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Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: eroller on October 20, 2011, 01:48 am

Title: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: eroller on October 20, 2011, 01:48 am
Hey i need help formulating a scenario, and or hook that i can use in my intro paragraph on drug prohibition.
My rough thesis is, All psycho-active chemicals should be legal because there are harmful and addictive substances that are legal, the drug war is a waste of money, and people should have the right to consume whatever substances they chose.

I don't want to use the how many men smoke a blunt and go home and beat there wife kinda thing lol, but I'm totally drawing a blank on what to say.

Fucking horse-shit i have to do one of these to graduate!

             Peace
                     E
PS anyone else having trouble getting money on to silk i transferred money from mt gox like 2 hours ago and it still hasn't shown up on silk..... 
Title: Re: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: MerryPrankster on October 21, 2011, 09:05 am
Hi E-Roller,

You're in luck! I have spent much time on this topic, but I don't have much time as I'm at an internet cafe and I'm running out of time. Basically, the argument is like this (this is the mainstream idea, not my personal opinion):

- No drug is 100% safe
- Drugs being ILLEGAL makes them MORE dangerous than they would otherwise be if they were legal/decriminalised
- The people who have to gain the most from drugs being illegal is criminals

Examples:
- When a drug becomes illegal, it becomes more expensive. Heroin for instance, is extremely cheap to produce, but becomes ~20x more expensive when sold in Western countries.
- What happens when a drug is expensive? Well, people start doing all sorts of bad things to obtain the number to purchase them e.g. stealing, prostitution. Price will increase, but demand for the drug to a certain degree is price inelastic (i.e. doesn't change much as price increases_
- Drugs are produced by cartels: there's no quality control. Again, heroin is a medical drug (diacetylmorphine) and when administered in a clinical setting, is actually quite safe. If drugs were legal, they could be regulated just like pharmaceutical drugs, which means fewer overdoses, better quality product, etc.

I could keep going, but I'm afraid I'll need to stop. If you need specific help, then shoot me a PM.

Peace

MP
Title: Re: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: skum22 on October 23, 2011, 07:07 am
I recently did a presentation on this topic although i took a slightly different approach for viability.

The topic: Substance abuse should be considered a public health issue.

(An example of this is Portugal and you can find a heap of reference material for this.)


Thesis Statement: Education and treatment of substance abuse is preferable to conviction, as it will cause a decline in overdoses, blood borne infectious diseases and crime, while criminalization of drugs merely consumes resources, and increases harm.

You can find a lot of material related to this such as studies and papers.

What I worked with, as it was easier to argue, is drugs should be decriminalized.

- This means all drugs are still illegal, however, small quantities deemed to be personal supply are not punished with conviction but rather treatment is offered, while larger quantities (eg. two ounces of Heroin) are punished with conviction as they fuel peoples addiction.

- These convictions destroy occupation chances for people, even after they have sought help and no longer use, or the drug use may even have been a one time thing.

- Treatment is better as it removes the source of the addiction, and facilities such as needle exchange programs minimize harm. People are ashamed to seek help for their addiction as they fear prosecution, etc..

- As you have stated legal drugs cause just as much or more harm than illegal drugs, and education will only help to decrease this harm.

- The approach has been taken in countries such as Portugal with great success in all the above fields and more.


Excuse the fact that these are slightly convoluted and tedious, were written here in a rush off of an old assignment, as I am in a bit of a hurry. I can write some more up if you need it but I'm sure you can come up with more ideas from this. Hope this helps.
Title: Re: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: rosshalde on October 23, 2011, 10:58 pm
Transform Drug Policy Foundation is your friend, they have lots of material regarding this.

The best argument in my opinion is that there is nothing in the chemical structure of any illegal substance which causes criminality, HIV spreading etc. so there is no way you can claim that drugs cause any of those things. You can however make a pretty good claim that those things are caused by the policy of prohibition, so you should concentrate on explaining how prohibition causes damages. There's a nifty website dedicated to this called countthecosts.org, although its focus is more global and may not discuss issues that concern your country but you should still check it out, it was launched by TDPF and some other NGOs.
Personally I'd love it if you made it clear to people that it is use of their public funds which creates a lot of death, disease and misery around drugs, but people probably wouldn't like it if you claimed they were responsible for what comes close to genocide. But do mention the global commission, big names always make for good effect: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Commission_on_Drug_Policy
Title: Re: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: MerryPrankster on October 26, 2011, 06:59 am
Quote
The approach has been taken in countries such as Portugal with great success in all the above fields and more.

Yes, Portugal is a great example of the impact that decriminalisation has upon drug use. If you haven't already, I thoroughly recommend the actual report that was published on this. It's in English, and although it's quite long, it's still an extremely interesting read and you'll find all the information you need on your paper in the process. Though granted, I assume the deadline has long since passed!  :P
Title: Re: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: madamebradley on October 27, 2011, 01:48 am
Have you considered putting up a bounty for research help? If there were a few bitcoins in it I would be down to research and provide you with .pdf's of academic journals on the subject.
Title: Re: drug prohibition research paper help?????
Post by: flavourful on October 27, 2011, 02:35 am
hell i'd write the whole paper for a few btcs probably lol
~~~granted i'm not a very good writer but i'm sure somebody else would