William Bennett Drug Legalization Analysis

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Drug legalization has been a very fiercely debated topic in the United States. Therefore, William Bennett took on the fight for the war on drugs. He states that "he has learned from the former Secretary of State George Shultz that our concept of fighting drugs is "flawed." The only thing to do, he says, is to "make it possible for addicts to buy drugs at some regulated place." He will discuss into depth each of these 4 points in his argument which are 1. Legalization will take the profit out of drugs, 2. Legalization will eliminate the black market., 3. Legalization will dramatically reduce crime., 4. Drug use should be legal since users only harm themselves. Therefore, of the four arguments for legalizing drugs that Bennett has refuted, and …show more content…

Legalization will take the profit out of drugs" in reality that is not true, the criminals could undercut the official price and still make huge profits. The taxing would allow the government to share the drug profits with the distributors. The Legalizers would have to tax drugs heavily in order to pay for drug education and treatment programs. This argument was rebutted because he has simply attacked it with an alternate point of view instead of proving it wrong. Second, point that Bennett argued, "Legalization will eliminate the black market." He refuted this argument because he has proven it wrong. Evidence to justify this statement is that "If government drugstores do not stock crack, addicts will find it in the clandestine market or simply hake it themselves from their legally purchased cocaine." Meaning that some of the drugs are just too dangerous to be sheltered by the law. He creates fear to show how the distribution of drugs cannot be …show more content…

He begins the description of why this is false by talking about the three-year-old who happened to get in the way of his mother's drug-crazed boyfriend. The Medical examiner described that the child had 36 bullet wounds in his little body. This appeals to emotion if the readers have children of their own, or have younger siblings, and Etc. Therefore, it is false that they only harm themselves because they harm everyone around them. A cocaine addict states that "Everything is about getting high, and any means necessary to get there becomes rational." So they don't care if they do wrong or right or who they end up harming all they want is the drugs which is sad. In conclusion, of the four arguments that William Bennett it is clear that he has only argued one side of the war to legalize drugs; which is the side of banning and making drugs illegal. This point that bennet states "Legalization will eliminate the black market.". He has refuted this argument because he has proven it wrong. Another point that he argued that was refuted was "Drug use should be legal since users only harm themselves". As Bennett states, this is false because everyone around drug users is affected by them using