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The Effects of Illegal Drugs on American Society (1) Ever since the end of WWII, it has become a statement of good taste, among American politicians, to refer to U. S. as the greatest country on Earth, the globes strongest geopolitical power, the defender of democracy in the whole world etc. Even, as recent as twenty years ago, such referrals did correspond to the objective reality, as it was the case with Roman citizens referring to Roman Empire in 4 th century A. D.
as the greatest and most powerful state, at the time. However, in 476 A. D. , Gothic barbarians had simply walked into the Rome and declared it their property, with Roman citizens proving themselves incapable of putting up any resistance, whatsoever. How could it happen? The answer to this is very simple by 5 th century A.
D. , the continuous mongrel ization of Romans had turned into a bunch of decadents, solemnly preoccupied with seeking entertainment (gladiator fights), indulging in perverse sex (lupanars) and experimenting with what we now refer to as drugs. Nowadays, there is a plenty of objective evidence as to the fact that America is actually following the footsteps of spiritually corrupted Romans with utter exactness. In this paper, we will aim at exploring only one aspect of earlier thesis namely, the problem of drug addiction among Americans, which becomes ever more acute, as time goes by. (2) In his 2003 study Drug Addiction in America: Challenges and Opportunities, Everett Koop provides us with the insight on the sheer scale of drug addiction problem in this country: Illicit drugs cost the nation about $ 109. 9 billion; 58 per cent related to drug related crime, 16 per cent in lost productivity due to illness, 15 per cent in lost productivity due to premature deaths. Those last figures seem to indicate that illicit drug trafficking and competition among drug dealers is a major factor in violent crime in many cities.
In state prisons, the proportion of drug offenders rose to 23 per cent from 1985 1995 and accounted for the tremendous number of 224, 000 prisoners in 1995 (Koop 2003). In other words even as far back as in nineties, the problem of use of illegal drugs in America has gained a status of national priority. Today, in every large American city there are areas where drugs are being openly pushed to the kids out on the street (ghetto), with police being given orders not to intervene, so that interracial harmony remains undisturbed. There are many public schools, where students are being searched on possession of drugs and guns, before they can be allowed to enter a classroom. The countless Hollywood celebrities consider it as a part of their cool lifestyles to be getting caught, while being high as kites. Even the majority of upstanding White Americans think that there is nothing wrong with snorting up a few lines of cocaine, during the course of corporate parties.
People that were able to retain the remains of their sense of logic, despite being subjected to politically correct brainwashing for decades, understand that the discussion of drug addiction among Americans can no longer be thought of as simply something that indicates the ineffectiveness of American legal system it is nothing short of a full-scale national disaster. Yet, the neo-Liberal politicians, which were enjoying almost a complete monopoly, in the field of designing Americas social policies, over the course of years, continue to refer to the problem of drug addiction as such that can be easily solved, for as long as proper treatment methods are being applied to druggies. The editorial Drug Addiction is an Illness, Not a Crime, available on the web site of Drug Addiction Treatment Center, promotes the idea that drug traffickers and addicts should not only be let out of jail, but that the additional hordes of counselors should be hired, in order to instill these people with the idea that using illegal drugs is wrong: Drug addiction is responsible for many psychological problems; including, depression, mania, violent fantasies, etc Our country is in need of a serious shift in overall thinking about how drug addicts should be treated. Incarceration does not work; plain and simple (Drug Addiction Treatment Center 2008). While agreeing with the idea that, when applied to drug addicts, incarceration does not work, we think of the idea of wasting taxpayer money to provide treatment to those who represent a waste of humanity, as being equally wrong. Even a brief analysis of statistics, related to the problem of drug abuse among Americans, reveals it as such that directly correspond to the recent demographic shifts, within American society.
