roin is injected and sometimes snorted. It causes great euphoria, but also nausea and vomiting. (Wakefield 51) Like any street drug, its user does not know what potency he is getting from batch to batch. Therefore, there is always the risk that he will overdose and die. Withdrawal from heroin can cause severe illness and death.Drug abuse leads to all sorts of other crimes. Drug addicts need money to support their habits, and all users, addicts or casual users, are careless and reckless when under the influence. Drug users commit property crimes, such as robbing a house or a store.(Houston 65) Drug users also commit personal crimes, like mugging, armed robbery and even murder. Drug use, itself, can be a crime. It makes innocent citizens scared to walk out of their own homes, in their own neighborhoods.Drug abuse is a plague to society. Drug abuse drains society's resources by requiring that taxes be spent on funding enforcement agencies, educational programs and treatment facilities and on prosecution of drug users and dealers.(Chidsey 65) Drugs hurt future generations of citizens, because drug abuse, particularly of marijuana, is predominantly a problem among teens and teens are our future.(Adams 26) Our society is hurt economically because every year millions of American dollars leave this country illegally, invested in places such as Turkey and Colombia, as a result of Americans trafficking in the drug trades of those countries.(Roan 92)Drug abuse must be stopped. We should attack the supply and demand. We should keep drugs from entering the country and incarcerate dealers and smugglers. To attack the demand, we should educate young people on the risk of bodily harm, mental harm and the damage to family and relationships. Legalization of some less harmful drugs, such as marijuana, might help reduce the crimes associated with them, but it would be hard to regulate and legalization would only eliminate some of the direct cr...
