Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal, whom some critics have called America's finest living essayist, believes that it is possible to stop drug addiction in the United States in a very short time (Vidal 382). The way to do this is to make all drugs available and sell them at cost. Each drug would be labeled with a precise description of what effect--good or bad--the drug will have on the user. This must be done with total honesty. For example, according to Vidal, it should not be stated that marijuana is addictive or dangerous, because most people know it is not. However, drugs like heroin and "speed" are dangerous and addictive and should be labeled as such (Vidal 382).

While Vidal has tried every illicit drug and liked none of them, disproving the popular theory that "a single whiff of opium will enslave the mind," he believes many drugs are bad for certain people to take and they should be told why in a sensible way (Vidal 383). According to Vidal, if reasonably sane people are warned about the bad effects of some drugs, most will choose not to become drug addicts.

Of course, some people will choose to become drug addicts, just as some people will choose to become alcoholics. Gore Vidal answers this argument by stating that the Bill of Rights gives a person the right to do what he wants with his life--as long as he does not interfere with his neighbors' pursuit of happiness. Vidal takes this to mean that people have the power and the legal right to kill themselves--by taking dangerous d

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ister at the Foundry United Methodist Church where Hillary Clinton attends, said such a step might make a safer environment for everyone. According to Shropshire, if doctors could write prescriptions for narcotics, addicts could obtain their drugs cheaply and without having to resort to criminal behavior ("Elder's View" 15). Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Columbia's Nobel Prize-winning novelist, has also called for the controlled worldwide legalization of drugs. Marquez asserts that prohibition has made the drug trade more attractive and profitable and that the United States and other countries should focus on ways in which legalization can be administered (Marquez D15). Others have also stated that the use of illicit drugs is creating a generation of hopelessly addicted and crime-driven young people in the inner cities of the world. In a vicious cycle of addiction and crime, a frightening increase in robbery and murder are tied together by a craving for drugs, a need to steal to buy them, and the violent defense of trading territory for pushers ("Decriminalizing Drugs?" 598). One possibility, tested somewhat in the Netherlands, is that if drugs were legal, crime would be reduced because the cost of buying them would decrease. The

Category: People - G