Drug Abuse in America
(Approximately one page)
Looking at drug abuse in America, what are the most important predictive factors in drug abuse? Why does it matter and how does it inform American understanding of drug related issues in society? How does crack or methamphetamines impact the physiological, psychological, and social conditions of abusers? How would your response impact policy?
Drug abuse in the United States is rampant and the country has been involved in a War on Drugs for several generations. Today in the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 55% of federal prisoners and 21% of state-level prisoners are incarcerated on the basis of drug-related offenses which represents an incarcerated population greater than the population of Wyoming; the federal government is spending over twenty-two billion dollars alone on a so-called war that 76% of the population view as a failure (Head, Key Facts About the War on Drugs, N.d.). It can be said that the county's primary response to dealing with the problem of drugs and addiction has been to criminalize the problem.
However, there are many sociological factors that seem to perpetuate the drug trade with poverty leading the way amongst these factors; even more than the addictive properties of the drugs themselves. Carl Hart, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Columbia, writes "even at the peak [of] widespread use," he writes, "only 10-20% of crack cocaine users became addicted (Sullum, 2013)." The evidence surrounding...
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