...ITT-Tech The topic of legalizing marijuana has become a very hot topic here in the Unites States of America. With sixteen states having medical marijuana laws already in place and seventeen states with pending legalization legislation (http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002481); many communities are split on the issue due to misinformation and stigmas. Even though marijuana is stigmatized as a gateway drug that leads children to harder drugs, marijuana should be legalized for medicinal use because it is incredibly expensive to keep marijuana illegal and adults deserve freedom to use marijuana as medicine without having to deal with the criminal element or fear of being unjustly prosecuted. The gateway effect states that marijuana acts as a stepping stone, or a gateway, that leads people to harder drugs. They support their argument with statistics that show that most people who use hard drugs have tried marijuana before (http://www.mjlegal.org/gateway.html). What though is the gateway theory? Is it based on facts brought to light by years of scientific study? No, in fact the gateway theory does not explain anything at all. It is simply an observation that has been vague at best and dispersed by media outlets and the governing body. It is true that many people that use hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, or LSD did in fact use marijuana before they tried the harder drugs. The true reason for this is marijuana is much more accessible due to its popularity...
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...use and its social control in the United States so that students can gain an improved and thorough understanding of today’s problems and policies. Our approach to this matter is sociological, i.e., exploring how the interconnection between culture, social institutions, groups, and individuals function to create drug-related phenomena. A sociological approach integrates many kinds of social, cultural, political, and economic factors that manifest themselves in everyday life. While pharmacology helps us comprehend how specific drugs impact brain activity, sociology can inform us about the social roots of drugrelated behaviors which ultimately shape beliefs and behavior and motivate social policy. Therefore, a review of drug use in the U.S. and the social response to it must consider many diverse phenomena. This broader framework will move us beyond domestic borders and into the international community, for the history of drug abuse is an international, socio-political marvel. Another idea warrants mentioning before we begin our history lesson. It centers on the idea that drug use and abuse are socially constructed phenomena. In other words, the meaning attached to specific drugs and drug use patterns is determined by how people –especially powerful people-- interpret them in everyday life. Today controlled substances are constructed as extremely undesirable, even dangerous. However, history shows us that many of these same substances were once viewed favorably and had...
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...Marijuana is the most abused drug in the United States of America. People believe that by making marijuana legal it can reduce crime and costs of using law enforcement, but the reality is that making marijuana legal can affect many Americans. The cost will just be unbearable due to many addictions, overdose, and juveniles/adults committing delinquency acts because they are under the influence of drugs. Addiction will be the major cause of the United States spending money on overdosed people being admitted to the hospital. Many will not be able to afford visits to the hospital because of their addiction they have nothing left. Car accidents will be immense because being under the influence of any substance can and will impair driving. The cost of making marijuana legal would be ten times more than what the United States is spending on keeping it illegal. Drugs are stimulants that affect the body in many ways. There are many drugs that are legal and many that are illegal. Drugs are used in many ways doctors use it to help people. Then there’s abuse of drugs and addiction of getting drugs illegally to stimulate the body. Marijuana an illegal drug that stimulates the body. Has been the center of attention for a few years now because some Americans believe marijuana should be legal. They believe it can reduce crime and that it can save Americans money as well as making money by selling the illegal drug legally to Americans. Marijuana is the most commonly abused illegal...
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...Marijuana is one of the world’s oldest plants to come to wide practice of production, sale, and consumption originally used for medical purposes. This generated rapidly growing industries based around the variety of uses for the easily grown plant species. Hemp has been used for a variety of everyday purposes in Americas past including paper, clothing, food, and fuel; the economic potential for this plant type surpasses many plants which are considered staple crops today. Marijuana is America’s number one cash crop surpassing corn and other items. Its decriminalization would open new tax revenues and slash old tax budgets as funds are re appropriated to satisfy a hungry criminal justice system. There have been many non-violent convictions in the justice system that costs the country potentially hundreds of billions of dollars every year and have since the start of the war on drugs during the Reagan era. These convictions could be avoided if the government let each American decide if the production and consumption of marijuana violated their moral and ethical values as individual liberties. As Americans, we are given, at birth, unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the freedom to pursue happiness through whatever means beyond any clear and eminent harm. The combined benefits that would be experienced from legalization are obvious, evident, and too important to remain illegal; the decriminalization of marijuana is more a matter of time due to the variety and abundance of positive...