The statistical article Race and Prison from 2008, which can be found on web site of Drugwarfacts. Org, substantiates the validity of this suggestion: The custody incarceration rate for black males was 4, 618 per 100, 000. Hispanic males were incarcerated at a rate of 1, 747 per 100, 000. Compared to the estimated numbers of black, white, and Hispanic males in the U. S. resident population, black males (6 times) and Hispanic males (a little more than 2 times) were more likely to be held in custody than white males for offences related to drug abuse (Drugwarfacts.
Org 2008). However, given the fact that representatives of racial minorities often manage avoid being arrested for committing drug related crimes (nowadays, police officers professional effectiveness often cause them to face charges of racial profiling), we can assume that the actual data on relation between individuals racial affiliation and his tendency to commit drug crimes, is even more dramatic. America society takes pride in being multicultural, without the majority of people in this country being able to understand a simple fact that there is an undeniable link between multiculturalism and the degree, to which citizens are being affected by existential degeneracy (drug abuse). The self-evident subtleties of earlier statement are now being recognized by even many American mainstream sociologists and psychologists.
In her study, Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, and the Question of Race: Lessons from Seattle, Katherine Beckett states: The comparatively high Black and Latino drug arrest rates have been explained in a number of ways. However, in recent years, the socio-environmental approach to explaining what prompts people to commit drug related crimes had become less popular. Although not necessarily denying the importance of socio-economic factors, many scholars suggest that race has its own significance, though it operates in more complex and subtle fashion then the legal notion of racist intent implies (Beckett p. 420). To this, we can say the complexity of Blacks and Hispanics tendency to indulge in drug trafficking and drug abuse, is not very complex at all. These peoples existential mode is simply being defined by their anomalistic urges to significantly larger extent, as compared with the one of Whites or Asians. For many of them, the instant gratification represents the very purpose of their lives.
And the fact that the members of their ethnic communities, who were able to gain a social prominence, teach their less fortunate brethren's to think of the notion of discipline as euro-centric and fascist, only strengthens these peoples inborn inclination to get hooked on drugs. People are not being forced into the poverty and consequentially into the drug addiction, as we are told by promoters of neo-Liberal agenda. Very often, living in the state of poverty, while peddling small amounts of drugs out on the street, simply corresponds to their mentality. For example, the drop out-rate among Hispanic students in high schools accounts for 45 %, and as practice shows, these students consciously choose in favor of dropping out of schools, simply because they want to pursue a career of drug dealers, while understanding perfectly well the consequences of such their decision. In was not simply an accident that we have mentioned what happened to racially and spiritually corrupt Romans, in 5 th century A. D. , at the initial part of this paper, because we believe that many absolutely clear parallels can be drawn between Roman Empire, during the time of its decline, and contemporary America.
It is namely the fact that Romans became preoccupied with celebration of diversity, which caused them to fall an easy prey to barbarians, as they associated such celebration with seeking sensual pleasures as thing in itself, at the expense of overlooking their social duties. Therefore, the fact that the problem of drug abuse now begins to shape the moral, economical, and social makeup of America, directly derives out of this country being set on the path of multiculturalism. In its turn, this implies that socio-environmental methods of reducing citizens dependency on drugs in U. S. are doomed to failure.
Whereas, neo-Liberals think that society should cure drug addicts, instead of punishing them, neo-Conservatives suggest that druggies should simply be never allowed out of jail. However, the analytical mind will recognize both suggestions as conceptually fallacious, because they do not address the metaphysical core of the problem the fact that America is being gradually turned into a Third World slum, due to the concept of multiculturalism being jammed down citizens throats. In his article Addicted to the Drug War, Robert Leeson explains why tough on drugs approach is being just as ineffective, within a context of designing social policies, meant to prevent druggization of American society, as drug addiction is illness one: The war on drugs is responsible for almost one-quarter of the $ 40 billion swallowed up each year by the U. S. prison system.
