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.