Hi, guys just wrote out an argument on why weed should be legal what you think ??:)
[B]Dutch “weed pass” law to be scrapped.[/B]
As of yesterday the Dutch government decided to scrap the planned “weed pass” law which was going to be designed to keep foreigners out of cannabis-selling coffee shops. If this law had went ahead, it would have meant that only Dutch nationals would have been aloud smoke cannabis, as it stands at this current time, weed is legal in Amsterdam.
I think the reasons are quite clear why the Dutch government has scrapped the proposed law, the tourism culture in Amsterdam is booming from letting tourists visit its world famous cafes, where cannabis, marijuana and pre-rolled joints are sold alongside cups of coffee. Through research, it also seems that another reason why they have scrapped this law is the social problem in the south of the country that had begun to rise since the law was proposed.
This brings the question then should weed be legalized everywhere, this has been a heated argument for years and in my opinion I think that it should be legalized everywhere, in fact why has it not been done so yet, Colorado and Washington came to their senses, it won’t be long till the rest of America follow suit and then Ireland will copy Americas actions.
The ramifications of legalizing weed are all positive if you think about it, if our country legalized weed, the government could tax it, helping the country out of recession. We would see a drop in crime, no more reading in the paper of massive drug hauls of cannabis or finding grow houses in Cork, Dublin Limerick etc. Drug dealers in your town would begin to disappear as people would no longer need there fix of cannabis from their local dealer but instead could purchase from their local shop.
Its baffling to think that weed is not legal whilst alcohol is. It has been proven that alcohol is a lot more harmful to you than weed, you can get alcohol poisoning through overdose but you can never overdose off of smoking weed. There have never been any known deaths of THC overdose but there have been many recorded deaths of Alcohol poisoning. Weed also helps terminally ill cancer patients. If you weighed up the pros and cons of weed the statistic you would get will always be in favor of marijuana.
The question then why is cannabis illegal? Marijuana alone has never killed a single person. Tobacco and alcohol makes a lot of money and they won't make it illegal. Some of our government doesn't care about our health; instead they care about making money. The government is somewhat 'brainwashing' people to believe it’s such an evil drug. It’s funny how they ban weed but they don't ban cigarettes as they are just as dangerous, if not more. The government has used propaganda to create this illusion of how bad Marijuana is and what the effects can do to you.
At the end of the day everyone makes up their own mind about cannabis and if it should be legal and that’s fair, but what people need to realize if a referendum comes to be about voting in favour of legalising weed, people should sit down and educate themselves before voting. It is then that we should realize how we should be voting for other drugs that are actually harmful to be taken off the market completely
If I was my freshman year English professor I'd probably give you a D. You don't have any sources to back up all these claims and it seems to me that you like to use commas a lot (add some periods and make sentences).
The argument itself just okay. I mean, it's a weed paper.. You know how many weed papers that she probably reads. I bet they are all the same.
"weed is awesome and it should be legal"
You say that weed is "NOT HARMFUL." Well for one you need to back up these rediculous claims that weed is not harmful at all whatsoever. (Not true) lots of people would argue that weed makes you lazy, less motivated, etc.
What kind of paper is this supposed to be?
Wait a minute, is this the whole assignment?
anyways I agree with brianosaur, you definitely need some sources!
[editline]22nd November 2012[/editline]
"When researchers studied 20 years of data from more than 5,000 adults, they predictably found significant lung damage in the tobacco smokers: the more they smoked, the worse their air flow rate and lung volume became. But those who smoked up to one joint a day aced a lung function test: air flow rate actually slightly increased in the marijuana users, up to a certain level."
[url]http://news.discovery.com/human/marijuana-smoke-healthy-011112.html[/url]
Tons of information out there.
[QUOTE=SaronAmith;38550468]Hi, guys just wrote out an argument on why weed should be legal what you think ??:)
[B]Dutch “weed pass” law to be scrapped.[/B]
As of yesterday the Dutch government decided to scrap the planned “weed pass” law which was going to be designed to keep foreigners out of cannabis-selling coffee shops. If this law had went ahead, it would have meant that only Dutch nationals would have been aloud smoke cannabis, as it stands at this current time, weed is legal in Amsterdam. [B]Where is your thesis? Your intro paragraph should have an opening statement, a preview of what examples you are going to use to support your thesis, and the final sentence being your position on the topic. [/B]
[B]I think (never use "i think/believe/want" you are the writer and the paper is you talking, we know its you, plus it sounds stronger when you just state your stance)[/B] [B]the reasons are quite clear why the Dutch government has scrapped the proposed law,(scrap that long ass transition)[/B] the tourism culture in Amsterdam is booming from letting tourists visit its world famous cafes, where [B]cannabis, marijuana (too similar, come up with something better)[/B] and pre-rolled joints are sold alongside cups of coffee. Through research, it also seems that another reason why they have scrapped this law is the social problem in the south of the country that had begun to rise since the law was proposed. [B]Where is the research you speak of? You need to incorporate a source and analyze it's statement ie 'So and so supports my argument when they claimed, "bla bla blah" (source 2012). This is an example of how my statement/opinion is correct/accepted...' whatever you make of the source[/B]
This brings the question then should weed be legalized everywhere, this has been a heated argument for years and in my opinion I think that it should be legalized everywhere, in fact why has it not been done so yet, Colorado and Washington came to their senses, it won’t be long till the rest of America follow suit and then Ireland will copy Americas actions. [B]what the fuck did i just read? A whole paragraph with one sentence, fix that. Also, dont start with a question as your topic sentence, thats just weak writing.[/B]
The ramifications of legalizing weed are all positive if you think about it, if our country legalized weed, the government could tax it, helping the country out of recession. We would see a drop in crime, no more reading in the paper of massive drug hauls of cannabis or finding grow houses in Cork, Dublin Limerick etc. Drug dealers in your town would begin to disappear as people would no longer need there fix of cannabis from their local dealer but instead could purchase from their local shop.