Many of those caught become permanently trapped in tangled webs woven by drug crusaders (Leeson p. 80). There is a good old saying the only effective measures are always the most drastic ones. Drug traffickers and drug addicts should neither be treated in hospitals nor jailed they should simply be rounded up, put on and boat and shipped to Republic of Psychodelia, with authorities making sure that this boat would sink on the half way to its destination. We are well aware of the sarcastic essence of such proposition, but whatever intolerant it might sound, it could have effectively solved the problem, given of course, that proponents of multiculturalism would be sent to the same destination on separate boat.
It is important to understand that the fact that more and more Americans become hooked on drugs, as time goes by, represents a social symptom rather then a social diagnosis. It reflects the reality of Americans being slowly deprived of spiritual qualities that allowed their ancestors to build and to maintain a civilization in the New World. Therefore, unless something is being done about American society becoming increasingly marginalized, only utterly naive people can believe that war on drugs can yield any practical results, especially given the fact that such governmental agencies as CIA and FBI are the main distributors of drugs in this country! In preface to his book Defrauding America, Rodney Stich, who used to be a high ranking FBI agent in eighties, states: Much of the evidence of CIA drug trafficking has been available to the mainstream media for decades. Virtually no reporter could have been ignorant of the great number of reports showing that the CIA was engaged in drug trafficking on a large scale, for decades (Stich, p. 5).
In 1992, George Bush had placed National Guards, along Mexican border, supposedly to reduce the amount of illegal drugs, which were finding its way across the border into America from Mexico. The year later it was revealed that the amount of trafficked drugs has been doubled, ever since National Guards were made present at the border. And, given Bush past as Director of CIA, we can only guess how far up the corruption of Americas governmental institutions goes. Only a very lazy person would not want to draw parallels between American governmental officials actually providing a roof for drug traffickers and the last Roman Emperors allowing barbarians to walk freely across Roman borders, while being perfectly aware of their actual intentions to cause great deal of harm to native-born Roman citizens.
As saying goes fish begins to rot from its head. (3) Slowly but surely, America is losing the remains of its national integrity. Despite politicians cheep rhetoric about Americas national unity being stronger then ever, the objective realities indicate something entirely opposite. Every time American large cities experience electrical blackouts, they are being reduced into the battleground of everybody against everybody. Many American public schools now serve as academies of crime.
Many American progressive politicians think that there is nothing wrong about them addressing the crowds of illegal immigrants, who break the law by being present in this country. Thus, the problem of illegal drugs in America can be best thought of as simply the tip of the iceberg, consisting of substantially more pressing problems. Unless the designing of social-political policies in this country will be adjusted to the notion of sanity (which is highly doubtful), and unless our corrupted politicians are being removed from position of power, we cannot seriously expect that the drug-prevention measures, which are being undertaken now, to have any positive effect, whatsoever. Bibliography: Beckett, K. 2005. Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, and the Question of Race: Lessons from Seattle.
Social Problems. 52 (3), 419 - 441. Drug Addiction is an Illness, Not a Crime. 2009. Drug Addiction Treatment Center. Retrieved March 17, 2009 from web Gibbon, E. 2003. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. London: Modern Library.
Leeson, R. 2007. Addicted to the Drug War. Hoover Digest. 1 (3), 80 - 84. Koop, E. 2003. Drug Addiction in America: Challenges and Opportunities. Dartmouth College.
Retrieved March 17, 2009 from web Rubenstein, E. 2003. Hispanic High School Disaster The Evidence Mounts. Var. Com. Retrieved March 17, 2009 from web Race and Prison. 2008. Drugwarfacts.
Org. Retrieved March 17, 2009 from web Stich, R. 1994. Defrauding America. London: Diablo Western Press. Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the problem of drug addiction among Americans as such that is beginning to define the moral, economical, and social makeup of this country, while pointing at it as the symptom of American society being deprived of its national integrity, due to celebration of diversity policy. Outline: Introduction Main Part Conclusion
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Research essay sample on The Effects Of Illegal Drugs On American Society
