The drug war is not working Essay Example for Free

The drug war is not working Essay That is certainly true if we assume, as he does, that the purpose of the drug war is to induce Americans to consume only approved drugs. But as the war wears on, we have to wonder what its purposes really are. If its purpose is to make criminals out of one in three African-American males, it has succeeded. If its purpose is to create one of the highest crime rates in the world and thus to provide permanent fodder for demagogues who decry crime and promise to do something about it it is achieving that end. If its purpose is de facto repeal of the Bill of Rights, victory is well in sight. If its purpose is to transfer individual freedom to the central government, it is carrying that off as well as any of our real wars did. If its purpose is to destroy our inner cities by making them war zones, triumph is near. Most of the results of the drug war, of which the essayists here complain, were widely observed during alcohol prohibition. Everyone should have known that the same fate would follow if the Prohibition approach were merely transferred to different drugs. It has been clear for over a decade that Milton Friedmans warnings about Prohibition redux have been borne out (see his Prohibition and Drugs, Newsweek, May 1, 1972). At some point, the consequences of a social policy become so palpable that deliberate continuation of the policy incorporates those consequences into the policy. We are near if not past that point with drug prohibition. For forty years following the repeal of alcohol prohibition, we treated drug prohibition as we did other laws against vice: we didnt take it very seriously. As we were extricating ourselves from the Vietnam War, however, Richard Nixon declared all-out global war on the drug menace, and the militarization of the problem began. After Ronald Reagan redeclared that war, and George Bush did the same, we had a drug-war budget that was 1,000 times what it was when Nixon first discovered the new enemy. The objectives of the drug war are obscured in order to prevent evaluation. A common claim, for example, is that prohibition is part of the nations effort to prevent serious crime. Bill Clintons drug czar, Dr. Lee Brown, testified before Congress: Drugs especially addictive, hard-core drug use are behind much of the crime we see on our streets today, both those crimes committed by users to finance their lifestyles and those committed by traffickers and dealers fighting for territory and turf. . . . Moreover, there is a level of fear in our communities that is, I believe, unprecedented in our history . . . If these remarks had been preceded by two words, Prohibition of, the statement would have been correct, and the political reverberations would have been deafening. Instead, Dr.Brown implied that drug consumption is by itself responsible for turf wars and the other enumerated evils, an implication which he and every other drug warrior know is false. The only possibility more daunting than that our leaders are dissembling is that they might actually believe the nonsense they purvey. I have little to add to the catalogue of drug-war casualties in the other essays assembled here. I do, however, see another angle of entry for Mr. Buckleys efforts at quantification. I have argued elsewhere that the drug war is responsible for at least half of our serious crime. A panel of experts consulted by U. S. News World Report put the annual dollar cost of Americas crime at $674 billion. Half of that, $337 billion, was the total federal budget as recently as 1975. The crime costs of drug prohibition alone may equal 150 per cent of the entire federal welfare budget for 1995. I also think Mr. Buckley understates the nonquantifiable loss of what he quaintly refers to as amenities. Not only is it nearly suicidal to walk alone in Central Park at night, it is impossible in sections of some cities safely to leave ones home, or to remain there. Some Americans sleep in their bathtubs hoping they are bullet-proof. Prohibition-generated violence is destroying large sections of American cities. We can have our drug war or we can have healthy cities; we cannot have both. In this collection of essays, we critics have focused on the costs of the drug war. The warriors could justly complain if we failed to mention the benefits. So lets take a look at the benefit side of the equation. Were it not for the drug war, the prohibitionists say, we might be a nation of