Philippe Berfenfeldt
EN301
Dr. K. Van Tassel
2 March 2014
”Marijuana, the Deceptive Drug” is a news article that debates the legalization of
marijuana in Maine and Massachusetts. In an excerpt from a much longer book by George
Biernson, the Massachusetts news staff attempts to argue that marijuana should not be legal in
any way, medical or otherwise, using elements of the Classical Model, but ultimately their
argument is doomed to fail due to their reliance on a plethora of logical fallacies.
In attempts to convince or even deceive, there are numerous options available to would be
authors in order to convey a certain idea or opinion. This essay analyzes the above news article
in order to find elements of the Classical Argumentation Model as well as some common logical
traps many authors fall prey to.
I believe the article is addressing anybody and everybody with an interest in marijuana
legalization, be it for or against. The language used in the article is professional but not formal,
and a little vague in places where more detail would of added additional layers to their
credibility.
The article starts off by stating that the debate is already ‘contaminated’, thus
everything we read should be taken with a grain of salt, only this in itself could be considered to
be fallacious as the article would then also be contaminated.
As the Classical Model and logical fallacies are not mutually exclusive, the first
paragraph is also the introduction to the paper, and accomplishes three important steps.
Warming up the audience, and familiarizing them with the debate. Establish your credibility
with the audience, as this article is an excerpt from a longer and fully published book it must be
believable, right? Finally, should state the general claim of the article.
The article continues stating facts about how THC, or Tetrahydrocannabinol, (simply put,
the part of marijuana that produces the psychoactive and physiological effects) is slow, and
how different marijuana is from alcohol, thus appealing to logos. This works as the narration of
the article as it describes why marijuana should be illegal. The article argues that marijuana
should be illegal because it contains THC and that the concentration of THC is rising, but, there
is marijuana today that does not contain any THC. (Szalavitz) Nevertheless, this paragraph is
also full of fallacies. “As they experiment, kids play with pot because they hear from many
sources that it is no more harmful than alcohol. Therefore, they reason, ‘If my parents can drink
alcohol, I can smoke pot.’” This is a trifecta of fallaciousness. Saying that all kids experiment
with pot is a major hasty generalization, and assuming they all reason alike would be ad
hominem, saying all kids will follow the bandwagon falling prey to peer pressure.
The text’s fallacies continue in the statement, “They usually start drinking alcohol
heavily also. In time their brains become so confused that many graduate to the use of cocaine
and heroin, drugs they would never have taken before being caught in the marijuana.” This
sounds like a slippery slope to me, because this article claims that if they start smoking pot,
they will, in time, start using heavier drugs like cocaine and heroin. That may be true, but then
the last sentence ties it all into a neat little fallacious present, saying cocaine and heroin would
never be used if it was not for marijuana.
I had trouble finding a definitive refutation where the authors address the opposition’s
views. Although this article does state that “it is often claimed that marijuana is not harmful
because it is not an ‘addictive drug,’” their claim to answer that is that the body stores the THC
in fat and releases it slowly, yet they bring no evidence to support this, relying on us to take
their word once again.
The next few paragraphs cites so-called experts of the field and brings up various
statistics about Marijuana and THC from the 1960’s and 1970’s and using those make blatant
claims about how THC and thus marijuana is harmful. They mention a Dr. Robert Heath and his
extensive studies regarding the effect of marijuana on the brains of monkeys, and how he was
world-renown for his research regarding the brain. I would view this as the authors
confirmation, using professional opinions and citing world-renown researchers, but they do not
give any sources, which constitutes a vague or even false appeal to authority. The last sentence
in the paragraph strikes me as an attempt to shift the blame towards somebody or something
else, in this case the government: ”About 1980, this monumental research was cancelled by the
National Institute of Drug Abuse, which is the U.S. federal agency that sponsors research on
drugs. It buried the results of this research.” I feel as if this sentence is saying that because the
government buried the files, there must be something big there. The author is trying to shift
attention from the question of legalized marijuana to the government hiding something. first
thought was towards a red herring, but that doesn’t seem quite right, though I cannot put my
finger on why.
“As long as the kids believe that marijuana is relatively harmless, many of them will play around
with it, and this generates a steady supply of cocaine and heroin addicts“. This seems like
a slippery slope to me saying that because kids play with marijuana, they will become cocaine
and heroin addicts, thus perpetuating the drug trade that the government is fruitlessly trying to
fight. “Nevertheless our federal government spends billions of dollars every year in a fruitless
War on Drugs...”.
The whole of the next subject “Medical Use of Marijuana” discusses at length one side
effect of the drug, while only briefly mentioning the reason marijuana is used for medical
applications at all. They mention how the side effect of a weakened immune system as reason
why marijuana should not be legalized for medical or recreational uses, but only briefly
mention the benefits of marijuana as a medicine in the first place, thus making it a clear
candidate for the cherry picking fallacy where facts are cherry picked to support the claim and
other related facts are ignored or set aside that may contradict the claim.
