Why Drugs Is Wrong

Drugs, addiction and why the way we handle them is wrong

Drugs, they kill us, cause addiction and destroy lives. Those are the things most commonly associated with them whenever someone brings it up. Every article you read, story you hear or news report you see shows you that drug use in itself is dangerous and bad, addicts are the bottom of society and addiction is brought upon oneself. But what knowledge do we have when we never took the time to dive into the subject? I feel that knowledge is way too little and that the people suffering from addiction are not getting the help they need because of it. Our perception is based mostly on incidents that make the news and hearsay stories. Therefore I feel like the way we think of drugs and addiction

You don’t want your kids to become addicts, do you?” This sentiment is often heard whenever someone brings up the topic of legalising drugs. People opposing looser legislation say that drug use will skyrocket after it would be decriminalised. This would lead to more addiction and would expose the youth to more potential hazards. Those are the reasons brought up most often when people say drugs should be banned and drug users should be jailed or at least put away from society. However this turns out not be true whatsoever. A clear example of why this is wrong, is Portugal. In 2001 Portugal changed their drug policy. Whilst drug possession and use still had the status of illegality, it was changed from a criminal offense to an administrative offense. Rather than fining or jailing offenders, Portugal decided to put them in treatment instead. Drug users could also voluntarily join a treatment program or get help through test centres, education programmes. Several studies have shown that the addiction rate to very addictive drugs like heroin plummeted. There has been an increase in uptake of patients for treatment and a large reduction in drug related deaths. On top of that the drug criminality declined as

Obviously the answer is heroin, right? While not being entirely wrong, it’s not true either. Many studies in the early twentieth century have shown some drugs have extremely addictive qualities to them. Take for instance an experiment with rats being able to choose out of two water bottles, one with regular water and one laced with heroin or cocaine. Almost every time this experiment was carried out the rat would chose the laced water until it died, thus proving the drug was causing addiction, right? That seemed to be the consensus until Professor Bruce Alexander changed this experiment up in the 70s. He noticed that the rate was put in the cage all alone, the only thing it could do was take drugs or not take drugs. In his experiment ‘Rat Park’ he gave the rats all the luxury they could hope for. Lots of space, tunnels, balls, food other rats for playing and mating and the regular and laced water bottles. The rats of ‘Rat Park’ hardy ever touched the drugged water. This turned out not only to be true for rats. A human version was almost accidentally carried out during the Vietnam War. Due to the conditions and isolation of the war, almost twenty percent of the American soldiers resorted to heroin use to get by. Back in America people were worried that they’d get a lot of junkies once the war was over. This turned out not be the case because ninety-five percent of the soldiers quit cold turkey once they got home. They didn’t need rehab or even