Legalizing the Use of Drugs

Many feel today we are losing the war on drugs. When a battle goes to the point where there is no winner, there needs to be a re-evaluation of how to solve the problem. In the case of the war against drugs, years of fighting have caused increased crime, overcrowding of prisons, and the wasted use of money and resources with no results. It is now time to look at alternative methods to solve the nation's drug problem. Although, legalization will increase use of the drug a majority of use will be by those who already use drugs not by new comers who might only try it once out of curiosity. Proof of this can be found in Holland when in 1970 the government legalized the use of marijuana for adults. The legalization of illicit drugs has proved that just because a drug is made legal it does not mean it will cause a rapid rise and abuse by society (Friedman). However, many supporters of continuing the prohibition of drugs believe that by legalizing drugs they will become more accessible and use will therefore increase. They base this argument on past experiments dealing with alcohol prohibition. After the end of prohibition with the 21st amendment, alcohol consumption doubled, while prohibition decreased use by 50 percent (Light). Another example can be found in Liverpool, England. After a recent legalization of drugs in a regulatory program that focuses on the medical benefits of drugs, most drug pushers there left town because there was no longer a market for them. This shows that legalization actually decreases use because of the increased emphasis on rehabilitation and the decrease of drug pushers. Such a dramatic decrease in drug dealers has not only resulted in crime reduction in England but there has also been a decrease of drug use. It is true, legalization will not eliminate the major cause of violent crime; however, most arguments, that say that drug legalization will not decrease crime, deal with the idea that most violent crimes occur as a result of alcohol use. If this is true, legalization will not effect crime that is alcohol related but it will decrease violent crime that is linked to drug dealing and use. The drugs themselves may not cause violent crime, but people involved in the distributing of illicit drugs commit the deadliest crime. By legalizing drugs the dealer would be eliminated and therefore crime would be reduced. Granted, the overall cost of drug use would not decrease; however, supporters of the continued war on drug and the further prohibition of these drugs say that legalization would cost more both socially and economically. They say that legalization would result in increased use and eventually will mean an increase in deaths with. Another result they say will be the decay of family values as a result of increased drug using mothers and children. Actually, the legalization of drugs will put money, which is used for law enforcement into the construction of better rehabilitation and education programs. Education is an essential element in this proposal because through education the problem will find a better than merely covering it up behind jail bars. Economically, for every dollar spent on drug treatment there is a $7 return due to decreased criminal activity. Through the regulation and supervision of the distribution of marijuana, there would be no increases in the number of drug-addicted newborns, nor will it induce the deterioration of society. Thus the overall cost of drug use would decrease and would bring new revenue for our nation. After looking at and knowing the pro and cons of marijuana legalization, I have decided that it is a valid and necessary solution to our country†s drug problem. By implementing such a program the American population can use its money and resources to combat the problem through rehabilitation and education instead of stalling the problem through the legal system. Legalization will decrease violent crime associated with drug dealers; it will decrease the number of users and will lower the wasteful cost, which is connected with the current system. Such legalization will not destroy our youth in any way, because the drugs will only be accessible to adults in the country. If we continue with our current system we will never solve the problem. Drug dealers and addicts will continue to crowd our prisons and plague our streets with violent crime with no hope for help and a better future.

Biographical Sketch: Reverend Craig J. Wright

REVEREND CRAIG J. J. WRIGHT Biographical Sketch Reverend, Craig J. Wright is the Pastor of Calvary African Methodist Episcopal Church in Glen Cove, New York, and serves as the Associate Vice President for Equity, Inclusion and Affirmative Action at Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York. He has been a college administrator and student advocate since 1988, and a preacher of the Gospel since 1992. Pastor Wright is a native of Freeport, New York. In his home town, Craig Wright was active in leadership roles from his youth at Bethel A. M. E. Church, his home church; Freeport High School; and the Nassau County Economic Opportunity Commission (EOC). Craig Wright attended Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, where he gained invaluable experience as a Resident Advisor, Sophomore and Senior Class President, and was introduced to Phi Beta Sigma, Fraternity, Inc. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Cheyney, Master of Science Degree in Human Resource Management/Labor Relations from New York Institute of Technology, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Ministry, in Urban Ministry, from Payne Theological Seminary. Reverend Wright is a charter member of Mu Delta Sigma, Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. is a member of the Village of Freeport’s Quality of Life Committee; serves on the Nassau County Hate Crimes Task Force and has served the community as: an Auxiliary Police Officer; a Trustee on the Board of Directors of the City of Glen Cove’s Boys and Girls Club; a member of La Fuerza Unida, Board of Trustees; and Nassau County Chapter of the American Red Cross, Board of Directors. He has presented motivational workshops and speeches for colleges and universities throughout the northeastern region of the United States and has conducted religious services throughout the country and Central Ameri ca. Reverend Wright believes that there is no ceiling to human potential. Pastor Wright was inducted into the New York State Martin Luther King, Jr. Dream Keepers Wall of Fame, and is the recipient of the Nassau County Executive Citation for Community Service, in addition to several awards and commendations from state and local officials, as well as student organizations. His happiest and proudest achievements are being a husband for twenty-four (24) years to his high school sweetheart, Danita, and being a father of two sons.