Its baffling to think that weed is not legal whilst alcohol is. It has been proven that alcohol is a lot more harmful to you than weed, you can get alcohol poisoning through overdose but you can never overdose off of smoking weed. There have never been any known deaths of THC overdose but there have been many recorded deaths of Alcohol poisoning. Weed also helps terminally ill cancer patients. If you weighed up the pros and cons of weed the statistic you would get will always be in favor of marijuana.
The question then why is cannabis illegal? Marijuana alone has never killed a single person. Tobacco and alcohol makes a lot of money and they won't make it illegal. Some of our government doesn't care about our health; instead they care about making money. The government is somewhat 'brainwashing' people to believe it’s such an evil drug. It’s funny how they ban weed but they don't ban cigarettes as they are just as dangerous, if not more. The government has used propaganda to create this illusion of how bad Marijuana is and what the effects can do to you.
At the end of the day everyone makes up their own mind about cannabis and if it should be legal and that’s fair, but what people need to realize if a referendum comes to be about voting in favour of legalising weed, people should sit down and educate themselves before voting. It is then that we should realize how we should be voting for other drugs that are actually harmful to be taken off the market completely[/QUOTE]
im just going to stop there because im busy, but you get the point.
Is this supposed to be an essay.... ?
If this is supposed to be an essay you definitely need to read up not only on your essay structure, but also on your basic sentence structure. A respectable essay for college should be a minimum of 1000 words, you have only 558. A wise man once told me:
[quote]How to make an essay:
1- Say what you are going to say (Introduction)
2- Say it (Body 2-3 paragraphs)
3- Say what you said (conclusion)
[/quote]
A few more tips I have:
- Get a nice bold introduction to your writing, the first sentence should be able to grasp almost any readers attention, as it is now it would seem that people who are prone to being anti-drug would stop reading at about halfway.
-Your last paragraph should be comparable in size to your first one
-As "Cpn Crunch21" stated, get some sources, make this more hearty.
All in all your piece of writing seems more like rant about legalization than an expository essay on the "Dutch weed pass law". You start out clearly about Netherlands, and then you veer off to your own opinions about marijuana.
Don't get me wrong, I support what you are saying in it, just please review your essay and sentence structure.
yeah you're in college and you don't even know how to write an essay?
i dropped out of high school and i knew how to write an essay since like 7th grade. granted i have GED but still.
honestly i'd scrap it. the whole weed argument is so overplayed and overdone just for your fuckin professor's sake write about something else.
essays like these have been flooding college english and debate departments for nearly 4 decades now. give it a rest.
[editline]22nd November 2012[/editline]
i don't mean to be a dick that's just my opinion on this entire matter.
as for actual feedback you can't use the whole "well this is this so this should be that" argument like every other point. as others have said beef up your essay and research.
honestly i don't wanna fuckin write your essay for you but i will say you should research basically everything there is on marijuana.
essays shouldn't start with the pen, they should start with the book, even if you're going to start writing your essay, or at least start forming it, 5 minutes into research.
AND CITE YOUR SHIT
Here's an essay I recently wrote for my tenth grade English class. I got full points for it, though sadly I didn't change my close-minded teacher's opinion.
Reefer, ganja, grass, pot, and weed. Those are just a few of the nicknames given to the most popular illicit substance in the world, marijuana. A substance that has been put down time and time again. Hated by many and loved by so many more, everyone's opinions range when it comes to cannabis. The most common consensus, of course, is that marijuana will cause brain damage, but I've heard many outlandish stories from, “Smoking marijuana will make you join the Hell's Angels,” to, “Pot leads to harder stuff, man.”
But is that really true? Does marijuana cause brain damage? Will it make you a horrid beast that shoots up Heroin every Sunday?
