Szasz vs. Goodin on legalization of drugs.

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Szasz vs. Goodin on legalization of drugs

   

      Should drugs be legalized? Drugs have been one of the major problems in our society for many years. The policy of the American government at present is against the legalization of drugs. However, this policy is costly, and it seems like an endless war. As time goes on, people start to examine some moral theories to explain what has happened and to predict what will happen if drugs are legalized. However, people have different opinions on the same question as usual.  

       Two authors, Thomas Szasz and Robert E. Goodin, put forward their suggestions that oppose each other. Szasz in his article, The Ethics of Addiction, proposed the legalization of drugs. He argued that using drugs is a personal matter. As long as this person does not harm other people, a government should not use its power to interfere. Goodin raised an objection that using drugs is a matter of personal choice, but ends up as a disease. Goodin doubted how much people recognize the addictive nature of tobacco and really accept the consequence. In addition, Goodin analyzed the costs of smoking and found that thus were astronomical. He suggested several ways in which we should handle the problems of smoking.

       Let us go a step further to examine the divergence of views of two arthors.

      First, Szasz and Goodin have different views on what drug addiction is. Szasz thought that the term “addiction” is moral judgment. In his article, Szasz stated, “the regular administration of morphine by a physician to a patient dying of cancer is the paradigm of the proper use of a narcotic; whereas even its occasional self-administration by a physically healthy person for the purpose of ‘pharmacological pleasure’ is the paradigm of drug abuse”(381). The same drug, but in a different context or intention causes people to judge drugs differently. Why? He concluded that our moral judgment actually played an important role. He said that using drugs is just a personal life style. But the society imposed the concept of “drug abuse” on drug using. If we just treat drug abuse as a disease, then the society would deal with it in a different way.  Goodin may respond to the argument in this way:  a knife can be used as a cooking utensil or as a killing weapon. We do judge things depending on their context and intention. Moreover, if the drugs are addictive, which means when people wish to extricate themselves from these drugs, they cannot. That results in addiction--- “the absence of feel will”(392); then a government has to take some measures to prevent what would happen.

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      Second, Szasz and Goodin have different views on the risks that using drugs brings and what the governments should carry out in the matter of the drugs. Goodin doubted that if drug users voluntarily accept the risks, and how much they know about drugs at the beginning? Szasz thought that these risks are that  “physicians fear the loss of their privileges: laymen, the loss of their protection”(387). He cited some examples that people spent years on drugs without being addicted. He argued that so-called “addicted” people mean that people are just habituated. It is a learning process. ...

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