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Flaws in Drug Legalization Argument

All of the arguments that are made by the author of the paper on the legalization of drugs are faulty in one way or another. He primarily argues by assertion and seldom offers any backup to his points. This means that even when his premises make some logical sense they have nothing to stand on. But many of his premises are not logical at all.

He states that it is "time for us to legalize drugs in this country" and claims that he can offer support for this in two ways--in terms of moral and practical considerations. But, from the very beginning his argument suffers because he does not distinguish what he means by "drugs." The reader can infer that he refers to illegal so-called recreational drugs. But he does not say so and it could include, for example, drugs that are meant for medical conditions but have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Then he fails to define what he means by the terms "moral" and "practical." Instead he says that it is not moral for the government to make it illegal to use drugs and that legalizing drugs would produce "pragmatic gains" for the country (which, incidentally, is never identified as the United States other than the initial reference to "this country").

His whole argument about the morality of making drugs illegal is based on the claim that "the government should never forbid activities which do not impinge on the rights of others." This might be a logically supportable claim but he makes no attempt to support it in itself and never makes it clear how it applies to drugs since he immediately admits that there are ways that drug use can be harmful to someone besides the drug user. He offers two possible objections that might be raised to his claim. First, that drug use puts the user's family through "unnecessary suffering" and, second, that the society often has to pay for drug users' rehabilitation. But he does not offer any argument against these potential obje...

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Flaws in Drug Legalization Argument. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 20:02, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1693732.html