John Tierney's Debunking The Drug War

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Throughout the country methamphetamine has been destroying homes and families like a wildfire. The alarming rate that methamphetamine is spreading is unjustly being ignored. In John Tierney’s article for the New York Times on August 9, 2005, “Debunking the Drug War,” he attempts to convince the reader that methamphetamine is not a serious problem. He claims that meth is not highly addictive, that it is not spreading at a rate to be considered an epidemic, that it has positive uses, and that the policies used to control meth are not working. John Tierney is incorrect in his assumptions that methamphetamine is not a serious problem that requires immediate attention. There are an unbelievable number of people that have already been hurt and something…show more content…
Children of users are affected just as much if not more than the users themselves. Meth completely takes control of peoples entire lives making them forget about everything that matters to them no matter what the importance of that thing is. I like to think of methamphetamine users as dead men walking. When on meth, a person is held captive. They have no sense of identity or responsibility, almost as if they have sold their soul. Sadly, methamphetamine has the power to take away a parents need to nurture their child. In David Crary’s article for the Seattle Times he says that from 2001 to the time of the article on March 28, 2005, law enforcement found 50,000 meth labs in America and 30 percent of those labs were found in homes with children living in them. Anyone that has ever witnessed a home where methamphetamine has been in use or been made knows just how much meth becomes not only an addiction but a lifestyle. Typical homes of meth users and cooks consist of high levels of domestic violence, sex and pornography; lots of junk food; weapons and booby traps from drug-induced paranoia; and the raw materials of meth production, stored in living-room sofas, kitchen cabinets and bedrooms. Typically when people think of a lab concerning chemicals they immediately think of a clean science lab with beakers and tubes but methamphetamine labs are on the opposite side of the spectrum. The Pierce County…show more content…
What started out as a west coast fad is now a rapidly growing epidemic. The east coast is just now getting a taste of what has been known to west coast families for years. Greater chemical regulations need to be set so that the ingredients are not obtainable in common household items such as fertilizers, lithium batteries and cold medicines. According to his biography on the New York Times website, Mr. Tierney has a long history of attending schools and working on the east coast, not giving him a chance to ever experience the effects of the meth epidemic from the other side of the country’s point of view. When it eventually reaches him, his family, and friends I believe that he will eat his words. In his article in the New York Times on August 9, 2005 John Tierney is incorrect in his assumptions that methamphetamine is not a serious problem that requires immediate attention. Something needs to be done now before one more child is endangered or user’s soul is
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