HOOK HERE. The author, Nicolas Kristof, wants to explain Portugal's drug policy and convince us that it is superior than the U.S.'s drug program. He does that by starting his article with personal interviews and tales so that we connect with the drug addicts of Portugal in a compassonate way. Next, he uses that empathy to drive home statistics comparing the U.S.'s drug policy to Portugal's. Finally, Nicolas uses expert examples to make portugal's program hold more water.
The first step in the author's mission to persaude us that Portugal's drug policy is superior than the U.S.'s was to make it seem credible. The first way that he did it was using the bandwagon fallacy. For example, the author wrote: “Delegations from around the world are flying …show more content…
In fact, the author cited a study that claimed that Portugal had only \frac{1}{50}^{th} of drug related deaths than the U.S. per capita. To elaborate, portugal had 6 drug related deaths per million population whereas the U.S. had 315. This is a great statistic; It takes into account for the stark population differences between the U.S. and Portugal and the data is relevant. Portugal's data was collected in 2015 whereas the U.S. in 2016. Additionally, by stating the drug related deaths per million people, Nicholas accounted for the fact that the U.S. has more than 10 times the population of Portugal. Another strong point of this statistic is it's placecment; the author only uses the statistic after we've had a connection with Mario, the 37 year old fisherman and heroin addict. This is because the author is taking advantage of common human quirk: One death is a tradegy, 10,000 deaths is a statistic. Essentially, it's easy to put ourself in the shoes of a single person but it's difficult for us to emphathize with 1000 people. Naturally, we detach ourselfs from the situation. Because of this, when we're told that portugal's drug policy is saving lifes we don't think of 300 faceless people, we think of Mario. At this point most readers already have already formed a positive opinion on portugal's drug policy so the author moves to reassure their belief in the home
The first step in the author's mission to persaude us that Portugal's drug policy is superior than the U.S.'s was to make it seem credible. The first way that he did it was using the bandwagon fallacy. For example, the author wrote: “Delegations from around the world are flying …show more content…
In fact, the author cited a study that claimed that Portugal had only \frac{1}{50}^{th} of drug related deaths than the U.S. per capita. To elaborate, portugal had 6 drug related deaths per million population whereas the U.S. had 315. This is a great statistic; It takes into account for the stark population differences between the U.S. and Portugal and the data is relevant. Portugal's data was collected in 2015 whereas the U.S. in 2016. Additionally, by stating the drug related deaths per million people, Nicholas accounted for the fact that the U.S. has more than 10 times the population of Portugal. Another strong point of this statistic is it's placecment; the author only uses the statistic after we've had a connection with Mario, the 37 year old fisherman and heroin addict. This is because the author is taking advantage of common human quirk: One death is a tradegy, 10,000 deaths is a statistic. Essentially, it's easy to put ourself in the shoes of a single person but it's difficult for us to emphathize with 1000 people. Naturally, we detach ourselfs from the situation. Because of this, when we're told that portugal's drug policy is saving lifes we don't think of 300 faceless people, we think of Mario. At this point most readers already have already formed a positive opinion on portugal's drug policy so the author moves to reassure their belief in the home