Minara Akter
Akter 1
Nkosi Ife Bandele
Eng 101: Course Code – 5054
12 November 2007
Drug Addiction? Stop it now
A drug is any substance that can be used to treat an illness, relieve. a symptom, or
modify a chemical process or processes in the body. Drug abuse or use in the world used
to be a very bad thing, but now it’s pretty common. Drug users inhabit almost
everywhere in the World. Drug abuse or use doesn’t necessarily mean using illegal drugs.
It can mean abusing the use of prescription medicines or using household chemicals to
get high. In the essay “Drugs” Gore Vidal comments that “ This is a startling notion to
the current generation of Americans. They reflect a system of public education which has
made the Bill of Rights, literally, unacceptable to a majority of high school graduates”.
Drug use is the increasing problem among teenagers and in today's high schools. Most
drug use begins in the preteen and teenage years, these years most crucial in the
maturation process. During these years adolescents are faced with difficult tasks of
discovering their self identity, clarifying their sexual roles, assenting independence,
learning to cope with authority and searching for goals that would give their lives
meaning.
For many years people have wrestled with the issue of performance enhancing drugs.
Even though many tests and studies have been done to show the affects of these drugs,
some people will still choose to use them. Any typical person will spend many long hours
working out and some of them believe that that is not enough and they make the choice to
Akter 2
use drugs to help them get bigger and stronger and take away the stress. Eventually,
something will happen to them who uses these drugs and they will learn that using these
drugs is wrong. Drugs are readily, adolescents are curious and venerable, and there is
peer pressure to experiment, ad there us a temptation to escape from conflicts. The use of
drugs by peoples is the result of a combination of factors such as peer pressure, curiosity,
and availability. Drugs addiction among adolescents in turn lead to depression and
suicide. People are greatly influenced by others around them. Current days, drugs are
very common. If the people in their social group use drugs there will be pressure a direct
or indirect pressure from them. A person may be offered to try drugs, which is direct
pressure. Indirect pressure is when someone sees everyone around him using drugs and
he might think that there is nothing wrong with using drugs. Person might try drugs just
to fit in the social norms, even if a person had no intentions of using drugs one might do
it just to be considered "cool" by his or her friends. Today drugs are considered to be an
acceptable social phenomenon by many drug users, because there are some cases who
can control their drug usages, they can limit their alcohol consumption and toke on a little
weed and then without needing it all day and everyday so that it interferes work and
finances with the knowledge of use with caution and care.
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. Vidal contends that “Now one can hear the warning
Akter 3
rumble begin: If everyone is allowed to take drugs everyone will and the GNP will
decrease, the commies will stop us from making everyone free and we shall end up a race
of zombies”. When one thinks of drug legislation, they immediately think of the
government watching out for our well-being, and goodwill. Upon examining the history
of anti-drug policy by the United States Government, it becomes evident that ulterior
motives such as racism, revenue, and political influence lay behind drug laws and
regulations. In examining the nation’s history further, one cannot find any real truth to
most claims as far as the extent of damage that drugs were causing America. In fact,
exploration of the effects of drug restriction reveals that these laws actually made drug
related problems worse for America. The issues surrounding drug legalization are
complicated and sensitive. Each year drug use kills about 14,000 Americans and costs
taxpayers approximately $70 billion. Drug-related illnesses and crime costs an estimated
$67 billion per year. Drug use also influences worker productivity as seventy-one percent
of all illicit drug users are eighteen and older and employed. Eighteen percent of 2,000
deaths from seven states had drugs, other than alcohol, in their systems when they died.
Ironically, some citizens still support the idea of drug legalization of certain drugs,
including marijuana and Schedule I drugs.
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
Akter 4
they were legalized while abusers would get what they deserved given that they are aware
of the often deadly aftereffects of drug use.