zombies. The DEA pulled the figure of 60 million from the sky: thats how many cocaine users they say we would have if it werent for prohibition. Joseph Califanos colleague at the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Dr. Herbert Kleber, a former assistant to William Bennett, puts the number of cocaine users after repeal at a more modest 20 to 25 million. In contrast, government surveys suggest that only about 3 million Americans currently use cocaine even occasionally and fewer than 500,000 use it weekly. The prohibitionists scenarios have no basis either in our history or in other cultures. In many countries, heroin and cocaine are cheap and at least de facto legal. Mexico is awash in cheap drugs, yet our own State Department says that Mexico does not have a serious drug problem. Neither cocaine nor heroin is habitually consumed by more than a small fraction of the residents of any country in the world. There is no reason to suppose that Americans would be the single exception. Lee Brown used to rely on alcohol prohibition as proof that legalization would addict the nation, asserting that alcohol consumption shot straight up when Prohibition was repealed. He no longer claims that, it having been pointed out to him that alcohol consumption increased only about 25 per cent in the years following repeal. Yet even assuming, contrary to that experience, that ingestion of currently illegal drugs would double or triple following repeal, preventing such increased consumption still cannot be counted a true benefit of drug prohibition. After repeal, the drugs would be regulated; their purity and potency would be disclosed on the package, as Mr. Buckley points out, together with appropriate warnings. Deaths from overdoses and toxic reactions would be reduced, not increased. Moreover, as Richard Cowan has explained (NR, How the Narcs Created Crack, Dec. 5, 1986), the drugs consumed after repeal would be less potent than those ingested under prohibition. Before alcohol prohibition, we were a nation of beer drinkers. Prohibition pushed us toward hard liquor, a habit from which we are still recovering. Before the Harrison Act, many Americans took their cocaine in highly diluted forms, such as Coca-Cola. We would also end the cruel practices described by Ethan Nadelmann wherein we deny pain medication to those who need it, preclude the medical use of marijuana, and compel drug users to share needles and thus to spread deadly diseases. The proportion of users who would consume the drugs without substantial health or other problems would be greatly increased. In comparison to any plausible post-repeal scenario, therefore, there simply are no health benefits achieved by prohibition.

Cars :: essays research papers

Looking for a fast and affordable small car? Two excellent choices are the Mitsubishi Eclipse GT and the Pontiac Grand Am GT. The Pontiac Grand Am GT and the Mitsubishi Eclipse GT are similar yet different in several ways.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Pontiac Grand Am and the Mitsubishi Eclipse are similar in that they’re both affordable and fast small cars. First, both are under $25,000 brand new, with the Grand Am GT costing around $18,000 and a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT costing $20,000. The Grand Am GT goes 0-60 in 7.5 seconds, while the Eclipse sprints 0-60 in 7.9 seconds. The average 0-60 time for a small inexpensive car is around 11 seconds. Another similarity is they both have V6 engines. The Grand Am has a responsive 3.3L 175 hp V6 with 205 lb/ft of torque. The Eclipse has a 3.0L 200 hp V6 that kicks out 205 lb/ft of torque as well. They are both small, automatic transmission cars that seat up to 5 people. The Grand Am weights in at 3,100 lb and the Eclipse weights 3,200 lb.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Grand Am’s and Eclipses each have a different interior and exterior design however. For example, the style on the exterior of the cars is dramatically different. The Grand Am has an exuberant styling sure to attract attention. The Eclipse, on the other hand is a nice looking car, but it doesn’t look quite as fancy or as sporty as the Grand Am because it doesn’t have the RAM intake on the hood of the car, nor does it have dual exhaust like the Grand Am GT. Another difference is in the interior design. The Grand Am’s interior is cheap looking plastic and is plainly laid out. The Eclipse interior is more attractive and just doesn’t look cheap like the Grand Am.

