Social Contract Theory Research Paper

In the United States, a drug arrest occurs every 20 seconds and a marijuana arrest occurs every 42 seconds.1 United States law assigns different drugs to schedules or categories of addictiveness and potential to be used in a medical setting. There are five schedules with Schedule I considered as the most harmful, the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration states “Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous of all the drug schedules with potentially severe and psychological and physical dependence”.2 Schedule I drugs include heroin, marijuana, LSD, and ecstasy among others.2 Schedule II drugs include cocaine, methamphetamine, and methadone among others.2 These schedules continue on until Schedule V which includes cough medicines and other less harmful …show more content…
From 1980 to 2007 one in three of those arrested for drugs was African American.5Considering African Americans constitute only 14 percent of drug users, but are 37 percent of those that are arrested for drugs, African Americans seem to be discriminated more so than other races for drugs.5 From a Social Contract Theory standpoint, our government is unjustifiably targeting minorities more than non minorities for drug crimes and violating the unwritten law to treat everybody equally. Social Contract Theory is a view that for a government or state to be legitimized they must enter a contract or agreement with the citizen of the state.4 Locke 's Social Contract Theory specifically includes the government 's requirement to respect all citizens rights and liberties, and singling out specific races for drug charges is not respecting that contract. Drug criminalization also seems suspect considering the fact that drug addicts tend to come from impoverished environments, the National Council on Drug Abuse wrote, “A person in an impoverished situation may abuse drugs or alcohol as a way to cope with the dangerous environment she lives in, a way to deal with her financial stresses or a way to cope with physical or emotional abuse"6. How can we be a moral society that emphasizes equality when we punish those that come from almost inescapable poverty and destructive home lives. Many who are arrested for drugs have addictions to said drugs and considering that an addiction is a mental illness and that mental illnesses are things that we essentially cannot control, imprisoning people who have mental illnesses seem highly suspect. Drug convictions are unfair to those who are targeted more and/or are more likely to turn to drugs because of disadvantaged