Of course it's not true. In fact, one can almost (and I emphasize that as much as possible) say that marijuana is harmless. Don't believe me? I'm not surprised. But now that you've heard my claims, let us delve into the evidence. This essay will not include any statistics, because as any level headed person can tell you statistics are almost always inaccurate for one reason or another. There will be only scientific and historical evidence presented here.
Starting off, let's try to understand what marijuana actually is. Marijuana is a slang term, one so popular it's considered even by some researchers to be a proper term, for Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica plants. The two plants contain a psychoactive compound called tetrahydrocannabinol (C21H30O2), commonly referred to as THC. THC belongs to a group of chemical compounds called cannabinoids. There are two naturally occurring types of cannabinoids: endocannabinoids, which are produced in body by humans and many other animals, and phytocannabinoids which are found in plants like Cannabis.
Now that we understand what THC is, let's learn how it works on the human body. Our bodies, and the bodies of most mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish, contain what are called cannabinoid receptors which are not solely for what the name implies. They do indeed process the cannabinoids in our bodies in a way that allows them to affect us. But humans are a bit special, because our brains contain more cannabinoid receptors than any other GPCR (G Protein-coupled receptor). The cannabinoid receptors in our brains are latched onto neurons and send what are called neurotransmissions from one neuron to another. The majority of the cannabinoid receptors are found in the parts of our brains responsible for feelings, memory, co-ordination, and time perception, just to name a few. Normally the cannabinoid receptors are activated by an endocannabinoid called anandimide which allows for short term connections between nerve cells and the regulation of eating behaviors. It also allows us to forget things and to experience feelings of pleasure. Because of this, when THC is absorbed by these cannabinoid receptors, it imitates the effects of anandimide. It latches itself onto neurons through and screws up communications. So if someone were to throw a ball to you and tell you to catch it, odds are the neurotransmission will fail and you'll likely get knocked on the head with said ball.
Okay, so maybe the idea of a chemical messing with neurons like that doesn't sound harmless, but once we take into consideration that these effects last only for the time that the drug is in effect (THC has a half-life of roughly an hour and a half to eight hours), it suddenly becomes a different story. There are absolutely no permanent damages to the brain, or any part of the body for that matter, caused by cannabis.
There is a particular study people like to turn to when talking about the dangers of pot, and that is a 40 year old study on monkeys. The test, which supposedly proved irrefutably that marijuana kills brain cells, had scientists administer 63 joints worth of smoke to various monkeys in five minutes through gas masks with absolutely no air between. Within 90 days of this, all the monkeys' brain cells were dead and, as a result, the monkeys were dead. But do you see the blatantly obvious flaw in the research?
Asphyxiation was the culprit. The extreme lack of oxygen during the period of administration is what killed the brain cells.
As most research now shows us, marijuana's actual effects on brain cells are hard to determine. Some scientists believe that it does nothing to brain cells at all, some say it stimulates them, and some even say that it regenerates them. While we're uncertain of the positive effects (if any), we do know that there are no negatives.
Cancer is another thing often claimed to be caused by marijuana. Of course, inhaling smoke of any sort can potentially lead to lung cancer. This should more or less be common knowledge. But THC does not need to be inhaled to be absorbed in the body, and there are no carcinogens whatsoever in marijuana. So if you make brownies or use a vaporizer (a device that heats the marijuana not to a point where it burns but to a point where the THC is turned into vapor. It's arguably the safest method around) then cancer will not be coming your way as a result of cannabis use.
In fact, cannabis is often used to help treat cancer patients. Many symptoms helped by THC include nausea, pain, and lack of appetite. It doesn't cure cancer, although recent studies have found that it can kill certain types of tumors. Cannabis can also be used in the treatment of glaucoma, AIDS, anxiety, insomnia, ADHD, and many more ailments.
If you're now wondering, “Why is marijuana illegal then if it's as safe as you claim?” then that is absolutely fantastic because I have just the answer for you. It's a bit complex, but I'll do my best to simplify it as much as possible.
We start this story in the United States. Late 1800s. Hemp, an incredibly versatile material produced from the cannabis plant, is the most popular product in the world. Everything from paper to fabric to medication contains hemp. Of course, the use of marijuana goes back much farther than this, as an industrial product, a medication, and as a recreational drug. It is said that Queen Victoria used marijuana resin extracts to treat her menstrual cramps.
For the most part, marijuana was pretty fine and dandy up until about the 1930s, though as early as 1906 states like California were labelling marijuana as “poison” and trying to outlaw it. In the 1930s, yellow journalism became popular and articles depicted African-American and Mexican people as evil creatures that would smoke marijuana and then play “devil's music” (jazz) and commit crimes against white people. These “crimes” included looking at a white woman twice, laughing at a white man, and even stepping on a white man's shadow. They also believed that it would make people violent. In 1936 a film called Reefer Madness (Formerly “Tell Your Children!”) was released. The film depicted hyperbolic representations of cannabis users, making them out to be psychopathic rapists. Because of this, in 1937 a tax act was enabled making it illegal to grow marijuana for any purpose, be it for industrial hemp or for the drug, without a stamp. The problem was, no one was giving out stamps.