How Important is Setting in Gulliver’s Travels? Essay

Gulliver’s Travels was written in 1726 by Johnathan Swift. Swift was a very outspoken member of the Church of England. His previous book, The Tale of a Tub satirized the feuds between Catholics and Protestants, and ruined his chances of being a bishop with its unpopularity. Swift uses setting in Gulliver’s Travels to reveal his own criticisms of humanity and his views on society. He presents several different societies, which each represent an exaggerated aspect of 18th century Europe. The eponymous ‘hero’ is Lemuel Gulliver, whose name indicates his nature: He starts off extremely gullible. As Gulliver travels through Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnugg, and the Land of the Houyhnhnms, he becomes disillusioned with his own humanity and ends up disgusted by other humans and spending his life talking to his horses. In Lilliput, Swift draws parallels with England, the nobility and parliament in particular. The emperor is small-minded and probably represents George I. George I was German and never learnt to speak English. He was reputed to be vain, like the emperor, who needs long introductions and fancy title to boost his ego. In Lilliput, Swift also introduces the idea that the stature of a human is proportional to the generosity, kindness, and wisdom of a human, contrary to Gulliver’s expectations. At the start of his second voyage, he even says, â€Å"Human creatures are observed to be more savage and cruel in proportion to their bulk†. This is after he has been tied up, shot at, and trapped by the tiny Lilliputians, which enforces the idea that Gulliver’s observations are not always accurate. This incorrect observation highlights the almost perfect society of the Brobdingnagians, who are much bigger than Gulliver. Swift mainly uses Lilliput to draw attention to the absurdity of religious wars, such as the conflict between the Catholics in Ireland and the English Protestants. The main way he does this is by giving an exaggerated example of a stupid religious war: Lilliput’s war with Blefescu. The war started because the then Emperor of Lilliput passed a law saying that everyone had to break their eggs at the small end. People who broke this law were discriminated against, and books by them were destroyed and not published. This is very similar to the situation in Ireland which Swift strongly objected to, despite the fact that he was a Protestant himself. Furthermore, the mutually sacred book of the Little-endians and Big-endians says, â€Å"All true believers shall break their egg at the convenient end†. This is blatantly Swift saying that war between Catholics and Protestants is foolish because they are only arguing about their interpretation of the same book. His point is convin cing because he uses an obviously ridiculous example to demonstrate his idea. As well as drawing attention to the absurdity of the conflict in Ireland, Swift also reflects on vanity in humans. The Lilliputians, though incredibly small, are so vain that they think they can imprison Gulliver. Another example is when Gulliver saves the Empress and her possessions but instead of thanking him, she is so proud that she cannot cope with the way he put out the fire, even though it was the only way to save her apartment. She pressures the government to get rid of Gulliver because of the harm he has caused her reputation. The Empress is thought to represent Queen Anne, who was displeased by Swift’s earlier book The Tale of a Tub because she thought that, while it might dissuade interest in Catholicism, it would do the same for Protestantism. Her disapproval meant that Swift would never become a bishop. In contrast to Lilliput, Brobdingnag is almost utopian; all resources are pooled and divided equally, and the King and Queen are wise and just. During Gulliver’s stay in Brobdingnag, he attends the king several times to tell him about England and Europe. Gulliver recounts â€Å"He was perfectly astonished with the historical account I gave him of our affairs during the last century, protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, [and] the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, or ambition could produce†. These are incredibly strong words from such a kind king, which shows that he is very upset by the actions of a race that is so similar to his own. Swift makes Gulliver seem stupid in Lilliput, by making him endure his captivity, be afraid of the Lilliputians, and other things related to his size in relation to his captors, and because Swift has given us the impression that Gulliver is a fool, we start to believe his opinions less and less, and start to interpret his narrative in different ways. This in turn helps us believe that the Brobdingnagian King is at least partly right in saying that â€Å"the bulk of your natives [are] the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the Earth†. Gulliver then says that the king must be excused because he is so far from the rest of the world that his standards could not fit in our country. Even though Swift portrays Brobdingnag as a sort of Utopia, and it is by far the most civilised place Gulliver visits, it is not perfect. The dictionary defines ‘Utopia’ as â€Å"an ideal and perfect place or state where everyone lives in harmony and everything is for the best†. There is still crime in Brobdingnag, because Gulliver himself watches the execution of a murderer, and there are still bad people, as in every society, like the dwarf, who drops Gulliver in a bowl of cream. Perhaps Swift is saying that even the best human societies cannot be truly perfect, because