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...past decade there has been an increased controversial view of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. People have been divided on how to regulate these products in the market, causing much governmental controversy. There have been many groundbreaking and unprecedented court cases that have been shaping the public policy on which these substances stand on. These substances have an immediate and perilous effect on the health of all human beings. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, alcohol causes impaired judgment and in turn causes people to do things that affect their health physically and emotionally, and marijuana has almost the same effect as alcohol. (New England Law) Health is the ultimate concern when studying these three substances, which would lead to the Family Smoking Prevention Act to survive the Hudson Test. The Granholm case would lead one to believe that states cannot discriminate against outsiders from sales, and the medical exceptions for marijuana are valid on the fact that it has a medical advantage to some citizens. I strongly believe that the federal government has a right to regulate certain aspects of these substances based upon the danger posed to the health of citizens. This paper will discuss certain court cases that shape my opinion for every substance. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S 557 (1980) was an important case decided by the United States Supreme Court that...
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...Employers and Medical Marijuana: How Employers are Coping with Medical Marijuana Legislation Maxwell Schulbaum November 9, 2014 AMBA 600 Introduction Marijuana is perhaps the most widely known, yet misunderstood drugs in our society. While still illegal under the Federal Controlled Substance act signed in 197 classifying it as Schedule 1 narcotic along with cocaine and heroin (Chang, 2013). Despite this, there has been a remarkable shift of public opinion not only supporting the decriminalization of marijuana but even legally selling medical and recreational marijuana. Some supporters of the effort cite reasons such as a general racial bias; blacks and Hispanics are far more likely than whites to be arrested for a marijuana offense (White, 2012). Others believe that it if alcohol and tobacco are legal, than marijuana should be too. Perhaps the most important and widely cited reasons are purely medical. There are countless stories of patients who suffered adverse effects due to their prescription medicine, and have been pointed to medicinal marijuana at the suggestion of their doctors. Whatever the reason, it seems that momentum is shifting toward legalization, whether it’s for recreational marijuana or limited to medicinal. These rapid changes mean that employers in states where marijuana is legal will have to choose between accepting and adapting to the new laws or remaining drug free based on the fact that marijuana remains illegal to this day, according to the federal...
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...Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | [hide]This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. | This article lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. (December 2013) | This article is outdated. (December 2013) | This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2014) | | | Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs | Governments of opium-producing Parties are required to "purchase and take physical possession of such crops as soon as possible" after harvest to prevent diversion into the illicit market. | Signed | 30 March 1961 | Location | New York City | Effective | 8 August 1975 [1] | Condition | 40 ratifications | Parties | 185[1] | Depositary | Secretary-General of the United Nations | Languages | Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish | Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs at Wikisource | The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 is an international treaty to prohibit production and supply of specific (nominally narcotic) drugs and of drugs with similar effects except under licence for specific purposes, such as medical treatment and research. As noted below, its major effects included updating the Paris Convention of 13 July 1931 to include the vast number of synthetic opioids invented in the intervening thirty years and a mechanism for more easily including new ones. From 1931 to 1961, most of the families of synthetic...
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...smoking pot is so taboo in our society? After all, numerous famous intellectuals support marijuana. Al Gore is considered by many to be the leading figure in climate change awareness and environmental preservation. But few people know that Al Gore also supports the legalization of marijuana. The famed German philosopher Freidrich Nietzche once said, “If one seeks relief from unbearable pressure one is to eat hashish”. The founding father of our nation George Washington, said, “Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!” Marijuana is one of the safest medicinal substances on the planet and is supported by many acclaimed celebrity role models. Famous Hollywood actor Johnny Depp says, “I’m not a big pothead or anything like that… but weed is much, much less dangerous than alcohol”. Other well known supporters of marijuana include Snoop Dogg, all of the Marley family, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Michael Phelps, Chris Farley, Al Gore, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Nietzsche, Barack Obama, John Adams, James Madison, JFK, and of course myself. A total of 11 United States presidents either grew, smoked, or supported the legalization of Marijuana. With the support of some of the greatest thinkers and world leaders of all time it’s a wonder that marijuana is still illegal. “Government ties is really why the government lies” – Immortal Technique. Common Misconceptions about marijuana are set about by high end government officials who think only of themselves and own their...