During World War II, America suddenly fell in love with hemp again and the military produced a film called Hemp for Victory. Cannabis was once again legal.
But it would not last long. Three years after the war, America made a new realization: marijuana doesn't make you violent, it makes you a pacifist. They felt as though the enemies would try to use cannabis to weaken American soldiers and so they re-criminalized it for the exact opposite reason they originally outlawed it.
Despite the fact that over the last 70 years, reports have been written by everyone from former New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia to former United States President Richard Nixon all stating that cannabis should not be illegal, it still is just as much illegal as it was all those years ago in most places. And I think that's rather sad.
Cannabis is an incredibly popular drug. As we've seen here, it's also virtually harmless. We've also learned that it was made illegal for all the wrong reasons. Yet every day people are getting in serious amounts of trouble for having it, to the point where the Canadian government spends on average one billion dollars a year on marijuana busts alone. It's absolutely foolish. Hopefully you now feel the same, for only in large numbers can we defeat these awful laws and focus on issues that actually matter.
Sources: A lot of this I've known for years and can't remember where I found it. I got the scientific information mainly from Hank Green's SciShow, and the history part is from The Union: The Business Behind Getting High. (We didn't actually need to cite our sources, so this is just what I've added now)
To write a proper essay, follow some simple rules.
1. Lay out a clear thesis. This should be the focus of your essay, and be an opener to a strong argument. Make it a powerful statement, and never state it as an opinion. Unless you're trying to be persuasive, you should be FACTUAL. [B]This is why Marijuana should be legal[/B] not [B]This is why I THINK Marijuana should be legal[/B]. You should spend some time coming up with a good thesis, as it's the foundation for your essay.
2. Paragraphing. Keep your essay organized into paragraphs. Paragraphs are a way of organizing essays into a logical format, and allows you to segway into other portions of your essay. Paragraphs should not speak about the exact same topic, and should generally cover a significant point.
I.E: Marijuana should be legal.
Paragraph 1: Hemp Industry
Paragraph 2: Misinformation about Harms of Marijuana
Paragraph 3: Benefits to the Health Industry
3. Strong finish. The most important part of a good essay is to finish with your best paragraph. You want to leave your reader thinking that your essay was incredibly factual, powerful, and moving. You want them to believe in what you're saying, and a weak end will leave them questioning your essay. Don't be afraid to swap around your paragraphs.
4. Sources. To make a factual essay, you will need proper sources. A good source will lend it's credibility to your essay, and give you momentum in pushing your thoughts and ideas. If the essay is for school, many schools will provide a database of information for students to search. Teachers will be much more likely to trust school-approved sources. [b]Wikipedia is not a source of information for essays[/b] BUT it is a source of references.
Example:
[img_thumb]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4037422/essay.jpg[/img_thumb]
5. Proofread! Get your friends to read it! Your neighbor! Your dog! Get someone else to read your paper. When working on something, it's easy to become so focused that you just write and write and write, often resulting in things that can sound off or illogical to someone else. Also, errors in your essay will greatly deduct from the legitimacy of your essay.
[QUOTE=smithy69;38606621]words[/QUOTE]
Didn't read the whole thing, but Cannabis isn't harmless, your teacher wasn't the close minded one.
damn sons now y'all are beasting it with the text critique. IS THERE NOTHING DD CAN'T DO?
[URL="http://prezi.com/82gvestg1gwh/present/?auth_key=76b8p84&follow=d1ij3cfmk2pb&kw=present-82gvestg1gwh&rc=ref-11098727"]http://prezi.com/82gvestg1gwh/present/?auth_key=76b8p84&follow=d1ij3cfmk2pb&kw=present-82gvestg1gwh&rc=ref-11098727[/URL]
Here is my Marijuana Prezi i made in school for computer assignment
This is my first year University paper for Philosophy of Religion:
[quote]God of Dice
In a world with cellophane flowers towering over your head and a girl with diamonds in the sky, it is likely that either you are hallucinating, or someone tinkered with the cosmological constants. The ‘blessing’ that many do not consider in their day to day lives is the fact that the sheer existence of our universe, as we see it, is incredibly unlikely. The cosmological “Fine Tuning Argument for God” is one of the stronger arguments amongst those popular in the philosophy of religion. Although the fine tuning argument is sound, it is limited by the classical definition of God, and the inherent tendency to limit God. I hope to argue not only why the fine tuning argument is reasonable and stands up against various objections, but also why both its proponents and opponents are flawed in their dealing with God.