Agricultural Mechanizasion as a Solution to Food Insecurity in Africa Essay

Achieving food security in its totality continues to be a challenge for ever increasing population of Africa. A approaches are employed in developing countries but with less success due to a number of factors . this paper examines the causes of food insecurity in African. Scanning through researchers works ,it was noted that over seventy percent of the food insecure population in africa live in the rural areas. The paper therefore recommends that, if the ever increasing population of the african countries is to be fed, then mechanization of all agricultural operations should be embrace. In conclusion, efforts to words the development of the rural communities in Africa should be increased. Key words: agriculture, mechanization, food security, Africa, rural development. Introduction : Agriculture is the practices of cultivating the soil and raising livestock to produce plant and animals useful to humans and sometimes animals {S. N, Asogwu and O. A Asogwu,2007}, Agriculture is an important occupation in Nigeria with over 7o% of her population depending on it directly for livelihood. It provides the bulk of employment, income and food for the rapidly growing population as well as supplying raw materials for agro-based industries. World current agricultural production as an average growth rate of 1. 8% as compared to the 3% in the 1960s and therefore at a lesser pace than the demographic growth. The world bank has shown that in sub-saharan Africa (to which Nigeria belongs)the annual food increase needs to reach 4%, i. e. more than double the current figure in order to achieve food security. She suggested that this can be reached through a significant progress in plant and animal breeding that plays a key role in the development of the agricultural sector as well as a significant impact using appropriate farm mechanization {Pawlat et al , 2002}. Due to number of factors, which include rising population, increasing pressure on land resources, natural and man-made disasters such as drought, desertification, soil erosion and degradation (Raoult-Wack and Bricas, 001), the problem of sustainable agricultural production in Nigeria has assumed greater importance than ever before. Agricultural development involves three approaches namely bio-chemical, socio-economic, and engineering known as the trio of technologies (Mrema and Odigboh, 1993). The bio-chemical approach includes the development of improved animal and plant species, animal and plant nutrients (fertilizer and feed) and plant and animal protection (veterinary drugs, pesticides and herbicides). The socio-economic approach includes financial packages and management programmes (economic, business management, accounting, sociology, extension services, agricultural machines and equipment (be they human, animal or mechanically powered) for production and post harvest systems handling and storage systems and farm structures, erosion control measures, water resources development as well as irrigation and drainage structures, meteorological systems, and the technologies for optimally utilizing the above and their proper and economic use and management. Ani and Onwuala, 2002; Ampratwum et al, 2004; Onwuala and Pawa, 2004). Agricultural mechanization implies the use of various power sources and improved farm tools and equipment, with a view to reduce drudgery of the human beings and draught animals, enhance the cropping intensity, precision and timeliness of efficiency of utilization of various crop inputs and reduce the losses at different stages of crop production. The end objective of farm mechanization is to enhance the overall productivity and production with the lowest cost of production. The contribution of agricultural mechanization has been well recognized in enhancing the production together with irrigation, biological and chemical inputs of high yielding seed varieties, fertilizers, pesticides and mechanical energy. Different researchers have concluded that farm mechanization enhances the production and productivity of different crops due to timeliness of operation, better quality of operations and precision in the application of the inputs. According to NCAER (1980) survey covering 815 farming households in 85 villages, the increase was 72 percent in the case of sorghum, and 7 percent in the case of cotton as compared to traditional bullock farms. ITES, Madras (1975) found that the productivity increase on tractor owning and hiring farm ranged between 4. 1 and 54. 8 percent. The percent increase was comparatively low on custom hiring farms as compared to tractor-owning farms due to higher level of inputs and better control on timeliness of operations. These productivity increases, thus, were attributed to higher doses of fertilizer, irrigation and mechanization. Degree of mechanization is the ration of machine or technological work input to total work input (machine plus manual) into agricultural production. The importance of food security to any nation cannot be over emphasized. The issue of food security became prominent in the 1970s and had been given considerable attention since then. The World Food Programme Report in 1979 conceptualized food security, equating it with an â€Å"assurance of supplies and a balanced supply-demand situation of staple foods in the international market†. The report also emphasized that increasing food production in the developing countries is a panacea to food security. The concept of food security proposes that food is available, accessible and affordable, when and where needed in sufficient quantity and that this state of affair will continue and be sustained (Agboola, P. O. , 2002). It is a situation in which sufficient food us available at all times in the right quantity and quality, at affordable process. To accomplish this, we must have a production system that produces enough food in the short run, sustainable in the long run and does not place undue risks on agricultural producers and must respond rapidly to disruptions in the food supply due to disease epidemics, natural disasters, civil disturbances, environmental imbalances and other cause (Agboola P. O. 2002). With