Drug Legalization Essay

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Drug Legalization

Since the prohibition of marijuana in 1965 there has been sparked a new heated controversy over the legalization and/or decriminalization of this and other banned substances. Many politicians and lawmakers as well as philosophers, doctors, students, etc. have weighed the facts and opinions and have come to a decision on which side of the fence to sit on.

The arguments either for or against the legalization of drugs seem to stem from two main focuses of thought. These two main ideas are that of consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism is defined as the position that an action is right if it has good consequences and wrong if it has bad consequences (Class Notes). On the other side, is deontology, the position that believes that actions are right or wrong in themselves, regardless of their consequence (Class Notes). An easy way to simplify these definitions is to think about how these two thoughts would apply to murder. A deontologist would believe that murder is wrong simply because it is the taking of another s life, that the intrinsic value of murder is bad so thus murder is bad . A consequentialist on the other hand would look deeper at the motive and consequence of the murder, then form an opinion from there. Looking past the intrinsic value of it, what if the one person that was murdered, was killed because he had a bomb that was going to kill 300 people? If believing in this channel of thought, one might conclude that this one sacrifice of life saved 300 others, thus the overall outcome is good, so the action was right.

Many classical as well as contemporary philosophers maintain opinions and ideals that can be classified as either consequentialist or deontological. Classical philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and John Milton, along with more modern writers like Milton Friedman and Ethan A. Nadelmann are all examples of consequentialist thinkers. On the deontological side of the coin reside such well-known purveyors of classical thought as Aristotle and Edmund Burke, along with contemporaries like William J. Bennett and James Q. Wilson.

The two main ideas of thought held by the two divisions of these gentlemen have a great deal to do with their positions on the legalization...

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