Gore Vidal indicates that the United States can stop most drug addictions within a short time by creating awareness of the effects to the people taking them. Information containing warning on drug addiction and how it feels to be an addict should be made public. This will empower each citizen to know what they are getting into and the long-term side effects of these substances. As much as this will require a mountain of honesty, it will save the state crime scenes, loss of family members precious lives and jail terms; freedom.
Since everyone is not reasonably sane, forbidding people from what they like, want, or think, makes them want more of it. Everyone has a choice to make regarding being an addict or not as long as they have access to the publicly available information. Past prohibitions have caused persisting derision and thousands of deaths in the United States. At the time, the ban was in Washington from alcohol by a congressman who was under the illusion that drinking had a celestial mission. Thus, the lifting of the Mexican marijuana ban by the Feds resulted in increased deaths in New York.
Rosenthal views drug addiction as slavery and the idea for drug legalization is revolting because most of the victims of addiction are adolescents and children. Drug addiction is passed from one generation to another, destroying the social resources such as family values, traditions and family life available for the victims to better their lives. The argument that legalizing drugs would make them cheap is not satisfactory because the pushers would make more profit from their market by cutting prices, increasing potency and variety at any approved narcotic counters. Easy availability would cause damage that will last almost forever in the brains of Americans who are already drug slaves. It is challenging to reverse the damages caused by such cracks. Consequently, legalizing drugs would see brain damage among millions of Americans.
Legalizing drugs is a means of killing most of the citizens. Over the years, people have been educated on the effects of drugs. However, such insights have not stopped them from using or selling the substances. Generations have been lost in slums infested with violence, which has resulted in the deaths of talented youths who would have made future leaders of the states. The proponents of the legalization of drugs have not witnessed the direct effect of drugs, since the effects of substance addiction have not affected their homes. Americans are not responsible enough to moderate substance use, and the government is not bold enough to give honest information on them. Therefore legalizing drugs will do more harm than good to the American people.
From the views fronted by Rosenthal and Vidal, one can effortlessly believe that legalizing drugs needs honesty from the government and responsibility from the American citizens. For the legalization of substances to be fruitful to the citizen, they must be responsible for their actions, take drugs in moderation and make better choices when making their decisions. The country’s leadership should prosecute drug cartels to help reduce the spread of these substances. Moreover, the government should avail public information regarding all the positive and negative effects of each drug legalized within the nation’s borders. The information provided on the drugs should help people make their choices based on the impacts. Everyone must be responsible for their choices, which affect their generations and personal life. Without honesty and responsibility, legalization of drugs is just a means of killing most of the citizens.