Analysis of Stop the violence: The Case against Pot Prohibition Article by Wood and Bratzer - Essay Example

The article “Stop the violence: The case against pot prohibition” written by Evan Wood and David Bratzer, has an important message appealing to the public and the policy makers for the legalization of marijuana distribution and usage. However, the authors fail to substantially support with major information on the very critical point of their stand against the government’s prohibition of marijuana. Prior to the discussion of major drawbacks in their arguments, it is important to find out the authors’ legal stand on marijuana prohibition and usage. The authors are looking forward to the best possible outcomes of regulation and taxation of marijuana; in short, they talk about issues on legalization. Marijuana has become illegal because the government together with its law prohibits it in the first place. The authors define marijuana to be legal when it is already regulated by the government and so potential tax must be obtained out from it. The authors look forward to this as for the sole purpose of funding the government’s drug and law enforcement activities with the collected tax. Furthermore, they assume that this will potentially decrease marijuana’s level of consumption, as its price will surge up high as an upshot of taxation activity. Furthermore, the authors define the legalization of marijuana by supplementing it with the assumption or circumstance that is associated with its prohibition. The authors simply are trying to point out the assumption that legalizing marijuana will remarkably address gang crimes and violence that are associated with its distribution and usage. This would require substantial proofs in the first place which the authors unfortunately fail to elaborately discuss in their argument. Conversely, one of the probable strengths of the authors’ argument is its being positive about the subject matter especially on the cost and crime control. In fact, the entire argument is substantially focused on the cost and crime control. Furthermore, the authors talk about the practicality in dealing with marijuana usage and distribution concerns. They bring out the entire issue to be highly associated with the prevailing crimes that relate with marijuana usage and distribution. The authors are making the best of this opportunity to convince the public and policy makers with their stand by integrating into their arguments some important knowledge that comes from their areas of expertise. By profession, the authors are internal medicine specialist and police officer. It is therefore evident in their point of views that they are able to mention the cost of hospitalization and crime control, and offer potential solution in this concern. Despite their ability to provide a remarkable point that will support their stand on their attempt to legalize the distribution and usage of marijuana, there are still noteworthy weaknesses in their arguments. The authors are able to discuss gang violence in general that is in line with an argument using faulty cause and effect and unfair use of information. It is true that marijuana distribution and usage cause gang violence, which the authors are able to establish. However, it does not mean that the whole thing about gang violence is caused by marijuana distribution and usage. The authors fail to emphasize the actual percentage of gang violence contributed by not legalizing marijuana, which could have actually strengthened the entire point of their argument. Instead, they substantially talk about the general discomforts, additional expenses and the likelihood of tedious works of police officers for crime prevention and culprit identification – all of which the authors pointed out to be associated with the prohibition of marijuana. This is entirely an appealing argument but they still fail to provide fair information on the subject matter. Their point may be clearer at some point, but they are convincing their readers with a faulty cause and effect argument and insignificant reasoning due to unfair use of information. They are like simply saying that marijuana prohibition causes gang-related violence, which they substantially try to use to convince their readers. However, they still fail to provide remarkable data of crimes committed that will associate gang violence and marijuana prohibition, which would help the authority decide to go for legalization act. These data may potentially support their stand, but they fail to establish that point. Instead, the authors try to convince the policy makers with their point of providing tax for marijuana as potential source of fund for drug and law enforcement. They suggest this would help decrease marijuana consumption as they assume that this would similarly result to the same case of tobacco regulation program of the government. Therefore, providing higher tax for marijuana is most likely the probable point of the authors that they assume will decrease in its usage or market demand. However, the authors overlook the fact that smuggling for instance may potentially exist at this point as business persons continue to aim to maximize their profit. This would just add up to the government’s responsibility and it would be another story. Therefore, the inclusion of tax in the subject of legalizing marijuana is quite a narrow perspective. Although it tries to give beneficial advantages on the government, it does not take into account the other probable impacts of it on the people or users. Thus, in great detail, the authors’ emotional appeal and appeal of authority are not strong enough to establish their point. Furthermore, the evidences that the authors use in their argument is in a selective way. For instance, the authors mainly focus on specific perspectives and these include cost and crime control. In cost control, the authors focus on hospitalization costs and even other costs that would be incurred from the aftermath of riots and other gang-related violence associated with not legalizing marijuana distribution and usage. The authors do not specify the percentage of this incident and the likelihood of its potential impact on the other part of the entire population. This makes the whole argument selective only on particular case, which could not point out further the significance of the authors’ entire proposition or argument. There are many substantial points that the authors should consider in their arguments in order to make their stand more convincing. They could have improved them further by providing detailed information through inclusion of more data and even setting their argument at a whole wide perspective. In this way, they could have gained substantial support on the issue as they should be discussing essential points associated with their arguments. In doing this, they will establish the fact that they covered important details in order to achieve more convincing tone of argument on the issue. Read More