Friday, April 19, 2019

Marijuana Should Be Legalizes: Drug Education Is A Solution





While reading the blog post “Marijuana Should Not Be Legalized - Drug Education Is No Solution” I disagreed with many arguments. To begin with I do believe that Marijuana can  have negative effects in specific situations as it does affect concentration and decision making, however, I do not believe the statistics on car accidents caused by it is not a reasonable justification to ban it completely. There are many other ways to control this such as the campaigns made against drinking and driving.

Keeping marijuana illegal causes problems from the very beginning of the production till the end during its distribution. In many countries where marijuana is illegally planted and sold to distributors in america there are many people, including children, involved risking their lives as they are put in dangerous situations. By keeping it illegal the contraband will continue to exist directly affecting the lives of families in these countries ( as well as families in our country), and even encourage the process to continue the way it is. Prohibiting it will not reduce the number of consumers, it will however make it harder and more dangerous to acquire putting users in a situation of potential risk. By having it as an official product the control and regulation of what is being sold would allow the consumer to know what he or she is using specifically.

Another problem that is sometimes unspoken of is amount of people, mainly people of color, sent to prison because they have it on them or are involved in selling. By legalizing it there would be more jobs in the industry that are safe and legitimate lowering drastically the number of convicts associated with it and allowing users to legally carry it.

The war on drugs has been going on for far too long and essentially has not brought positive results, there is a lot of money going to it and no significant difference. There should be a government initiative of accurately educating the people on the drug and its effects on the body. More and more studies are being made as it is becoming a billion dollar industry. The taxes that would be collected from it can be used to instruct the population and so much more. As many negatives marijuana may seem to have, in my opinion, they are not nearly enough to justify prohibiting it considering the negatives that keeping it illegal result in.  With the right amount of information and regulation people should be allowed to make the decision for themselves.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

Who is Venezuela's Real Enemy?

Unstable economy and government is nothing new in Latin America, for decades politics in these countries fluctuate from one extreme view to another. South America has been greatly influenced by left-winged communist ideas since the birth of the ideology, however, it has also faced brutal right-wing dictatorships in the past. This should not seem surprising. When the “threat” of communism appears, other countries, such as the USA and its supporters are quick to “defend” these “victims” from terrorism and sometimes the consequences of it all lead to the other extreme.


There is no doubt that the most powerful country in the western hemisphere, The United States of America, would not approve of a government that is not fully submissive to its rules, communist views can be a great threat to its supremacy. Now, it can seem like a conspiracy but for a great part of American history there have been policies made specifically for these situations, one of them being the Monroe Doctrine that began in 1823 and still works today. One of its main points was to avoid other countries interfering in Latin American governments, all except the USA. This was clearly an attempt to establish dominance, and it worked. Today the United States has great influence on foreign governments without needing to use the “Big Stick.”


The fear of communism has been a very real thing ever since the Cold War, not because USSR was evil, but because it was a threat to American power. Today we have smaller, less influential countries adopting some of the ideologies from that time, Venezuela being one of them.


Venezuela has been a left-wing country for some time now and recently been getting more attention from the USA. Newspapers and articles claim intervention is for the better and that the people are in desperate need for our help. Russia has been a big supporter of the Venezuelan government since the early 2000s and continues to send support to the current president Maduro. President Trump has demanded Russia to “get out” as to which they responded, “get out of Syria first.” Are America’s intentions pure? If we look into past dictatorships the US has supported I’d have to say no, once again the goal to maintain in power overcomes the “good intentions.”


I am not agreeing with Maduro’s posture and the way he governs his people, I am however criticizing Trump, and past American presidents that feed into the hypocrisy of being “the good guy.” We have to understand their country is at a delicate time and although past choices have not been the most effective ones we can’t “declare war” to the situation without digging deeper in its cause. America does not need to compromise it’s best interests, there can be effective things done by such a powerful country. If the goal is to maintain supremacy then call it for what it is, hiding behind a mask not only sets the wrong idea in the public’s mind of what really is happening but it also hurts the people that are directly involved.





Refrences:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-chavismo/loyal-to-my-revolution-despite-venezuela-woes-maduro-has-diehard-fans-idUSKCN1IJ26M

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/politics/trump-administration-venezuela-aid.html

https://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1954030200

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-in-venezuela-why-vladimir-putin-troops-back-nicolas-maduro-vs-donald-trump-us/