“Drugs, an estimated 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older—(9.4 percent of the population)— used an illicit drug in the past month.”-(NIDA).What should the Government do about all the drug use in the U.S.?
Based on the research and interviews, it is clear that Drugs are an issue in Oakland and the U.S., the government needs to do something about it like rehabilitation, incarceration, or education on drugs. They should focus on drugs because there is a lot of people being affected by drugs.
Something the Government should try to do about drug use is send people to rehabilitation. In the article “How Affective Is Drug Addiction Treatmeant” it says, “According to research that tracks individuals in treatment over extended periods, most people who get into and remain in treatment stop using drugs, decrease their criminal activity, and improve their occupational, social, and psychological functioning” (NIH). The NIH is a credible source because it’s a organization ran by the goverment and is meant to help people find the information they need. Ths shows that rehabilitation is an effective technique that the Goverment could use more because it helps the addicts stop using drugs and go back to their sober selfs. This is also affective because the crime rates go lower. Another peice of evidence for why rehabilitation is a positive choice is from the same article it states, “Like other chronic diseases, addiction can be managed successfully. Treatment enables people to counteract addiction’s powerful disruptive effects on the brain and behavior and to regain control of their live ” (NIH). The quote shows that rehab is affective because it helps people put their life back on track. This also matters because if the addicts stop usig drugs it will help the community. This connects to Oakland because it can help the addicts in Oakland stop using drugs. Rehab would be a excellent idea to have in Oakland to help the community.
A positive action that the Goverment could do to lower drug addiction is to give education on drugs.. education would be a effective solution because it will teach people to not do drugs and theconsecuenses of the use of drugs also it will redue the drug crime and use. In the article “Does drug education stop drug use?” by “drug wise” it says,”Good quality drug education can impact on changes in specific drug using patterns and reduce the use of drugs and associated problems for young people.”(Drug Wise).this quote is showing that education helps reduce the drug us.alose that education has a positive effect. Another quote that i found is also from the same article the quote says, “Drug education can contribute towards decreased harm and increased safety for young people, their families and communities. Drug education has been part of effective needle exchange schemes, ‘safer dancing’ initiatives and ‘drink-driving’. However, the impact of more general, and particularly school-based, drug education on reducing drug-related harm (rather than whether or not people have ever used drugs) has not been measured in any studies.” (Drug Wise). What this quote is saying is that with drug education drug related crimes decreas. Something else this quote is saysing is that drugs cause a problem in the community.
In conclusion I beleive that in order to lower drug addiction the goverment should do something like rehab or education on drugs, what that does is lower drug related crimes,drug addicts, and drug related deaths.
Annotated bibliography
Abuse, National Institute on Drug. “National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).” NIDA, www.drugabuse.gov/.
“DrugWise.” DrugWise, www.drugwise.org.uk/.
Francisco, I really liked your post and I also believe this is a prevalent issue in the United States, as well as the world. I have done a lot of research into the psychology of drug use and what makes it so prevalent in the American society. I also believe that the criminalization of illicit substances has had adverse effects to its intended purpose; which is to keep people safe at large. One country in particular that I have read much about is Portugal and their peculiar solution to their drug problem. In the past, Portugal was notorious for its elevated population of heroin addicts. The government came to a consensus that to solve the problem, they would enforce a new policy which not only decriminalized heroin, but set up government programs to provide free access to these drugs in controlled facilities with offered treatment programs. So far this new policy has improved their issue exponentially by deconstructing the illegal drug trade and reducing fatalities from overdoses. This program has also offered a window for those users who wish to seek free, provided help. If you would like to read more about this, I have included the link to a very intriguing article on the matter. I wish you the best with the rest of your research.
https://news.vice.com/article/ungass-portugal-what-happened-after-decriminalization-drugs-weed-to-heroin
Francisco, I really liked this post. Drug abuse is a huge problem in our country, and the government should indeed have a role in helping to stop it. For people already using drugs, the role of government should really be to help people recover, not simply throw them all in prison as seems to be the case. Drug education would also help people not start to use drugs. All these things combined would likely help lower drug abuse and deaths. You might find this article helpful: http://www.businessinsider.com/drug-crisis-in-america-worst-states-2017-5
Thank you Thomas for your comment i’m glad that we can both agree that rehab is a good choice. ill check out that link ASAP u should keep checking up my future post.
This is really interesting commentary, Francisco. Drug abuse is obviously a massive problem in America, and I agree with you when you say that there needs to be a solution to the problem. Rehabilitation is the obvious choice, because it is designed to help people get onto their feet again. Our government’s current plan of attack appears to be incarceration, because it appears to be the simplest and cheapest way to handle drug abuse. However, this doesn’t actually help people quit, so as soon as they get out of prison they could easily relapse back into their problem and end up in jail again. Nearly half of the people in jail today are there because of a drug related crime, which shows that people aren’t being helped nearly as effectively as they should be (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration/). I’ll look forward to your next post.
Dear Francisco,
I read through your paragraph and I do agree with you since one of my projects included crimes by drugs. What I talked about was how Video games can be one alternative to drugs because they can help distract the mind to video games instead of drugs. Although Video games can help as some type of treatment, it can’t really be useful for long since the person who is addicted to the substance has to be playing the video games for it to work and when the person is done playing they just go back to the drug. I am very interested in this topic since drugs have been a great problem to people since they can be bad most of the time and there very hard to get rid off.
Dear Francisco,
I am impressed by the your post ¨What Should the Government do About Drugs?¨ because you used good evidence. Not only that, you also wrote what the government can do and the changes they can apply to the community. The counter argument was really great and it reminded me of a project that I did in 8th grade about drugs. A sentence you wrote that stood out to me was, ¨In conclusion I believe that in order to lower drug addiction the government should do something like rehab or education on drugs, what that does is lower drug related crimes, drug addicts, and drug related deaths¨(Francisco). I like the fact that you summarized everything into one sentence. It gets straight to the point which is super direct and easy to understand. I do agree that there should be more rehab given out to drug addicts because addictions are hard to stop. They need help and your post help people recognize that and bring awareness to others. Thanks for your writing. I look forward to what you right next because the topics you write about it really interesting and important.
Dear Francisco,
I am impressed by the your post ¨What Should the Government do About Drugs?¨ because you used good evidence. Not only that, you also wrote what the government can do and the changes they can apply to the community. The counter argument was really great and it reminded me of a project that I did in 8th grade about drugs. A sentence you wrote that stood out to me was, ¨In conclusion I believe that in order to lower drug addiction the government should do something like rehab or education on drugs, what that does is lower drug related crimes, drug addicts, and drug related deaths¨(Francisco). I like the fact that you summarized everything into one sentence. It gets straight to the point which is super direct and easy to understand. I do agree that there should be more rehab given out to drug addicts because addictions are hard to stop. They need help and your post help people recognize that and bring awareness to others. Thanks for your writing. I look forward to what you right next because the topics you write about it really interesting and important.