Effectiveness of the War on Drugs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Effectiveness of the War on Drugs - Essay Example The purpose was to create a central office for waging the war on drugs. Upon its establishment, the DEA was comprised of 1,470 Special Agents with a US$75 million budget. The DEA currently has 5,200 Special Agents with an operating budget of US$2.6 billion.3 Both sides of the argument have merits. In other words it is equally arguable that the War on Drugs is ineffective and that the War on Drugs is effective. Therefore the best that can be deduced is that it is virtually impossible to measure the effectiveness of the War on Drugs. To start with, it is difficult to devise a benchmark for measuring the War on Drugs. For instance, is the War on Drugs measured by reference to the expenditure and the prevalence of drug use and exploitation? Or is it fair to measure the effectiveness of the War on Drugs by identifying the percentage of non-users? Each of these methods of measurements raise significant questions relative to their validity. For instance, if the expenditure were less would t he problems of drug use be greater? If there was no War on Drugs would the percentage of users be greater? Regardless, the US government and a majority of governments are determined to control drug use and production. Meanwhile, drug users and drug producers are just as determined to continue producing and using drugs. In measuring the effectiveness of the War on Drugs both of these factors are significant. The main question is whether or not drug users and producers’ determination to use controlled substances is matched by governments’ determination to control the use and production of illicit drugs.... n question is whether or not drug users and producers’ determination to use controlled substances is matched by governments’ determination to control the use and production of illicit drugs. In this regard, the US drug policy and its War on Drugs’ agenda is approached from a supply side initiative. In other words, the US government expresses its determination to control drug use and production by primarily focusing on interdicting drugs and thereby preventing its entry into the US. Given the extent of the drug problem in the US this interdiction oriented scheme is for the most part ineffective. Boyum and Reuter report that: Drugs are as accessible as ever as inflation-adjusted prices for cocaine and heroin have fallen by more than half.4 In other words, despite its best and most expensive efforts to prevent illicit drugs entering the US, these drugs continue to be available on the streets of the US. In fact Stokes reports that despite the War on Drugs, increasing ly, the street price of heroin and cocaine in the US has fallen and yet at the same time has improved in its quality and content.5 It would therefore appear that the supply side approach to the War on Drugs expresses a determination to cut off the supply of drugs to the US and by doing so curtail production and use. However, this determination is not matched by the determination to produce and use illicit drugs since all indications are that drugs are not only continuing to enter the US, but they are continuing to be used excessively. What these outcomes reveal is that the primary technique of taking a supply side approach to the War on Drugs is ineffective. The US government must therefore look at alternative methods for fighting the War on Drugs and expressing its determination to control illicit drug

Pain Perception Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pain Perception - Article Example ( MedicineNet.com) The physical pain is due to stimulation of nerves. Price also comes to that point later in this article. In fact he tries to explain the intricacies of brain and the nervous system in relaying the feeling of pain. He calls it a serial interaction. But according to him, the feeling or sensation of pain is the foremost factor. He says that this sensation is 'more intense than other type of somatic sensations'. He gives certain characteristics of pain as - slow adaptation, temporal summation, spatial spread, spatial summation and unique sensory qualities. This can be understood by the different words used to describe pain like burning sensation or stinging or aching. He reiterates pain as a neural and psychological process. Then he proceeds to explain the intricacies of both these processes. The effect of pain gets contributions from other sensory processes that may be nociceptive, exteroceptive and interoceptive. He says that there are many ascending pathways to several brainstem and cortical regions. Some of them project directly to brainstem and limbic system arenas from the spinal cord dorsal horn. Individual neurons many times project in multiple pathways. These pathways relay nociceptive information to somatosensory cortices. Since the cortices are physically linked with cortico-limbic pathway, it is connected to other somatosensory input like seeing and hearing. This pathway converges with the same structure that is accessed by ascending spinal pathways. Due to this dual convergence, multiple neural sources can contribute to pain perception. According to Cass Barnes, pain is a matter of both mind and body. There is a controversy on this point on how much is it dependent on the mind and how much on brain. Brain forms the physical or the 'body' part of pain where as mind forms the psychological part of pain. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as 'an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience'. This definition makes pain like any other perception like sight or hearing. Cass explains that pain is processed in the brain and creates the perception of pain. This is in accordance with Price who also explains the processing of pain in the brain in great details. Cass cites a study done in 1997 where perception of pain was measured by PET scan. Pain was induced in the subjects by putting their hands in ice cold water. The same was done where the subjects were hypnotized. PET scan results showed less pain in hypnotized state. The somatosensory cortex was highly activated in the hypnotized subjects that show perception of pain but the anterior cingulated cortex were less active in hypnotized subjects, showing less aversion to pain. Price also confirms that pain sensation and pain unpleasantness are two different things and the intensity is affected by various psychological factors. He also cites the example of comparative perception of pain when the subjects are hypnotized. He comes to the conclusion that some psychological factors have selective influence on pain unpleasantness and some of them can alter pain unpleasantness as there is a ch ange in the pain sensation. Thus the psychological factors have a very important role in pain and pain perception. Then he explains the secondary pain affect. It has a more projected implication that is related to its future implications. The relation between pain unpleasantne