of the nature of humanity; some people are born bad. This is at odds with the thinking of the time, when people optimistically thought that human nature was basically good. Swift is suggesting that this is untrue. Gulliver’s next voyage is to Laputa. Swift uses Laputa to show his opinion of the (then) current obsession with scientific knowledge and learning. The Laputians are so deep in thought all the time that they have to employ ‘flappers’ to bring them back into a conversation by flapping them on the ears and mouth. They are unable to carry out a conversation, or do anything physical, without a flapper. Because of this, their wives and daughters escape to the mainland underneath Laputa whenever they can, and some do not come back. Swift uses the Laputians to show the stupidity of science just for science’s sake; when scientists start to ignore the rest of the world because they are so concerned in astronomical and mathematical matter, they are not helping anyone. The word ‘Laputa’ sounds like the Spanish word for ‘prostitute’, ‘la puta’, and Swift would have known this, so he may be suggesting that the Laputians have prostituted themselves to science. Laputa is also a floating island, kept up by a magnetic stone, so the Laputians literally have their heads in the clouds. After realising that Gulliver is not as clever as he is supposed to be (he is a doctor), the reader has begun to read into Gulliver’s descriptions and should see the ridiculousness and the comparison to scientists. Also on this voyage, Gulliver visits a place called The Academy, which represents the Royal Society of London, a scientific institute set up by Isaac Newton. The experiments described Gulliver that take place in The Academy actually happened in the Royal Society, despite how ridiculous they are. They include extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, using spiders to produce silk, and ploughing the ground with pigs who are trying to find acorns that have been planted there. Each of the professors doing these experiments is odd in appearance, to draw attention to the strangeness of their experiment. All of the places Gulliver travels to on this voyage are obsessed with knowledge, except Luggnugg, where those born with immortality are feared and looked down on. These people have realised the problems with immortality. At first, Gulliver imagines how he would spend an infinite lifetime, but he imagines himself eternally young, but this is a different thing to immortality. After seeing the aged Struldbruggs, he says, â€Å"My keen Appetite for Perpetuity of Life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing Visions I had formed, and thought no Tyrant could invent a Death into which I would not run with Pleasure from such a Life.† Gulliver’s final voyage, and the most controversial one, is to the Land of the Houyhnhnms, which sounds a bit like the word ‘human’ when said by a horse. In this Land, Gulliver firsts sees the Yahoos, which he sees as some kind of animal and not as humans at all. He describes their appearance as he would an animal, and compares them to other animals, noting, as the Brobdingnagian scientists did, that they weren’t very well equipped for survival. Because of their wild appearance, he does not recognise them as human, and is shocked when he discovers that they are. In the Land of the Houyhnhnms, horses are the ruling species, and keep Yahoos as pets. The Yahoos emphasise everything Swift has implied about humanity; they show avarice, lust, and greed, the leader is always the slyest and disgusting one. The grey mare, Gulliver’s companion on this voyage, says that when more than enough food is given to a group of Yahoos, each one will try to get it all to itself. The Land of the Houyhnhnms is by far the most ideal society Gulliver encounters, albeit not for the humans. However, it is almost completely devoid of emotion, and is the only place Gulliver visits where the ‘people’ do not have names. As well as this, if a family has two same-gender foals, they will trade one with a family that has two foals of the opposite gender, to keep the balance. This would be impossible in a human society, as nobody would trade his or her own child. The closest a human society gets to this is in Lilliput, one of the most ridiculous countries Gulliver visits, where the children only see their parents for a few days a year, and live communally the rest of the time. Swift may be suggesting, by making this happen in Lilliput, that it is a bad idea, and that parents should keep their own children, even at the cost of society. the Land of the Houyhnhnms shows that a ‘perfect society’ is possible, but as Swift chooses to compose it of horses, with humans as a hindrance to it, he is probably suggesting that because of the nature of humans, we cannot possibly have an entirely perfect society, we can only try, as in Brobdingnag. In conclusion, Swift uses each setting to emphasis one or more of humanity’s flaws. In Lilliput, he demonstrates pride in the Lilliputians, in Brobdingnag he shows us the stupidity of the vanity of the women by pointing out all their blemishes from close up (â€Å"Their Skins appeared so coarse and uneven, so variously coloured, when I saw them near, with a Mole here and there as broad as a Trencher, and Hairs hanging from it thicker than Pack-threads, to say nothing further concerning the rest of their Persons.†) In his third voyage, the thirst for knowledge and immortal life is ridiculed, and in the Land of the Houyhnhnms, everything Swift has said so far is confirmed, in the disgusting Yahoos.

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