Drugs policyand the intellectuals by william j bennett Article

Drugs policyand the intellectuals by william j bennett - Article Example Bennett argues that taking the money making aspect out of the drug problem will not solve anything, that legalized marijuana would make school more difficult for students, and that intellectuals have a generalized distain for law enforcement in general. However, most of Bennett’s arguments are guilty of being oversimplified in the same way that he accuses contradictory arguments to be as well. Upon examination, his arguments do not really hold up to close scrutiny. Bennett argues that part of the idea behind legalizing drugs would be to remove the money making incentive that comes with them. He states that very few drug dealers actually make money, and that more often than not drug dealers need another source of income to supplement their income because their drug habits grow much too large. To an extent this is true. Drug dealers that are on the lower rungs of the system often have habits that they spend most of their money feeding. This is why they are and will remain on the lower rungs. However, the people who are in the higher levels of the drug dealing business are able to achieve that status because they know enough to stay off of drugs in the first place. Any drug dealer who is actually able to make money at dealing drugs does not do the drugs themselves. People that are higher up in the chain distribute drugs all the way down to the lower rungs, and if they money making incentive is taken away from the people who grow and produce the d rugs, then this will be a good deterrent for those people. If the people in the higher rungs don’t have the incentive, then they will not be distributing the drugs down to the lower rungs who disseminate the drugs to a larger area. As we can see, Bennett’s argument against removing the incentive was merely short-sighted and oversimplified. After this argument, Bennett states that legalizing drugs will lead to a highly increased level of drug usage among the general population. The argument that