Jonathan's comments

"In chapter 8 Hecht discusses the culture of drugs in modern America. I have dabbled in narcotics a few times over the past few years (nothing too extreme) and I can say from experience that there definitely are some positive effects about it. It has opened my eyes to whole new side of life and of the world and has opened my mind to a new sense of spirituality. On the flip side I look out at the world today, especially in the college and other such youth-oriented parts of society and see that drugs are being vastly over used and have clouded the minds of many people."

I personally have never tried drugs or alcoholic drinks (not a serious amount), but drugs in American and even in other countries tend to be heavily related to gang activity and violence. In my criminal justice classes we touched on this “Deadly Triad”. I suppose drugs themselves aren't a global issue when it's just a lone kid stuck in his attic smoking pot(individual use); and for those that get addicted it's their and their family's problem (albeit unfair perhaps). But drugs combined with gang activity and violence has become a heath academic for everyone, even those not involved in the three. That's when drug use becomes an issue for anyone's happiness. Gangs sell it to create revenue to buy weapons and kill off the competition, and innocents are killed in the process. Hence why some may call it a “War on Drugs”, and that's just in America, I heard things become far worse in other countries.

That being said there is no simple solution to this problem, but it is a serious issue and not just to the criminal justice world, but even politically. There is no policy that can be written to handle single users of drugs and people who sell it as a business. If there is a ban on drugs, it must be applied universally, and if it is allowed the same applies.