Drug Use: How Free Should People Be?

Paper Summary:

This paper evaluates the position and rationale of both sides in the debate on whether people should be free to take drugs if they want to and how issues such as drug use and abuse allow the discussion and debate over morality to be relevant, intelligent and never-ending. It analyzes the dilemma over personal freedom with respect to certain kinds of drug use, although other interference in personal freedom such as helmet laws, sexual conduct, gambling, and suicide could easily be used and how the government, under elected leaders, believes that it has a mandate to legislate moral standards and create laws that limit an individual's actions. The paper concludes by explaining the author's philosophical position and reasoning concerning individual freedom, drug use and morality.

From the Paper:

"Thomas Szasz, a noted philosopher, calls for greater personal freedom by arguing in favor of letting Americans take any drug they want. He believes that drug abuse is a moral and political issue rather than a medical or therapeutic one (Burr and Goldinger 250). The date of his most passionate writing, which is 1972, tells us a great deal about the work, for it was written at a time when many Americans were grappling with the more liberal and free mentality that arose in the 1960s. They were asking questions for the first time about just how dangerous these increasingly common and heavily used drugs were. Szasz's writing is clearly relative to the more turbulent society of the period, and ethical relativism is a common theme throughout the debate over morality."

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