The cosmological “Fine Tuning Argument” rests on the shoulders of science in respect of creation. Simply stated, the fine tuning argument says that the physical constants of our universe, such as Planck’s constant or the speed of light, being so uniquely balanced on a knife edge to support our existence, are proof of intelligent design. This argument is reasonable due to the fact that we only know one time that this has happened. The big bang and its resulting constants have primarily 3 possible explanations; chance, necessity, or design. The laws as we understand them have no built in necessity for things to go the way they did, and so we must go to chance to tell us that the amount of other ways it could have gone are so immense that the probability of our universe is infinitesimally small. To accept the fine tuning argument is as reasonable as to accept the causality that tomorrow the laws of physics will be the same as today, it is a matter of patterns. It is slightly similarly reasonable to postulate a large number of Multi-verses in which we are only aware of our own.
The Multi-verse theory, although hypothetical, is one that attacks the fine tuning argument in a way difficult to provide a rebuttal to. The idea is that in a world of infinite possibilities, which likened to the roll of a die, if you were to roll the die long enough eventually you would get 11 consecutive sixes, or rather a stable set of physical laws. Richard Swinburne’s argument of the card shuffling machine says that if you were to win against all odds in a low probability game of Russian roulette, you would not be reasonable to say that the game was rigged. The issue with this is that you would be reasonable to think the game was rigged unless you saw multiple turns, maybe with different people, in order to see if it ever went off. John Wheeler, a theoretical physicist, argued against the fine tuning argument stating that due to the observer effect of particles, the past is irrelevant as the point of genesis is constantly in the now. Not only is the concept of the now a far too vast point to cover, but the argument is also fallible in that it ignores the logical progression of events we call time, and that the big bang is agreeably no more than a projected event in our minds as far as we can tell. It seems that electrons are as elusive as the big bang and God himself. Stephen Hawking, another famous physicist, however provided a theory for the genesis of the big bang and a proposed rebuttal to the fine tuning argument. He says that universes, much like bubbles in your milkshake, arise, expand, and stick around for a while if they are stable. This is happening constantly in a place outside of time. Although even for a physicist this is mostly conjecture and philosophy, the question remains; what made these universe bubbles, and what is outside of them? Either way it seems that if you consult Plantinga’s modal argument, it states that a being that is maximally great would be maximally excellent in all possible worlds. Thus I venture to say that even Steven Hawking’s Bubble tea world of universes is still a world in which god is maximally excellent. Possible worlds and the Multi-verse are not new concepts to philosophy, and as such do not pose much of an argument.
The question of what could be above and in control of those universes could be answered with “probability”. Probability ultimately is the force that drives change between Planck frames. Although most people would like to look at probability as a set of statistics taken from the past, it is ultimately a metaphysical force that can be said to drive all events. The laws of physics are no more than a mere pattern unfolding throughout our recollections, the laws of physics are truly no more than the law of the most probable thing to happen. If the odds of our universe were infinitesimally small, then either chance happened or god happened. However the issue is that this is much of a false dichotomy. If God were to exist, even in the classical sense, then he would surely be above the laws of probability. If God were above the laws of probability before the big bang, then he would have full control over what direction it takes in a sense far more encompassing than our waking consciousness can conceive of. If you flip a coin and it lands heads 100 times, the probability of the next coin-flip is still 50-50 despite whatever patterns you may find in the flipping. Similarly even though our laws of physics hold day to day, probability dictates that they may fly apart at any moment.
God is defined in most major monotheistic religions as the highest of the high, just like how in the ontological argument god is defined as a being “which none greater can be conceived”. Conversely, in “God’s Debris” by Scott Adams an old man asserts that probability and God are one in the same. I however would say that God, rather than being probability, would have probability as an expression of himself, or maybe even the only physical expression. Should a Multi-verse exist such as in the variation of the “Point-Line-Plane” postulate by Rob Bryanton, then God would surely be expressed in every world because he is maximally great, and is expressed in the results of probability. Moreover just as God expressed in probability has the ability to follow the laws of physics or not, we as thinking creatures have the free will to choose between a range of possible actions. Ultimately the concept of God is one which is too often limited due to our misunderstanding of what we should call God. Instead of defining a preconceived notion of a great being then applying it to our new discoveries, we should instead look to the highest explanation, the highest power, and call that God. The cause of the big bang, the decider, probability, God, whatever you call it, it has a major role in our lives. The fact of the matter is that things are the way they turned out, the cause of that could be called God just as readily as it could be called probability.
