When the shock subsided, the next thought that cross my mind I still cannot forgive myself for. “Why… how could you be so stupid?” I pleaded, painfully absorbing that one of my closest childhood friends (we will call him Kyle) had just died from a heroin overdose at the age of 19. Kyle and I had not talked in a few years, but the memories from our childhood and the promise in his life that he abandoned broke me that day. In high school, he was popular amongst his peers, and the starting quarterback for our football team. That changed our sophomore year, when his dangerous drug habits that would eventually take his life got him expelled from school. From that point on, Kyle fell in and out of prison, rehab, reform school, back to prison, and again in rehab. Beaten up and tossed around, quietly waiting for the inevitable final blow. I wondered, “why heroin- of all drugs?”
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In the USA article “Progressives Should Just Say No to Legalizing Drugs,” author Carrie Wofford argues that decriminalizing drugs would be a travesty because “[t]hey turn talented, intelligent people into impulsive animals. They destroy marriages. They deprive children of emotionally healthy parents.” Coincidently, going to prison tends to do these things as well. Wofford presumptuously assumes that legalization will only increase addiction, worsening the current problem. What she fails to take into account is that criminalization in this country has been the barrier to proper treatment. By stigmatizing addicts and spending billions of government funds to lock up drug offenders, we keep the status quo. Contrary to belief, drug decriminalization does would not lead to the masses coming out of the woodwork and into the streets to have hedonistic drug orgies. No, it means that people who do have a drug problem will be given a chance to turn their life around before it is too late. The sooner we can realize that, the
In the USA article “Progressives Should Just Say No to Legalizing Drugs,” author Carrie Wofford argues that decriminalizing drugs would be a travesty because “[t]hey turn talented, intelligent people into impulsive animals. They destroy marriages. They deprive children of emotionally healthy parents.” Coincidently, going to prison tends to do these things as well. Wofford presumptuously assumes that legalization will only increase addiction, worsening the current problem. What she fails to take into account is that criminalization in this country has been the barrier to proper treatment. By stigmatizing addicts and spending billions of government funds to lock up drug offenders, we keep the status quo. Contrary to belief, drug decriminalization does would not lead to the masses coming out of the woodwork and into the streets to have hedonistic drug orgies. No, it means that people who do have a drug problem will be given a chance to turn their life around before it is too late. The sooner we can realize that, the