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...In today's society, the prisons of America appear to cause more problems than assistance. The country penal system is expensive, overcrowded, and some argue that it is ineffective as well as inefficient. The cost to build, staff, and support these facilities increases dramatically each year. Prisons, which were created to be humane correctional facilities, are currently filled with violence, hostility, and a communal fear. These institutions are meant to control crime by deterrence, incapacitating criminals. This may protect society from potentially dangerous individuals, but these institutions' level of accomplishment is askew. The financial burden attached to the building, maintaining, and staffing of prisons constantly plagues the penal system. During the late 1960s, New York built prisons at a price of $2 million each. Since then, prices have risen dramatically. In 1990, each prisoner required $15,496 to support (“Bureau of Justice Statistics”). A prison containing 2,000 inmates amounts to over $31 million to operate on an annual basis. The United States spends an estimated $60 billion each year on corrections (Prisons in the United States). The operation price is synonymous with the level of security, ranging from the supermax, containing serial killers, to the minimum security, containing drug offenders. Violence is not confined to outside prison walls. In 2005 alone, federal and state prisons reported 885 incidents of sexual violence. Of the aforementioned...
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...Juan Hernandez Prof: Anna Krift Global Crisis in Response Feb 16 2014 Colombia´s conflict For many years Colombia has been characterized as a country of drugs and violence marked by internal conflict that lasts until today. This conflict has claimed the lives of about 2 million people, which the population of Colombia today is 47 million, within that internal war has killed 4,2% of the current population (NoticiasCaracol,1). It is a very high percentage with regards an internal war of 60 years. That's why Colombia has suffered from armed conflict for several years and it has negatively impacted the country's development. To understand the issue it is necessary to see the origins of this conflict and also how this has affected the country. The conflict dates back to 1946 when it began a civil and political conflict between supporters of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party for taking control of the State Power. But the outbreak was the assassination of the Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitán. Gaitán was the leader of poor agricultural producers and represented the interests, created jobs and economic opportunities for them to take advantage (Downing,1). But since the death of Gaitán, farmers lose their representation in politics and its future had been vanished. Because of the economic problems and tensions between liberals and conservatives, Colombia entered a period called "La Violencia " (The Violence) which lasted from 1948 to 1960 until they...
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...Anthropology Lecture 1 introduction Common Misconceptions with Drugs . The effect of a drug is caused solely by its pharmacological properties and effects. . Some drugs are instantly addictive . The gateway/ stepping stone theory - the use of 1 drug leads to the use of other more dangerous drugs What are drugs ? Krivanek's definition : Drugs are substances that are introduced into the body knowingly but not as food. Therefore illicit drugs, legal recreational drugs and legal but regulated pharmaceutical drugs that aren't recreational at all. - Whether if a drug is considered bad and is prohibited depends on the culture of the society in a particular period. What is culture ? The definition of culture = Through Roger keesing and Andrew Strathern's definition it is a system of shared ideas, rules and meanings that underlie and are expressed in the ways that human live. - This includes : law, beliefs, political economy, media and popular culture - this perceives ideas about what is normal and abnormal to society. " Culture is always changing and contested, not unified" Enthography as a method for studying drug use It is a process of observing, recoding and describing other peoples way of life through intimate participation the community being studied". - Participation observation, involving yourself in the life of the community , taking up the life of the other person, observing their actions, asking questions and learning what questions...