In conclusion, the fine tuning argument for the existence of god is a reasonable argument however it is not provable as it still leaves open the chance for chance. Although the odds of our universe arising are incredibly slim, it still is left undetermined whether we were just lucky at our one shot, or if we are the Shakespeare coming out of a room of cosmological monkeys with typewriters. Ultimately the issue at hand is the limitation we impose on ourselves when limiting the definition of God. If we are to take any pages from Plantinga’s book, we must always be aware of the false limitations we impose on this being that we try to call God. Whether there truly is a world with newspaper taxis and tangerine trees remains to be discovered, however what is reasonable at the moment is to recognize that there is a force by which we are here, whether you wish to call it probability, Christ, Allah or, Eh yeh. That force is what I propose we must work backwards from in order to understand anything about God. Albert Einstein said “God does not play dice with the Universe”, rather God is the die that decides what the next Planck frame shall hold.
[/quote]
Are we posting essays now? My essay on raising the drinking age got 93/100 and was worth 20 percent of my grade (Im not sure if this is the 100 percent edited version though but im pretty sure it is)
[quote]
"Should the drinking age in New Zealand be raised?"
Ever since the drinking age was lowered to from 20 years old to 18 years old in 1999 there has been debate over whether it was a good decision. Some points for rising the drinking age are that it could result in there being less alcohol related crashes and less cost to society. Ideas for keeping the drinking age are that it could negatively affect youth unemployment and it could cause the government to receive less money from tax on alcohol. This essay will show what the most logically sound solution for the drinking age in New Zealand.
An argument for rising the drinking age would be that it would probably lower the amount of alcohol related traffic crashes. This is backed up by*facts found in a study (Kypri et al. 2006) that when the drinking age was lowered to 18 in 1999 which found that the ratio of the alcohol crash rate amongst* men was 12% larger for 18-19 year olds and 14% larger for 15-17 year olds relative to 20-24 year olds. For females it found that the equivalent ratios were 51% larger for 18-19 year olds and 24% larger for 15-17 year olds. This shows the negative affect of having a drinking age at 18 years old as it increases the chance for inexperienced drivers to be driving under the influence of alcohol. Not only does this affect them it also affects other people on the roads. This is a problem that could be reduced if the drinking age in New Zealand was increased as the same study also found that states in America where the drinking age was increased found that average reductions of underage alcohol related crashes* was 16%. This is quite a significant decrease in alcohol related accidents which means that if the drinking age was raised the roads would be a safer place and less young people would die. Therefore this shows that raising the drinking age would be a good idea as it would decrease the chance of teenagers dying on the roads and overall make society a safer place therefore justifying a reason to raise the drinking age.
Another argument for rising the drinking age is that it can help combat underage drinking as it would be harder for younger people to obtain alcohol if the drinking age is higher.* "Americans getting drunk in NZ" (2010) revealed that American students under the age of 21 tripled their alcohol intake when in countries with more relaxed drinking laws. This shows that when people find it easier to access alcohol they will drink a lot more than they would normally meaning that if the drinking age in New Zealand it could mean that younger teenagers would drink less than at the moment as it would be harder for them to obtain alcohol than it is at the moment. This in turn could contribute to reducing the amount of underage drinking in New Zealand.* ALAC Alcohol Monitor - Adults & Youth (2011) indicates that 26% of 15-17 year olds are moderate drinkers and 27% are binge drinkers. If the legal age for alcohol was raised back to 20 it would make it harder for people in this age group to obtain alcohol as it would be much harder for them to pass as 20 and they would be less likely to have 20 year old friends therefore the amount of 15-17 year olds who are drinking often would most likely go down. This is backed up by a study (Kypri et al. 2006) that says that there is research evidence that suggests people in the age group bordering the legal drinking age are able to purchase or obtain it from friends or siblings. This shows that if the drinking age was raised it would be more difficult for people aged 15-17 to obtain alcohol which would therefore decrease the amount of moderate and binge drinkers in this age group thus helping to combat underage drinking in New Zealand and giving a good reason for raising the drinking age.
An argument to keep the drinking age at 18 is that it if it was raised the government would make less money from taxes on alcohol. Ministry of Health (2009) indicated that the prevalence of alcohol amongst 18-24 year old males was 88.4% and females were 84.2%. This shows that a significant amount of people between 18 and 24 are drinking therefore they will be buying a lot of alcohol. This would mean that the government would make a significant amount of money off that age group. If the drinking age was raised to 20 that would mean a significant proportion of sales in the age group of 18-24 year olds would be lost therefore meaning less tax for the government therefore the government would get less money. In a time of economic crisis it would not be a wise idea to make a decision that would cause the government to make less money. Also if the drinking age was raised there would be less people going to clubs and bars therefore meaning less money going into the economy which would also be a bad idea as it is important for local business to be making money during an economic crisis. Based on this evidence a good reason to keep the drinking age at 18 would be the fact that raising it would cause less money to be spent by 18-19 year olds therefore there would be less money made from taxes for the government which would not be a desirable outcome of rising the drinking age.
