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Chapter 16 discusses different types of drugs and even points out that there are drugs that are legal (caffeine, tobacco) that are still addictive and have negative side effects.  Based on what you’ve read, and your experience, why do you feel some drugs are legal while others are illegal?  Do you think alcohol for example should be illegal?  Should other drugs that have proven medicinal purposes be legalized?  Why or why not? Use material from the textbook, media and/or personal experience to support your response.  Note that this forum is worth 20 points.  I would expect your in-depth and detailed response to be at least 500 words or more.

Respond to another student’s post

response to this:

I think that caffeine and tobacco are still legal because they do not have any affects such as seeing things or the feeling of superhuman strength.  Yes they do have bad side effects and many of them are only done to the person that is using that product with the exception of tobacco smoke. I as a parent try to limit my kids to caffeine and tobacco smoke to make sure that their health is not in danger.  I feel like these drugs are still legal because they do not produce the same side effects as the illegal ones.  A person cannot get a soda and get a “high” from it.  The first time you smoke a cigarette you do get a feeling of a high but it does not last long and the second one that you smoke the feeling goes away.  With alcohol the “high” feeling that a person would get when they are drunk does not go away as fast.  Since it does take time to sober up a person can get violent while they are drinking.  According to the textbook people who drink are the most violent people that uses drugs.  Most of the other illegal drugs makes a person more sedentary and less prone to violence.  With this fact I would think that it might be a wise thing to make alcohol illegal as well, but we know that will not work.  When people are told that they cannot have something then that is when they want it the most.  As far as the drugs that have proven medical use I think that they should be legal if the medicinal part of the drug can be removed from the drug and that can be prescribed.  I do not think that drugs such as PCP should be legal in the current form.  At one point most of the now illegal drugs were legal for some medicinal use.  They were abandoned from this use because they were too dangerous for the doctors to use safely.  The proof of this is with the PCP that was used in veterinary medicine.  Then Ketamine came along to replace it.  Most of the Ketamine according to the book that is on the streets was made for use in the veterinary clinics.  This just proves that if something is legal for medicinal purposes it can also be abused on the streets.  Just because something has a good property does not mean that it would not be abused as well.  I think that things should stay as they are not in regards to what is legal and what is not.  To the people that are looking for a high would not care if it is legal or not.  I think that changing the laws right now would do nothing but put a drain on the legal system since everyone would have to learn new laws in regards to drugs and if something is legal or not is really not the problem.  The problem is what to do for the people that are using the drugs and how to get them off of them.

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