these objectives in mind, various efforts at the international, national and local levels had been put in place at one point in time or another to boost agricultural production to make food available to the teaming population and the ever-increasing world population. The world population. The world population explosion witnessed as at the end of 1999, further increased the fear of those concerned about world food security. During this period, the global population exceeded 6 billion. Leisinger, (2002), stated that never before in human history had the population of the earth been as great as it is today, and never before had it grown so rapidly within one century. He stated further that the doubling of world population over the past 40years had put enormous pressure on the natural systems that support all life on Earth. This pressure on natural resources also increased the burden of assuring food security for the entire world’s people international Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI, 2001) stated in one of her reports, that about 73 millions people would be added to world’s population every year between 1995 and 2010 increasing it by 32 percent to reach 7. 5 billion. However, much of this population growth is expected to occur in the developing world. If this prediction is to go by, then the food security situation of the developing world needs constant assessment via empirical research. Joachim et depal (2004), wrote that these was a strong direct relationship between agricultural productivity, hunger and poverty. He stated further that three quarter of the world’s poor people lived in rural areas and made their living from agriculture. He therefore, concluded that the higher the proportion of the rural population that obtained its benefits from subsistence farming (without the benefit of pro poor technologies and access to markets) the higher the incidence of food insecurity. Challenges to Food Security in Africa The root cause of food insecurity in developing countries is the inability of people to gain access to food due to poverty. While the rest of the world has made significant progress towards poverty alleviation, Africa, in particular Sub-Saharan Africa, continues to lag behind. Projections show that there will be an increase in this tendency unless preventive measures are taken. Many factors have contributed to this tendency including the high prevalence of HIV/AID; civil war, strive and poor governance; frequent drought and famine; and agricultural dependency on the climate and environment. Food security on the continent has worsened since 1970 and the proportion of the malnourished population has remained within the 33 and 35 percent range in Sub-Saharan Africa. The prevalence of malnutrition within the continent varies by region. It is lowest in Northern Africa (4 percent) and highest in Central Africa (40 percent) Over seventy percent of the food insecure population in Africa lives in the rural areas. Figure 1 shows the distribution of food insecurity in Africa. Ironically, smallholder farmers, the producers of over 90 percent of the continent’s food supply, make up the majority (50 percent) of this population. The rest of the food insecure population consists of the landless poor in rural areas (30 percent) and the urban poor. Throughout the developing world, agriculture accounts for around 9 percent of the GDP and more than half of total employment. In countries where more than 34 percent of the population is undernourished, agriculture represents 30 percent of GDP and nearly 70 percent of population relies on agriculture for their livelihood. This fact has in the past been used in support of the argument as to why developing countries should move away from agriculture and invest in technology. Because over 70 percent of the poor live in rural areas, where also the largest proportion of the food insecure live, it is evident that ;we cannot significantly and sustainably reduce food insecurity without transforming the living conditions in these areas. The key lies in increasing the agricultural profitability of smallholder farmers and creating rural off-farm employment opportunities. The objective of this paper is to h8ighlight the challenges to food security in Africa while providing alternative solutions to the problem that would not only allow for poverty alleviation but also wealth creation. While the focus of this paper is in alleviating food insecurity in the rural areas, effort has been made to address the plight of the urban poor.

Capacity Building as an International Response to Cybercrime Assignment

Capacity Building as an International Response to Cybercrime - Assignment Example From the srudy findings it is clear that technologies used by people globally are required to be organised for better usage in terms of social consideration. It is apparent that Information and communication technology (ICT) has been rapidly transformed over the past two decades especially in the northern and southern regions of the world owing to which numerous development has been observed in various domains. Notably, the development of ICT has enlarged the choices of people, which further helped them towards personal and professional growth. This discussion stresses that cybercrimes are offences against computer systems, which are conducted within or via computer networks. It affects the security along with the rights of the people living in a society and on the hand, it further strengthening the presence of crime within a society. It has been analysed that cybercrime raised considerable risk for infrastructure to which the people in a society are dependent that further impact the aspect of security and trust in a negative manner. Cybercrime is a particular crime that is conducted with the use or within computers and internet networks. It is regarded by legal authority as a punishable crime and is one of the major issues to be resolved in the contemporary scenario. Cybercrime is also often regarded as computer crime, which involve the use of computer, as a particular instrument to conduct illegal activities such as fraud, child pornography and unauthorized access or damage of other’s property among others.

