...Introduction On the topic of crack and cocaine and the mandatory minimums that come along with those drugs in term of jail sentences, our group had a lot to say about the issue. The purpose of this essay is to give my specific ideas and thoughts given the multitude of topics presented by the issue. I will give my expert opinion on the topic of mandatory minimums, some lessons learned about the topic, and some of the most valuable information towards legislation regarding this topic. With so much to say about the topic, I will start with my expert conclusion of the subject. Expert conclusion The policy that my group researched was the topic of Crack vs Cocaine in regard to the mandatory minimum sentences that come along with possession of...
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...Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin or crack' Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, according to an authoritative study published today which will reopen calls for the drugs classification system to be scrapped and a concerted campaign launched against drink. Led by the sacked government drugs adviser David Nutt with colleagues from the breakaway Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, the study says that if drugs were classified on the basis of the harm they do, alcohol would be class A, alongside heroin and crack cocaine. Today's paper, published by the respected Lancet medical journal, will be seen as a challenge to the government to take on the fraught issue of the relative harms of legal and illegal drugs, which proved politically damaging to Labour. Nutt was sacked last year by the home secretary at the time, Alan Johnson, for challenging ministers' refusal to take the advice of the official Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which he chaired. The committee wanted cannabis to remain a class C drug and for ecstasy to be downgraded from class A, arguing that these were less harmful than other drugs. Nutt claimed scientific evidence was overruled for political reasons. The new paper updates a study carried out by Nutt and others in 2007, which was also published by the Lancet and triggered debate for suggesting that legally available alcohol and tobacco were more dangerous...
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...The Outside Drug: Cocaine in the US Page Break Michael Moss once said, “Some of the largest companies are now using brain scans to study how we react neurologically to certain foods, especially to sugar. They've discovered that the brain lights up for sugar the same way it does for cocaine.” Cocaine is a common party drug for young adults and a severely addictive drug for offenders. America’s battle with substance abuse has yet to calm down, it is important for people to recognize the power of the correct treatment and the lack of the treatment in the American society. For years, people have searched for way to stop cocaine from getting into America meanwhile, they have yet to find out how to treat the ones who already use the drugs. It is important to understand the approvals and disapprovals that cocaine had throughout the decades of being in America....
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...Cory Blane Mr. Crisp Research Methods July 22, 2013 Is Marijuana a Gateway Drug? Abstract: Is marijuana a gateway drug? If so what leads to people doing it and other drugs? In this paper I hope to find out by showing and expressing the point of views of current marijuana users, along with those who are known to have to do or to have done stronger drugs such as crack, and cocaine. I plan to utilize the options of surveys and to redo or basically jump into an overt observational form of a focus group by joining in with smokers and talking with them about how they began and what other drugs they may have used. I will use some information from a literary review that talks about the science of how and why people go from one drug to another. I also plan to not only use personal information from my own experiences but also information from documentaries that have been done on the subject at a whole. Introductory paragraphs: There are several aspects to this theory which is what makes society so against marijuana. They naturally believe that it is a gateway drug, not because of any solid proof, but because of society and government have programed into people’s minds. I am sort of bias in this fact though mainly because I am an ex pot smoker and most of the people that I know smoke or do some type of drugs including marijuana either for medical or personal reasons. Early overview: I. Express the point of views of current marijuana users, along with those who are known...
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...Overview of Cocaine Jasmine Wright Research Paper Professor Suh It is a Friday night and your roommates at your dorm invite you to a dorm party. Instead of finishing your homework you decide to join them and put the homework off for tomorrow. You tell yourself that you wont be out so late and that you had a long week so why not. As you arrive to the party, there are girls kissing up on boys as they take shots. You tell yourself that you would not participate because your parents did not grow you up in that kind of manner. As the night passes, your roommates pressure you into taken a shot of tequila. Eventually, one shot turns into two and then three. Until, the shots are not enough. Your roommate turns to and says, “Try this”. She passes you a little “baggy” of a white powder substance. You ask, “What is it?” She replies, “ it’s coke, you’ll love it.” You take the rolled up bill from her hand and you try your first line of coke. At that moment, you fell in love and life was no longer the same. Cocaine became prevalent in 5,000 B.C. of the Inca Empire in Peru. It is derived from cocoa plants were they would chew the leaves and extract the cocoa from it. It effect can be increased by adding calcified lime to raise the alkalinity which improves the effect of cocaine. This would be of assistance to them when they had to travel great distances due it increasing their endurance and strength. Eventually, the demand for cocaine grew high in the field of medicine. A surgeon, Halsted...