Youth unemployment in New Zealand would be negatively affected if the drinking age was raised. "Youth jobless rate soars to 19.4%" (Jo Gilbert 2011) talks about how youth unemployment in New Zealand is a problem and that a significant amount of people in that age group work in areas such as hospitality.* Currently the law states that you have to be the legal drinking age to work in most venues that serve alcohol. If the drinking age was raised to 20 there would be a large amount of 18-19 year olds that would become unemployed and it would mean it would be even harder for people that age to find a job. This in turn could make it harder for them to find a job later on as they would not have as much job experience as they would have had if they had been able to get jobs in bars and clubs. The Department of Labour (2011) states that youth unemployment is currently at 17.4% and has dropped by 1.8%. Seeing as youth unemployment is an improving making a decision that would decrease the amount of job opportunities in an area that is popular amongst youth would not be wise. A decision like that could hinder the improvement of youth unemployment which would not be good for the economy. It could also affect bars and clubs as they might be forced to raise the wages they pay to attract people who already have a large amount of experience to take the place of the youth who would have lost their job as people who have good experience might not want to work for the same amount of money as inexperienced youth which could also affect the economy. Therefore a reason not to rise the drinking age is that it would mean fewer jobs are available for the youth which would cause youth unemployment to rise and in turn it could affect the economy.
A reason to rise the drinking age would be the fact that Alcohol can be more harmful to the health of younger people. ACT for Youth Upstate Center of Excellence (2002) indicated that a person's brain does not fully develop until the age of 20 and drinking alcohol during this time can cause long term negative effects. It states that adolescents are more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol than adults to the effects of learning and memory. As a majority of teenagers are probably enrolled in learning facilities such as universities and school this could have some serious implications on their abilities to perform their best. If alcohol can indeed make it harder for adolescents to learn and remember things then it does not seem like a good idea to allow people whose brains still haven't completely developed free access to alcohol. A reason for this would be that it could increase the amount of people who do not do well at school and university and thus lack the skills to have a successful life. ACT for Youth Upstate Center of Excellence (2002) also stated that repeated use of alcohol among adolescences can cause long term effects and can cause cognitive impairment for weeks after they stop drinking. These facts provide a strong argument for rising the drinking age in New Zealand as it does not seem suitable for people to have access to a substance that could even have the chance of impairing them in the long term. One would think that if there are studies that show that there is a chance of alcohol causing long term damage to people under the age of 20 it would be a wise decision to rise to the drinking age in New Zealand in order to minimize harm amongst the population.
The high cost of alcohol related incidences to society signifies a reason to rise the drinking age. The Holistic Education Trust (Unknown) states that based on ALAC estimates in 2005 that alcohol cost the public health sector $655 million, crime and related costs $240 million, Social Welfare $200 million and other government costs of* 330 million. This is a large amount of cost caused by problems related to alcohol and should be addressed.* Ministry of Health (2009) Indicates that 18-24 year olds are the age group most likely to engage in risky behaviour while under the influence of alcohol with prevalence amongst males in the age group being 32.8% and females being 22.0% which are higher numbers than any other age group. This shows that people aged 18-24 would be more likely to cost society money as they engage in more risky activities while under the risk of alcohol which result in them having more accidents or choosing to take part in criminal activities. If the drinking age was raised there would be less people who had easy access to alcohol in this age group therefore meaning there would be less people undertaking risky activities thus costing society less money. It would be wise to try and lower costs to society as it is an economic crisis. Therefore raising the drinking age would benefit society as it would most likely result in costs of alcohol related incidences decreasing as there would be less of them.
In my opinion based on all the evidence I have found I think that the drinking age should be raised. I think this because it is evident that the benefits will far outweigh the negatives. This is because even if the government did make less money from taxes on alcohol it would probably be evened out by the amount saved from their being less alcohol related costs to society. I think it is very important that people should have the best possible start to life and if that means restricting access to alcohol to stop them from potentially damaging their brain in the long term it is worth it. In the long run it is better for people to wait a little bit longer for them to start drinking so that they will have a reduced chance of harm and more time to contribute to society. It makes logical sense to raise the age as it will not only have benefits to individuals but also to society as their will be less road crashes and less access for younger teenagers to alcohol. Therefore In my opinion I think that the drinking age should be raised as the benefits cause the negatives to be negligible.
In conclusion the drinking age in New Zealand should be raised. It would result in their being less young teenagers drinking, less alcohol related crashes, fewer costs to society, less negative implications on people's health which are all important issues. The negatives of their being less money made from taxes on alcohol will be worth the social benefits. New laws could always be made to allow underage people to work in bars if a higher drinking age significantly affected youth unemployment so it is not a problem that would be unsolvable. Therefore the conclusion that the drinking age should be raised in New Zealand is justified.
