...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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...Cocaine Addiction Written by Melissa Warren for Psychology In this paper, I will explore what makes cocaine so addictive and why it is one of the most abused, and one of the most popular drugs in the world. Cocaine is one of the most addictive drugs on the street and is the second most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. To better understand the drug, we first need to define exactly what cocaine is. Cocaine: A colorless or white crystalline alkaloid extracted from coca leaves. Cocaine is sometimes used in medicine as a local anesthetic, especially for the eyes, nose, or throat. It is also widely used as an illicit drug for its euphoric and stimulating effects. Chemical formula: C 17 H 21 NO 4 (Dictionary.com) Crack cocaine is cocaine that has been processed from cocaine hydrochloride to a free base for smoking. Cocaine is the smokable form of cocaine. It gets its name from the crackling sound it makes when smoked. Of these two similar drugs, cocaine is the most addictive since it is administered into the body the quickest. The faster the drug is absorbed into the blood, is relative to the length of the high. Since the high from crack only lasts from 10-15 minutes, people get addicted much more easily.(1) When a person uses cocaine, they are changing the amounts of dopamine (a chemical related to pleasurable experiences) and in turn they disrupt the system which regulates this chemical. “With repeated use, cocaine can cause long-term changes in the brain’s...
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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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...been around since the beginning of time and people have been using them since they discovered them. Drug use began thousands if not a hundred thousand years ago as humans started exploring their environment. People would see a new plant or observe an animal’s behavior after consuming the plant, and out of curiosity, they would experiment with it or taste it. This is how some of the drugs we know today came about. Cocaine, opium, LSD, peyote, and marijuana all come from plants that primitive people discovered while tasting the environment around them. This paper will identify the past and current trends in the use and abuse of substances (drugs) in the United States. It will also discuss when it is viewed appropriate to use illicit drugs. Moreover, this paper will analyze the health and social problems in the United States that occur due to drug abuse and addiction. Trends American views on drugs have gone from one extreme to the opposite over a period of about 200 years. In the late 1700s through the 1800s, everyday Americans legally used substances like opium, cocaine, and marijuana for medicinal, spiritual, and recreational uses. At the beginning of the 1900s, the American view on drugs began its dramatic change. As of 1971, America is in an outright “war on drugs”. Past The late 1700s and early 1800s brought new drugs into American society. Advancements in the scientific and medical community lead to the discovery of “new” drugs. Anesthesia, antidepressants, and vaccinations...
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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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...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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...Hypothetical Working Agreement Paper BSHS/321 December 3, 2013 Hypothetical Working Agreement Paper Introduction Fredyia is addicted to crack cocaine and has had her two young children removed from her custody. Her goal is to get clean and get her children back into her custody. In order for her to achieve these goals she must have a working agreement with her clinician. Working agreements should always involve an assessment, the setting of goals, the negotiation of contracts, and the periodic evaluation of the client’s progress. Assessment Freydia B. DeHart 8427 42nd Dr Ne Everett, WA 98223 425-397-2346 Freydia is a 27-year-old white woman with two children, ages 7 and 9. Freydia has been using crack cocaine for the past 4 years and is currently unemployed. Her children have been removed from her care by Child Protective Services and are currently living with Freydia’s mother. Freydia is married but currently going through a rough divorce from her husband of 7 years. The divorce has been slowly building since Freydia began to use crack cocaine and her husband Johnathan became unfaithful. Freydia and Johnathan had used crack cocaine recreationally on several occasions before she became addicted but her husband was able to refrain from becoming addicted. Though Johnathan has guilt over beginning the use of the drug, he has lost his patience for her treatment and recovery. Johnathan does not have the children because he has yet to find separate housing from Freydia...
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...CHAPTER 2. A HISTORY OF DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE IN AMERICA Written by: Tammy L. Anderson To appear in: Harrison, L., Anderson, T., Martin, S., and Robbins, C. Drug and Alcohol Use in Social Context. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing -1- A HISTORY OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL IN THE UNITED STATES Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to review the history of drug 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...
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...English 1010 ADHD: Amphetamines Don’t Help Disorders There are more drug users in elementary schools today then every before. Most of 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...
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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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...Hypothetical Working Agreement Carolyn Morris BSHS/322 University of Phoenix October 10, 2011 Tristram Jones CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY: I certify that the attached paper, which was produced for the class identified above, is my original work and has not previously been submitted by me or by anyone else for any class. I further declare that I have cited all sources from which I used language, ideas and information, whether quoted verbatim or paraphrased, and that any and all assistance of any kind, which I received while producing this paper, has been acknowledged in the References section. This paper includes no trademarked material, logos, or images from the Internet, which I do not have written permission to include. I further agree that my name typed on the line below is intended to have, and shall have the same validity as my handwritten signature. Student's signature (name typed here is equivalent to a signature): Carolyn D. Morris Assessment Freydia is a twenty seven year old woman who came into the Urban Mental Health Faculty because of her crack cocaine use. This was court ordered as one of her conditions to get her children back. Freydia has seven year old boy and a nine year old girl. She was very resistant to counseling but in order to get her children back she needs to complete counseling session, six weeks of a parenting class and attend narcotics anonymous (NA) meetings. In meeting with Freydia we set up a formal working...
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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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...The War on Drugs was intended to reduce the use of criminal drugs. The United States government, with the assistance of other countries, have been wanting to reduce the use and trade of illegal drugs. This initiative includes strict laws and policies, such as prison time, this is meant to discourage the production, distribution and consumption of these targeted substances. In the following essay, it is important to make the distinction between street and prescribed drugs, their effects, and the punishment one may receive for having drugs. We can identify the cost our country has put into this extremely controversial campaign and whether or not is has been effective in accomplishing what our government has set out for. This can be compared to...
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...Addiction Requires Treatment Not Punishment Gloria Tooles English 112 Professor James Introduction The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world with a significant portion of those imprisoned are for drug-related crimes. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1987 and 1997, the number of drug violations increased 48.2 percent. Drug addiction is an uncontrollable illness that causes its victim to commit all types of crimes to supply the ongoing urge for drugs. In short, this paper will be an attempt to examine this illness and, at the same time, determine which is better for the individual: punishment or treatment. Opposing arguments are that all drug abusers should be locked-up and the key should be thrown away. The initial law enforcements for drugs, even if no other crime has been committed, has been mandatory prison sentences to cover first time offenders, and harsher sentencing for second and third timers. There is no evidence that enacting tougher penalties will deter the drug problem or decrease the number of crimes being committed. For this matter, despite the fact that society considers drug abuse to be a crime; drug addiction is an illness and not a crime. Drug abusers should be punished for committing a crime in a way to help them with treatment to avoid them from relapse and committing the same old crimes over and over again. Definition of Drug Abuse Drug addiction is a compulsive craving for some type...
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