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...Diversity Issues in Criminal Justice The diversity issue focused on in this paper will be racial disparity in sentencing. This paper will also focus on some of the reasons why racial disparity exists within sentencing. One of the research methods used in this paper will be case studies. In society today there are a diversity of citizens, of offenders, and leaders within in the court system. However, race still plays a big role in the Criminal Justice system especially during the sentencing portion. Although racial dynamics may have changed over time, race still exerts an undeniable presence in sentencing process. This ranges from disparate traffic stops due to racial profiling to imposition of the death penalty based on the race of victim and/or offender. (The Sentencing Project, 2005). Here in the United States, African Americans criminals are over represented compared to their number in the general population. According to (Calderon, 2006) “the idea of a racially discriminatory process violates the ideals of equal treatment under law as well as under the constitution that these laws were based on.” Racial discrimination within sentencing is often a complex process, along with other factors, as well as producing racially discriminatory outcomes in certain situations. Racial discrimination has been a big part of this country for a very long time and just because things have started to change it does not mean people’s perception have changed. However, people who are in...
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...Impact and Relationship of Substance Abuse and Child Maltreatment: Risk and Resiliency Factors What Research Tells Us Martha Morrison Dore, Ph.D. Columbia University School of Social Work 622 West 113th Street New York, New York 10027 212/854-5461 Paper prepared for presentation at the conference entitled “Protecting Children in Substance Abusing Families,” September 28, 1998, sponsored by the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, University of Minnesota School of Social Work, Minneapolis, MN. Researchers are just beginning to demonstrate empirically what child protective services workers have been observing for nearly two decades now: many, if not most, families who come to the attention of the child welfare system are involved with drugs or alcohol or both. Founded cases of child abuse and neglect have risen exponentially since the mid-1980s, when the crack form of cocaine, a cheap, easily used form of the drug, became widely available. Studies conducted since that time have identified substance abuse as a contributing factor in 40% to 80% of substantiated cases of child maltreatment (Curtis & McCullough, 1993; Magura & Laudet, 1996; Murphy, Jellinek, Quinn, Smith, Poitrast, & Goshko, 1991). Further, studies of substance abusing parents have found child-rearing beliefs and attitudes that heighten risk for child abuse (Williams-Peterson et al., 1994), as well as elevated rates of first-time reports to child protective services (Jaudes & Ekwo, 1995), re-reports...
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...National Institute on Drug Abuse about six million people over the age 12 have used cocaine at least once in the past year.” Our text book stated : “Cocaine is one of the most dangerous drugs available to teenagers and along with the amphetamines are powerful psychostimulant that markedly affect mental functioning and behavior. These drugs augment the action of several neurotransmitters, the most important is dopamine. “( text book) Cocaine is a purified extract from the leaves of the Erythroxylum coca bush. Different chemical processes produce the two main forms of cocaine: Powdered cocaine: commonly known on the street as “coke” or “blow” dissolves in water. Users can snort or inject powdered cocaine .Crack cocaine: commonly known on the street as “crack: or “ rock” is made by chemical process that leaves it in its “freebase” form, which can be smoked. One of the most risky effects of teenage cocaine use is that the body can develop a tolerance to the drug, and the user needs increasingly larger doses of the drug to achieve the same feeling. This can increase the chance of an overdose, as the user takes successively greater amounts of cocaine in an effort to get high. In certain cases, first time users of cocaine have suffered from sudden death, the possibility of which dramatically increases when alcohol is simultaneously consumed. The objective of this paper is to discuss the symptom of the abuse in teenagers, the degree that the substance...
