Drug Legalization Essay, Research Paper
Drug Legalization: Look at the Big Picture
Drug abuse has progressively, over the last thirty years, become a tool for crime organizations and bureaucracies, independent and under the control of the federal government, used to transform drug addiction into a profit through the passage of countless laws against drug abuse. Gore Vidal’s assertive essay communicated his belief that drug addiction should be legalized in order to ensure the eventual well-being and individual freedom guaranteed to Americans by the constitution. When drugs were made illegal, freedom of choice for Americans was chiseled away by the hard-hammering central government. Many agree with Vidal in that drugs that are now illegal would be just as dangerous and addictive if they were legalized while abusers would get what they deserved given that they are aware of the often deadly aftereffects of drug use.
Among Vidal’s several points stated was the universal entity of “the big picture” ,so to speak, which provided the idea that drug abuse would be impossible to stop within a short time. In his first paragraph, Vidal stated this and gave the suggestion that drugs be labeled, with warnings, and sold at cost which would require “heroic honesty” among potential users as well as the labelers. This idea progressed into his third paragraph in which the subordinate concept of the natural rights guaranteed under “the pursuit of happiness” clause present the preamble of the constitution was introduced. He stated that each man should have the right to do as he wishes as long as it does not interfere with his neighbor’s pursuit of happiness. When drug abuse interferes with the happiness of others, the interference, not the drug abuse, should be what is assessed under the power of the law. Vidal then asserted the issue of sanity among people who willingly enter into the often abysmal depth of gateway drug use. In his fifth paragraph, Vidal stated that it seems most unlikely that any sane person will become a drug addict if he knows what drug addiction is like. Many whole-heartedly agree with this statement because they are active advocates of natural selection that applies greatly to drug abuse, provided the user is not mentally ill. Vidal ended his assertion of the popular issues by stating that people will always become drug addicts, as people will always become alcoholics and forbidding people the things they like will make them want it even more. This is absolutely true because Americans are most definitely taken aback and angered when their freedoms are suddenly made punishable by the interference of governmental bureaucracy. It is, in my mind, eminently disconcerting to even attempt to perceive why the government could not look back at the initial reasons for the foundation of our “free country” and realize what happens when individual liberties are taken away by an oppressive, outside force and conclude that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. When the government refuses or disagrees with this statement, I believe that they are overlooking the fact that our meager two hundred years of existence as a liberated and free country is after all a very minute frame of reference in the greater scheme of human life.
To finalize his essay, Vidal, in paragraph nine, assessed the profiteering of bureaucratic government through the manipulation of drug supply and trafficking. He stated that the government was killing people through the curtail of Mexican marijuana which led to an increase in deaths due to an increase in heroin use which is much more dangerous than marijuana use. As the “bureaucratic machine vested interest in playing cops and robbers” they were obviously insensitive to the deaths that they caused because they were predominantly obsessed with the rise in the cost of illegal marijuana which provided a market for organized crime and a profit for the Bureau of Narcotics. (Can you sense a connection?) The author also established his standpoint of the Mafia’s concern for the immense amounts of money that they would lose if drugs were legalized and sold at cost due to the cessation of criminal purchases of illegal drugs at inflated street prices. Vidal began to bring his rather bold statement to a close by making his readers aware of the struggle that would be propelled from The Bureau of Narcotics and the Mafia if the legalization of drugs became a reality. He concluded his essay by stating that drug legalization will never happen because of the unwillingness of the mainstream population to commit to the legalization due to their devotion to the idea of sin and its punishment as well as the business of making money. The situation, according to Vidal, will only grow worse since the combination of sin and money are irresistible (particularly to the professional politician). Many also believe that the situation will only grow worse unless a massive rebellion is formed to overthrow the extremely oppressive government that is rapidly taking away the rights willed to us by our forefathers and for which so many million courageous souls have sacrificed their lives to protect and to preserve.
In order for drug legalization to gain public support, it must first be put into a grand perspective by people who are intelligent and in power which further adds to my belief and Gore Vidal’s belief that drugs will never be legalized because the most intelligent people are obviously not in power at the moment. Perhaps, if drugs were legalized, the inept abusers of drugs would slowly over time be weeded out through natural selection and the remaining persons would learn from the mistakes of their predecessors and a sound foundation would be laid for our descendants. This situation is, of course, idealistic and will never become a reality unless the human race survives long enough to live out the condemnation to repeat forgotten pasts.
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