Summary #4

Summary #4
According to Douglas Husak, in Legalization of Drugs, 2005, page 64-82, there are two more rationales to criminalize drugs other than health problem and children. (The book is written by Douglas Husak and Peter de Marneffe, but this chapter is written by Douglas Husak only.) The two rationales are crime and immorality. To evaluate the rationale of crime, Husak believes that “we must look more carefully at how and why the punishment of recreational drug users might reduce crime.” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 65) In other words, we should understand the connection between crime and drug. He states that there three types of crimes might be linked to drug use. The first type is systemic crime. He claims that “these crimes occur because the illicit drugs are bought and sold in black market.”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 66) As a result, it is hard to control and some other kinds of crimes might be caused like murder. Moreover, Husak believes that much of the crimes are associated with illicit drug is systemic and decriminalization would reduce the incidence of these systemic crimes. The second type is economic crime. Husak states that “drug use causes economic crime for a simple reason.”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 67) Because many illicit drugs are very expensive, then “this combination of strong demand and high price leads users to commit economic crimes to get money to buy drugs.” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page68) The last type of crime might be linked to drug use is psychopharmacological. According to William Bennett, in the article The Plea to Legalize Drugs Is a Siren Call to Surrender in Drugs in Society, 1991, page 338, the fact is that under the influence of drugs, normal people do not act normally, and abnormal people behave in chilling and horrible ways. Moreover, Husak indicates that “studies found that users of marijuana are underpresented among violent criminals when researchers are careful to control for other variables such as age.”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 70) However, Husak believes that “although criminalization can produce short-term benefits, it may cause an increase in crime in the long run.”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 70) In conclusion, Husak states that “no account of the drug-crime connection provides an acceptable justification for criminalizing drug use.” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 71)
Another rationale is immorality. Many people think that we should criminalize drug use because it is wrong, Husak discussed about this in this part. He states that this rationale contains two premises and a conclusion as an argument. The two premises are “the criminal law should punish people who behave immorally” and “illicit drug use for recreational purpose is immoral.”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 72) However, in his conclusion, he believes that we should reject both of them. He states that “those who punish drug users perpetrate a far greater immorality than those who merely use drugs.” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 82)



Critique
During my reading of this chapter, I was confused sometimes. I can’t find the author’s position on this argument. However, after I reading the whole chapter, I found the text is well-organized by the author to state his points. The author, Douglas Husak, is discussing the rationales for criminalize the drugs in this chapters. However, in fact, he is in favor of drug legalization. He lists the rationales out, it looks like he’s going to support them; and that’s why I was confused. However, he analyses them one by one, give the opposite points to persuade the readers by changing their traditional thinking about the four rationales. I think he did really a good job, at least some of my minds have changed after reading this chapter.
For example, for the rationale of immorality, I have the exactly the same point that drug should be criminalize because it is wrong. But after reading his analyze, my mind is not so sure now. But I don’t know if it’s good if we legalize drugs. I think it may be still dangerous even we legalize drugs. What I disagree with Husak is that I believe crime and drug has a strong connection.

Critique of Summary #3

(Sorry, I didn't post this with the summary together.)
First of all, I totally agree with the first rationale which is criminalize drugs for health problem. I think this is the most common heard reason for those who disagree with the legalization of drugs; and in my opinion, not only for the drugs using for recreational purpose, but also for any other purposes. Moreover, authors mentioned also that we should pay attention to some mild drugs too. There is one thing that shocked me, which is alcohol is a kind of drug. I never realized that it is a same substance with marijuana. I think what the authors said is useful and important, a drug, no matter is it light or heavy, would bring user physical or psychological problem more or less. That’s the reason why we say “cherish life, far away drugs”.
For the second rationale is also very important, government should try their best to prevent teenagers from drugs. However, it is true that “leakage” would happen. For example, the youth under 18 smokes, I think this happened a lot, although the authors focused on the illicit drugs use.
The most important point they stated is that we can help children prevent drugs by punishing adults as well as teenagers, I guess this method maybe useful, but could not completely stop teenagers from using illicit drugs. It is a big problem and hard to solve it perfectly.

Summary #3

According to Douglas Husak and Peter de Marneffe, in The Legalization of Drugs, page 41- 64, there are four rationales to criminalize drugs , especially use in recreational purposes; and he talked about two of them during the pages. The first rationale is health problem. In his opinion, we should begin evaluate this possible rationales with two points. The first point is that “we should concede that drugs are often bad for the health of those who use them” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 42). He stated that use drug recreational purpose would bring the users both physical and psychological risks. Another point is that “this objective provides an exceptionally strange rationale for drug prohibition” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 42). The objective means the function of the government protecting our physical and mental health. After the two points, in this rationale still have something beyond them which is how criminalization could possibly succeed in improving health. There are also two points, which are “punishment might deter current drug users from persisting in their unhealthy behavior” and “the threat of punishment might deter those who do not use drugs from beginning” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 43). The last thing he mentioned is that the health problems which caused by drugs “not only including death, but also various diseases and illness that lowered the quality of life” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 49). Therefore, we should also pay attention to some mild drugs like marijuana, alcohol and cigarette.
The second rationale is children. He stated that the drug war is fighting for youth. He believed that “the youths are not well protected from illicit drugs at present” (Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page 53); and he think this is the worst of the four reasons to criminalize drugs. Firstly, he talked about the connection between the punishment of adults and the protection of juveniles. He states that “whenever we allow adults to do something and prohibit for adolescents, we can anticipate what might be called leakage”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page53). Moreover, he believes that the best way to avoid this leakage is to punish adults as well as children for using illicit drugs. Not only the parents, but also everyone should help prevent teenagers away from the illicit drugs. Then he argued the four reasons that reject this rationale for criminalization. In conclusion, he stated that “this rational of criminalization treats adults as children”(Husak and Marneffe, 2005, page64)