The next paragraph explains how alcohol is water-soluble, meaning it dissolves and
dissipates in water, and how THC is fat-soluble. Furthermore, the authors describe how alcohol
is readily dissolved by the blood, thanks to being water-soluble, thus the effects of alcohol are
short-term: “...Marijuana is much more dangerous than alcohol is because the alcohol is watersoluble and it dissolves readily into the blood.” This statement furthers their appeal to logos. To
cement this idea, they describe how marijuana or, actually the THC component of marijuana, is
stored in the body fat for long periods of time. “About 40% of the THC that enters the body is
stored deeply in body fat.” According to this article, “when a person smokes marijuana, no
more than 25% of the THC is absorbed into the blood,” meaning when a person smokes pot,
the high they feel initially is only a quarter of the THC found in the joint, while nearly half of the
THC is stored in the body fat, and is released over a longer period of time. But the
entire paragraph lacks any sources or citing, and it doesn’t explain what happens to the
remaining 35% of the THC after 25% is absorbed into the blood, and 40% is stored in body fat.
Again, this undermines their credibility by cherry-picking their argument and leaving the rest to
the imagination.
The next paragraph tries to relate marijuana to cancer quoting a Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang.
“He said that pot-smoking baby boomers from the 1960s are now starting to develop head and
neck cancers.” I would say this is a single cause fallacy, while head and neck cancer may be
caused by smoking marijuana, it is in no way exclusive to marijuana smokers. Citing the
National Cancer Institute: “alcohol and tobacco use...are the two most important risk factors
for head and neck cancers,” (NCI). Basically, while smoking marijuana may make you more
susceptible to certain types of cancer, there is no direct correlation between just head and neck
cancers and marijuana; one could just as well develop lung, head or neck cancer by smoking
normal cigarettes.
The last paragraph is not only the article’s conclusion, but also a long list of fallacies.
“Individuals directly involved in prosecuting criminals are well aware of the strong relation
between crime and drug abuse.” Thats all well and good, but they go on saying “...criminals in
our jails were so confused by drugs when they committed their crimes they cannot even
remember the crimes for which they are being punished.” While that may be the case, many
times saying all of their criminals are drugged and confused would be a major hasty
generalization as well as a fallacy of composition. This assumes that because the criminals they
lock away are so confused by drugs, they do not know what they did, and, furthermore, that all
criminals must be as drug addicted as those they see.
The last paragraph could be seen as an appeal to pathos or logos depending on if you
read it, as it refers to our children and innocent teenagers, “The marijuana presently being
smoked by our kids...” This would be appeal to pathos plucking at your heartstrings, while the
rest of the sentence “...is ten times as potent as in the 1960’s,” would be more of an appeal to
logos stating facts. The closing sentence of the article is a blatant Ignoratio elenchi, as well as an
appeal to pathos, again. “None of us should be surprised by the violence in our schools today.”
This statement ignores the health issues the entire article has been building up and just uses
the school violence to condone the ban of marijuana, further undermining the article.
Works Cited
National Cancer Institute (NCI). “Head and neck cancers.” National Cancer Institute. Web. 7 Mar
2014.
<http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/head-and-neck>.
Szalavitz, M. “A new marijuana plant without the high.“ New York Times: Health.
<http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/04/a-new-marijuana-plant-without-the-high-it- couldbe-good-medicine/>.
Phil,
You’ve done a good job of carefully identifying, illustrating, and explaining the numerous
fallacies you see in your chosen article. Your analysis suggests you understand the fallacies.
Good.
When you revise, I’d like to see you work on the following:
(1) Your introduction is brief and somewhat repetitive. Instead, use the first paragraph
to give us some information about the article. You’ll notice that in my margin
comments I requested more information about audience and purpose. You could
address these questions in the introduction, and then move into your thesis
statement.
(2) Your organizational structure reads very much like a list. In other words, move from
one point to the next in a very chronological way: In the next paragraph…, in the
paragraph after that… This is okay, but I recommend you consider a more
intentional and sophisticate organizational structure. Use your paragraphs to build
your points rather than just list them. For example, perhaps you should first address
the elements of the Classical Model’s organizational structure you see in the article.
This might take a paragraph or two. And then argue that although the article follows
the Classical Model’s organization, the argument fails in its appeals. The weaknesses
in its appeals to pathos, ethos, and logos (and logos, in particular) result in a series
of problematic fallacies. Hence, the argument doesn’t work as well as it might. Then,
perhaps, you should organize your discussion according to the types of fallacies you
see. (You might select another organizational method, but, regardless, aim for
intentionality in it. Help us see why you’ve organized the ideas as you have.)
(3) Be sure to provide a conclusion to your own argument. Use your conclusion to
identify the significance of what you’ve been describing. For example, you might
argue that the problem with the article is that it attempts to cover a very complex
issue too quickly/briefly. Hence, your analysis reveals the extent to which the best
arguments require time/space to carefully support assertions. This is just one idea,
but aim to draw some conclusions yourself.
I’ve offered lots of margin comments with details about what I’ve written here. Let me
know if you have questions.
KVT