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...BECOME THE BEST YOU POSSIBLE: THE PURSUIT OF MEDICINE “The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind….” - Paracelsus By Dan Hong FCIQ Collins W04 Assignment due Tuesday 4/26/2016 The Pursuit of Medicine: Table of Contents Introduction to myself……………………………………………………..3 Career Profile………………………………………………………………..4 Anthropology ………………………………………………………………..7 Sociology………………………………………………………………………..13 Psychology…………………………………………………………………….16 Political Science…………………………………………………………….20 Economics……………………………………………………………………….26 History……………………………………………………………………………32 Philosophy………………………………………………………………………38 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..43 Bibliography/works cited…………………………………………………..45 The Start of a Journey: Introduction of myself If there’s a will, there’s a way. And if there is a way, Dan Hong has the will. Ever since I was born, I was curious about the world. I always said yes to trying new foods, taking mental and physical risks, and learning new skills when possible. I was born and raised in Queens, New York where I hustled on the daily; interacted with people of all kinds and developed a New Yorker mentality of “time is money” and acquired a taste for Italian, Korean, and Indian food. Then, I moved to the Great Neck bubble where I felt as if my development was being stagnated because of the lack of diversity and opportunities. But that didn’t stop me—I traveled to new...
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...Name: Rhode Jadotte Course: Minorities in the Criminal Justice System Professor: Dr. S. Williams The interviews excerpted here show that racially biased pretextual traffic stops have a strong and immediate impact on the individual African-American drivers involved. These stops are not the minor inconveniences they might seem to those who are not subjected to them. Rather, they are experiences that can wound the soul and cause psychological scar tissue to form. And the statistics show that these experiences are not simply disconnected anecdotes or exaggerated versions of personal experiences, but rather established and persistent patterns of law enforcement conduct. It may be that these stops do not spring from racism on the part of individual officers, or even from the official policies of the police departments for which they work. Nevertheless, the statistics leave little doubt that, whatever the source of this conduct by police, it has a disparate and degrading impact on blacks. But racial profiling is important not only because of the damage it does, but also because of the connections between stops of minority drivers and other, larger issues of criminal justice and race. Put another way, "driving while black" reflects, illustrates, and aggravates some of the most important problems we face today when we debate issues involving race, the police, the courts, punishment, crime control, criminal justice, and constitutional law. A. The Impact on the Innocent ...
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...BABY AND THE BATHWATER: THE PERILS OF HOLDING JUVENILES IN CONTEMPT RICHARD SEITZ UNIVERSITY OF BALTIMORE SCHOOL OF LAW FALL 2008 You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. - Franklin P. Jones THE CASE OF A.S. In December of 2007, A.S., a 17 year old female, was subpoenaed to testify as a state’s witness in a case against a man accused of assaulting another woman. When she failed to respond to the subpoena and did not appear at trial[1], St. Mary’s Circuit Court Judge C. Clarke Raley issued an order for her arrest. She was picked up by patrol officers on New Year’s Eve, and appeared before a different judge, who subsequently released her on her own recognizance. On January 9, 2008, Judge Raley issued another order, this time finding her in direct criminal contempt for her previous failure to appear as a witness, and summarily sentenced her to 30 days in the St. Mary’s County Detention Facility, the county’s general population prison for adult criminal offenders. A.S. was jailed in the detention center among the adult population; public defenders appealed to the judge on her behalf, claiming that her imprisonment was in violation of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act[2]. Judge Raley was not compelled by the argument, stating that she A.S. “was not best served by guidance, treatment or rehabilitation [in a juvenile facility], but by a brief exposure to the St. Mary’s County Detention...
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...judicial determination of probable cause is whether the arrestee was brought before a judicial officer: A. a. without unreasonable delay, under all the circumstances. B. b. within 36 hours of arrest, ordinarily. C. c. within 48 hours of arrest, ordinarily. D. d. within 24 hours of arrest, ordinarily. Answer Key: C Question 3 of 20 5.0 Points Although practices vary among jurisdictions, ordinarily an indigent accused is appointed an attorney: A. a. by the police at time of arrest. B. b. by a magistrate at the first appearance. C. c. by a judge at the preliminary hearing. D. d. by a judge at trial. Answer Key: B Question 4 of 20 5.0 Points According to the Supreme Court opinion in U.S. v. Salerno, involving the detention prior to trial of defendants due to the threat they posed to public safety: I. preventive detention is not punishment. II. detention prior to trial must be solely for the purpose of securing appearance at trial. III. when Congress has mandated detention on the basis of a compelling interest other than prevention of flight, the Eight Amendment...
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