Kypri, K., Voas, R.,* Langley, J., Stephenson, S., Begg, D., Tippetts,S.,Davie, G. Minimum Purchasing Age for Alcohol and Traffic Crash Injuries Among 15- to 19-Year-Olds in New Zealand. American Journal Of Public Health, 96(1), 126-131. Retrieved from [url]http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/dean_knight/Kypri.pdf[/url]
NZ Herald Staff, (2010, October 12). Americans gettin drunk in NZ. The New Zealand Herald, Retrieved from [url]www.nzherald.co.nz[/url] 01/10/2011
ALAC Alcohol Monitor - Adults & Youth. (2011). 2009-10 Drinking Behaviours Report [Report No.5]. New Zealand: Katrina Fryer, Olivia Jones and Emanuel Kalafatelis. Retrieved from [url]http://www.alac.org.nz/sites/default/files/research-publications/pdfs/2009-10-Annual-Summary-Report-FINAL.pdf[/url]
Ministry of Health. (2009). Alcohol Use in New Zealand: Key results of the 2007/08 New Zealand Alcohol and Drug Use Survey . Wellington: Ministry of Health. Retrieved from [url]http://www.alac.org.nz/sites/default/files/research-publications/pdfs/2009-10-Annual-Summary-Report-FINAL.pdf[/url]
Jo Gilbert, (2011, January 06). Youth jobless rate soars to 19.4%. Stuff.co.nz, Retrieved from [url]http://www.stuff.co.nz[/url] 02/10/2011.
The Department of Labour. (2011). EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT - June 2011 QUARTER. Retrieved from [url]http://www.dol.govt.nz/lmr/lmr-hlfs.asp[/url]
ACT for Youth Upstate Center of Excellence. (2002). Adolescent Brain Development.Ithaca: A collaboration of Cornell University, University of Rochester, and the NYS Center for School Safety. Retrieved from [url]http://www.actforyouth.net/resources/rf/rf_brain_0502.pdf[/url]
The Holistic Education Trust. (Unknown). NZ Youth (statistics). Retrieved from [url]http://journeytobrilliance.com/nz_youth.html[/url].
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[editline]27th November 2012[/editline]
Got one of the best marks in the class and I did it on the day it was due even though Id been given a month to do it, I thought I was gonna fail :v:
[QUOTE=zach1193;38608176]Didn't read the whole thing, but Cannabis isn't harmless, your teacher wasn't the close minded one.[/QUOTE]
I believe I made it perfectly clear that it isn't 100% harmless.
"In fact, one can almost (and I emphasize that as much as possible) say that marijuana is harmless."
I hope you know that not having sources can be considered plagiarism
i love how many "CAN YOU GUISE HALP ME WRITE MY ESSEH?" threads we've had
I'm writing an essay right now about drug law reformation! It's not on legalization, but it's still pretty related
[quote] “ Since December 31, 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown an average of 43,266 inmates per year. About 25 percent are sentenced for drug law violations” (“Drug War Clock”). I don’t refute that drug laws are a necessity in any government to maintain a functioning society. Currently, however, drug related incarcerations are just as much dedicated to the traffickers and dealers as they are towards the addicts, which gives me great despair. Neuroscientists defined addiction as a “complex disease” that relies on many individual items in the specific person’s life (Everitte 1481-1489). Drug laws in the United States categorize those who profit greatly from these black-market operations alongside the men and women who have been afflicted with this disorder. It’s also becoming increasingly apparent that incarceration serves as little to no resolution to substance addiction, and I've seen repeat drug and alcohol offenders have no change in habits or consumption. The current criminal justice system in the United States that refuses to discriminate between substance addicts and substance suppliers is detrimental to our society.
Some Euorpean countries, most notably Sweden, drug law reformations have led to the decrease in drug-related deaths as a result of faulty or misused paraphernalia. The HIV Prevention Program created a multitude of centers which provide drug-injecting addicts a safe place in which they can obtain free, sterile needles, gloves, and isopropyl alcohol among other things. They instruct the addicts how to safely inject, clean, and prevent diseases while using the drug. Two years after the programs initial release, the HIV rate in Sweden “has been maintained at approximately 1% in contrast to up to 60% in subpopulations from other Scandinavian regions with a comparable drug problem” (Ljungberg 890).
An establishment like the aforementioned would be strictly prohibited on U.S. territory. Right now in the United States, there are laws both in place and being passed that are forcing state judges to refuse treatment towards many of the repeat offenders. A recent reform in drug laws in Columbia, Pennsylvania is eliminating the separation of addicts and dealers even more, leading to an “overall increase in the amount of relapsed addicts in the country’s prisons” (Shapiro 2051). The initial argument against this face is that the sentence of many of these users may work to treat the addiction itself, but this is not the case. In 2001, it was estimated that 48% of all sentenced criminals underwent the illicit use of drugs during their incarceration (Wheatley 399).[/quote]
Here's a link that explains why weed is actually illegal, just in case you want to not sound like every stoner ever.
[url]http://www.world-mysteries.com/marijuana1.htm[/url]
It basically explains how weed is illegal because hemp is fucking useful and companies don't want to compete with it.
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