Drugs Should Never be Legalized Drugs are Responsilbe...

Everyone agrees that something must be done about the tremendous physical and emotional health problems that drug abuse causes. Concern about the abuse of drugs is so widespread that recent polls indicate it to be one of the most serious problems in todays world, threatening the security and freedom of whole nations. Politicians, health experts and much of the general public feel that no issue is more important than drug abuse. Americas other pressing social problems- disease, poverty, child abuse and neglect, and corruption- often have a common element, that is drug abuse. The use of illegal drugs such as cocaine, crack, heroin and marijuana cause extensive harm to the body and brain. Yet, even after knowing this many†¦show more content†¦Heroin is another illegal drug that causes great harm and can be life-taking too. When heroin is used it reaches the brain via the bloodstream and is transformed into the depressant morphine. Heroin produces feelings of euphoria, mental co nfusion and drowsiness. In addiction to many other effects on the body, it depresses respiratory function (168). Thousands of heroin addicts die from overdoses each year. Heroin users are also at great risk of getting AIDS from the used of unclean needles. An estimated 60 percent of heroin addicts in New York City carry the virus, and needle sharing among addicts represents a major potential route for the spreading of the AIDS virus. According to a National Research Council report in 1989, nearly 70 percent of the heterosexual adults infected with the AIDS virus got the virus through an intravenous connection. The U.S. Public Health service predicted about a threefold increase in the cumulative total of reported cases of AIDS among addicts between 1989 and 1991. When marijuana is smoked, about two thousand separate chemicals are produced, and many of the chemicals do not readily pass through the body. Some are stored in fatty tissues of the brain, lungs, and reproductive organs, where they remain for a long time. In a book titled, Drug Policy and Intellectuals, Stephen Thomas points out that one of the areas of great concern about the