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...Sociology 225 Research Paper Marijuana as a Gateway Drug The gateway theory is a hypothesis which states that the use of gateway drugs (alcohol, tobacco and marijuana) lead to the use of more illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), marijuana is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. “Schedule I drugs are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.” Marijuana is thus considered by the U.S. government to be more dangerous than cocaine and opium - both Schedule II drugs, and at the same time a gateway to these harder and more addictive drugs. The government’s position is not only paradoxical, but should be a reason for debate as to the credibility of the gateway theory. A detailed look is warranted because of the magnitude it has on affecting U.S. drug policy. According to the “Reassessing the marijuana gateway effect” article, there are three phenomena which represent the evidence for a marijuana gateway effect. The first is “the relative risk of hard drug initiation for adolescent marijuana users vs. non-users. In one U.S. study, the risk of drug progression for a marijuana user was 85 times that of a non-user” (Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse 1994). The figure makes apparent sense because as will be seen an individual...
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...these users are children around the ages of seven to fourteen. The drugs they use are highly addictive Amphetamines, similar to cocaine. The worst part is these drugs are prescribed to them for behavioral problems in school. The stimulants these children are taking are for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Because these children do not behave the way schools have described as “normal”, they are drugged with harmful synthetic stimulants. Behavior traits in children can be changed by a proper diet, adequate sleep, and positive activities at home. The principle causes of ADHD are unknown. The attempt to classify it as a disease has failed. There are four categories of disease in the medical world: infectious, contagious, traumatic, and systemic. Infectious and contagious diseases have to do with germs so we can rule those out as classifications. Traumatic indicates an outside force such as head trauma or nervous system trauma so that is also ruled out. Systemic diseases happen when the cells or chemicals of the body begin to malfunction such as cancer. This is not correct for ADHD either and so it is not a disease (Stein 23-24). Doctors turn to other causes and classifications of this disorder including genetics. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often appears to run in families, and research studies have suggested that there may be a genetic component to this disorder. Individuals diagnosed with ADHD may have close blood...
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...RESEARCH PAPER General Topic: America’s War On Drugs Research Paper Question: How is the elimination of Drug supplies going to affect the economies and social concerns involved in the trade? Research Thesis Statement: The total elimination of illegal drugs in circulation will decrease employment in the US and increase unemployment in Afghanistan and Colombia. ABSTRACT: The "War on Drugs" is a campaign undertaken by the Federal government of the US with the assistance of participating countries such as Co lombia and Afghanistan , intend ed to reduce illegal drug trade to curb supply and diminish demand for certain psychoactive substances deemed harmful by the government. This initiative includes a set of laws and policies that are intended to discourage the p roduction, distribution, and consumption of targeted substances. COST: The U.S. government estimates the cost of the War on Drugs by calculating the funds used in attempting to control the supply of illegal drugs, in paying government employees involved in waging the war on crack, and to satisfy rehabilitation costs. This total was estimated by the U.S. government's cost report on drug control to be roughly $12 billion in 2005. Additionally, in a separate report, the U.S. government reports that the cost of incarcerating drug law offenders was $30.1 billion — $9.1 billion for police protection, $4.5 billion for legal adjudication, and $11.0 billion for state and federal corrections...
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...Illegal Drugs Kara Easler COM/220 July 11, 2012 Barbara Plyler Illegal Drugs is something you hear in the news on a daily basis. You hear about how some should be legal and how they should not be legalized. They are either talking about Marijuana, Cocaine or the number of illegal drugs that are out there in the world. Illegal Drugs affect everybody from young kids to grown up adults. Sometimes we see it ruin families and lives of people we care for. This essay is going to go over why drugs should stay illegal and ways we can help people stay off the drugs. First of all let’s talk about some of the drugs and what they are about. The first drug that is going to be talk about is Marijuana. They are trying to legalize that in every state for medical use. There are people who don’t want to see that happen. They want people to realize the effects it has one people. Some of the effects it has on people are “within a few minutes after inhaling marijuana smoke, an individual's heart begins beating more rapidly, the bronchial passages relax and become enlarged, and blood vessels in the eyes expand, making the eyes look red. The heart rate, normally 70 to 80 beats per minute, may increase by 20 to 50 beats per minute or, in some cases, even double. This effect can be greater if other drugs are taken with marijuana.” (Why illegal drugs should stay illegal). Well that could cause a person to have heartache, which is not good. It also gives you a natural high that makes you hungry...
