War On Drugs By William Bennett Analysis

At the time that William J. Bennett, former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, gave his speech at Harvard University, former Vice President George H. W. Bush was beginning to involve himself in the media coined term “War on Drugs”. This evidently led to several academics to heavily criticize the effectiveness of making several drugs illegal, who Bennett called the “Intellectuals.” Bennett, in response to the criticism of these intellectuals, passionately claims that these individuals do not provide any practical reasons for drugs to be legalized. Instead, he believes that these intellectuals do not take the issue seriously. Bennett relies on plenty of emotional arguments to enhance his argument that drugs should remain …show more content…
When Bennett considers the counterargument that the act of legalizing drugs will eliminate the drug business, Bennett claims that this argument is not carefully analyzed and poorly thought. In retort to the counterargument, it is discussed that most drug dealers do not make considerable profit and that they instead end up consuming their product rather than sell it. This is one of Bennett’s logical arguments in his speech. However, his evidence is questionable, considering that he cited a New York Times article, which can be biased and deceptive on its …show more content…
He calls for “[…] a bigger criminal justice system: as a form of drug prevention.” Bennett provides a scenario where a youth center for drug use proved to be ineffective, until it was placed in a location where illegal drugs were heavily present. Bennett goes on to list more locations where these youth centers proved to be effective, further enhancing the credibility of the claim. Bennett provides relevant, reliable evidence for this claim, making it very logos-oriented and not pseudo-logos. Bennett deviates from his main strategy of presenting the speech in this argument, where he usually relies on providing little to no evidence and then unloading pathos onto the audience. Instead, Bennett mainly focuses on reason for this argument. While Bennett could have nonetheless expanded further on the effectiveness of these youth centers with evidence, it is an effective mix of logos and pathos that nonetheless improve the quality of his