least 100,000. Alcohol is responsible for more fe! is remarkably counterproductive. (Perrine, p.12) In the U.S. there were eleven states that decriminalized the personal use of marijuana. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse(1992), there was no increase in its use in those states.(Riga, p.7) Anticdrug supporters argue that corollations cannot be made between the United States and other countries;Ô however, the way in which people conduct themselves and how society responds to this is very similar around the world. Ô ‰heightened awareness of the destructiveness of drugs, and in selfcpride programs for society's "have nots." The United States has cut back drastically on its alcohol and tobacco consumptionÔare dangerous. The same thing must be done for other drugs. Pragmatically, the legal and controlled sale of drugs would not only reduce crime but channel valuable resources into treatment.(Riga, p.7) With the treatment of drugs as a medical problem, we can then and only then focus on the real problem:Ô people that ! gs like alcohol or c
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2779
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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