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...in prison and jail, or on probation and parole, than were slaves before the start of the Civil War. Statistics reported in 2006, by the U.S .Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics support this claim, which show that Blacks made up 41 percent of the nation’s 2 million prison and jail inmates, while Non-Hispanic whites made up 37 percent and Hispanics made up 19 percent. The disproportionate ratio of blacks to whites who are incarcerated is especially great in Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota – greater than 10-to-1 (USJB, 2006). Why this structural inequality towards African Americans is happening, why it matters, and suggestions to rectify this, are issues that are discussed in this paper. Why is this happening? Since 1970, the U.S. has experienced a large and rapid increase in the rate at which people, regardless of race, are housed in federal and state correctional facilities (Snyder, 2011). This rapid growth in the prison population has been attributed in a large part to the rate at which individuals are incarcerated for drug offenses, especially minorities (Snyder, 2011). Between1995 and 2003, the number of people in state and federal prisons incarcerated for drug offenses increased by 21 percent, from 280,182 to 337,872.3 (McVay, D., Schiraldi, V., & Ziedenberg, J, 2007). From1996 to 2002, the number of those in jail for drug offenses increased by approximately 47 percent, from111,545 to 164,372.4(McVay, D., Schiraldi...
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...beverages such as tea, coffee, and cola are drugs. However this paper focuses on drugs that are abused by teenagers. Surveys show that cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and inhalants are the most commonly used drugs among teenagers age thirteen through eighteen. One of the most startling findings from recent data is the degree to which to which teenagers are now involved in drug use. This drug abuse problem has gotten worse. Perhaps our society must hit “rock bottom” before changes can occur. According to the Michigan Institute for Social research, reported the results of their 1992 and 1993 national survey of nearly fifty thousand American high school students across the country ages thirteen through eighteen. Studies show that a gradual decrease in the use of most illicit drugs by younger people. The peak year for illicit drug use by high school seniors was in 1980. The 1992 and 1993 surveys reported an alarming shift, a modest but statistically significant increase in the use of several drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and inhalants. This survey attributes the increase in drug use to students’ perceived risk or danger in using a particular drug. In 1992, thirteen year-olds were less likely to see cocaine, crack and marijuana as dangerous. But in 1993, there was a significant increase in marijuana use by seventeen and eighteen year olds and a significant increase in marijuana use by thirteen year-old students. Cocaine use by seventeen and eighteen year olds declined in 1992...
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...DRUG TRAFFICKING 1. Marijuana and Cocaine Trafficking in the United States DRUG TRAFFICKING 2. This research paper is on Marijuana and Cocaine trafficking in the United States. It is a very interested topic to learn about. There are several people who’s in prison for drug trafficking. This research will define the problems with drug trafficking, it will also explain who it affects and how it affects them. Drug trafficking in the United States can go far and wind. “It is the commercial exchange of drugs and drug paraphernalia. This excludes any equipment used to manufacture illegal drugs or use them,” (Jessica Cook, ehow.com 2011). One of the largest problems that drug trafficking creates is the financial cost on society; for example in 2002 drug related cost society were estimated at $180.9 billion, which is divided between various cost like health care and productivity lose according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Cocaine and Marijuana both brings an increase in violence and criminal activities, even though the level of violence associated with Cocaine trafficking does not compare to the rampant violence of the 1980s when the crack epidemic was at its worst. Drug trafficking can also lead to death both directly and indirectly. In fact between 1991 and 2000, 33 of our officers were killed during drug related operations. In 1993-1997 the F.B.I. details that on an average...
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