Unit 6 Paraphrase Flashcards
Don’t say that marijuana is addictive and dangerous when it is neither—unlike “speed”, which kills most unpleasantly, or heroin, which is addictive and difficult to kick.
Don’t exaggerate the harmful effect of marijuana. It is neither addictive nor dangerous, as is often described. Differentiate it from “speed” and heroin. “Speed” causes death while heroin is difficult to stop using once a person is addicted to it.
Along with exhortation and warning, it might be good for our citizens to recall that the United States was the creation of men who believed that each man has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbor’s pursuit of happiness.
While urging people not to take drugs and warning them of the dangers, we should remind our citizens that their country was created by the early European settlers who believed that a man has the right to do whatever he wishes to his own life as long as what he does doesn’t prevent his neighbor from seeking happiness.
It is a lucky thing for the American moralist that we have no public memory of anything that happened last Tuesday. No one in Washington today recalls what happened during the years alcohol was forbidden to the people by a Congress that thought it had a divine mission to stamp out Demon Rum – launching, in the process, the greatest crime wave in the country’s history, causing thousands of deaths from bad alcohol, and creating a general (and persisting) contempt among the citizenry for laws of the United States.
Most Americans have a bad memory and don’t remember anything that happened in the past. This is a lucky thing for those people who advocate forbidding drugs, because if they remembered what Prohibition in the 1920s resulted in, which included unprecedented crime wave in US history, thousands of death from alcohol in poor quality, and a universal and long-lasting contempt toward law, they would see that prohibition of drugs will not be feasible, either.
Such is the deliciously convenient reasoning that the drug problem can be resolved by legalizing it.
This is the delightful, easy way of thinking that drug problem can be solved through legalization.
It would immediately remove the immense profits drugs now pump into the criminal underworld, it would reduce the forbidden-fruit attraction drugs have for young people and it would take away the criminal stigma that prevents many addicts from seeking help. You could even tax the sale of now-illegal drugs and use the money to build more treatment centers, which are desperately needed.
If drugs were sold at cost and legally, no one would buy them from pushers at high prices any more, and the Mafia wouldn’t get huge profits from illegal drug dealing anymore. Drugs would become not so attractive as the forbidden fruit to the young people when they are legalized. Many addicts would try to get help in order to kick the bad habit if the disgrace or shame is not attached to drug-taking anymore. Drugs that are illegal now can bring in income through taxes, and the income could be used to build more treatment facilities that are extremely needed.
And after the repeal of Prohibition – an analogy favored but misunderstood by legalization advocates – consumption of alcohol soared by 350 percent.
After the Prohibition was abolished, sales of alcohol rocketed by 350 percent. This is a example that legalization advocates like to use when it comes to drugs, but they often misunderstand the meaning of this example.
Drugs are a symptom of deeper ills in certain segments of our society, particularly the impoverished segments. You can call in all the troops you want and build more jails and drug boot camps, but as long as demand remains, the traffic will find ways to get through.
Widespread use of drugs is a sign of more serious social problems for some groups of the population, especially for the poor. No matter how many troops you want to bring in or how many jails and drug boot camps you want to build, so long as there’s people craving for drugs, the illegal buying and selling of drugs are still inevitable
The proverbial quick fix that legalization would seem to provide is illusory.
It seems that legalization would be able to help solve the drug problem quickly. However, although this solution seems attractive, it is not feasible or it can be put into practice.
A relentless government campaign, finally picked up by Hollywood and the rest of the culture industry, has thoroughly deglamorized cigarettes: It simply isn’t cool to smoke.
As the movie and the rest of the culture industry became aware of the harmful effects of tobacco smoking and their part in glamorizing it, they began to join in this campaign led by the government to deglamorize smoking.