Thin film lab Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

Thin film lab - Essay Example Introduction: Evaporation is a physical vapor deposition process, which involves vaporization of material to be coated through thermo-mechanical treatments, transport of that material in vapor phase to the substrate surface, and consequent deposition on the surface of the substrate based on adhesion (Pulker, 1999). Evaporation is a very common technique for film deposition, which has been used since ages to coat glass, silicon and other substrates with coatings of a very wide range of materials. The most common technique used to characterize film growth for evaporation deposited films employs measurement of surface film resistivity, which depicts the behavior of formation of islands of nuclei of various sizes, followed by Ostwald Ripening, sintering and cluster migration, leading to continuous film growth (Ohring, 1992). Using these vastly used deposition and characterization techniques, we deposited and analyzed copper films. Theory: Evaporation deposition technique involves three e ssential steps (Thornton, 1988): 1. Evaporation of material to be coated to obtain vapors for deposition. 2. Transport of vapors to substrate for deposition. 3. Physisorption of vapors on substrate surface, leading to nucleation and film growth. Resistance heating is a method to carry out evaporation of the target material. This is done simply by using wires or plates of high resistance, which have high resistance heating in accordance with Joule’s Law (COMSOL, 1998-2011). Wires, filaments, boats, plates or other shapes of these heaters may be used in accordance with the shape of the element to be evaporated. Refractory metals such as tungsten, tantalum and others are used for this purpose. Sublimation furnaces, crucible sources or electron beam evaporators can also be used as the heating technique (Ohring, 1992). Vapor phase transport depends on mean free path of the gas used. Mean free path is the average distance that a molecule travels in a gas chamber between two consecu tive collisions (Weisstein, 1996-2007). Pressure is the main factor controlling the mean free path. Depending upon the pressure and mean free path, different pressure ranges are termed as low vacuum, medium vacuum, high vacuum or ultrahigh vacuum as shown below: Figure 1: Vacuum Ranges Shown with Pressure Ranges for Comparison. Illustration from Ohring, 1992. Surface preparation is an essential part of surface deposition processes, which include surface cleanliness, substrate preheating, plasma assistance with evaporation and other factors. All these factors and the processing parameters of the evaporation technique combine to produce the morphology, growth rate and microstructure of the deposited films (Thornton, 1978; Holland, 1956; Caswell, 1963). Experimental Method: As has been mentioned, surface cleaning plays an important role in the deposition. To make sure the substrate is not contaminated – which may lead to deposit contamination – we used gloves throughout t he handling process. The four glass slides were agitated in a vibration tank to loosen contaminants, cleaned with alcohol, followed by blow drying of the cleansed slides with argon. These glass slides were then placed in marked containers. The evaporator preparation consisted of the following steps: 1. Tungsten wire was wound to form a filament. 2. Copper pieces, which were to be evaporated later, were placed on the tungsten filament at three places. 3. Glass slides were placed in premade stencils to ensure

Feminist Analysis of the Window by Deborah Eisenberg Essay

Feminist Analysis of the Window by Deborah Eisenberg - Essay Example The â€Å"Window† is one of the most challenging stories in the collection "Twilight of the Superheroes." This story sketches the quest of a clueless young woman, Kristina, who flees her hometown after her year out of high school. She seeks material security and starts working as a waitress in an Eden resort town with â€Å"white houses and gentle hills,† a â€Å"tender, miniature world.† She moves in with a couple, who after a few months wants Kristina to move out, to accommodate their new baby. To continue to be a part of the community, Kristina marries Eli who occasionally comes into town andtakes her to hisisolated cabin deep in the woods. Though the marriage gets off to a fine start, Kristina finds challenge in rearing Eli’s toddler son. Being isolated in the cabin, Kristina slowly realizes that Eli’s first wife eloped due to suffering due to domestic violence. Though Eli repents to for his abusive behavior, Kristina decides to run out of Eliâ €™s life, ‘kidnapping’ his son with her. She ends up with her estranged half-sister, from where she had originally fled in the beginning. The story is unfold in the mood of depressive reminiscence with its beginning and ending frames are fixed in Kristina’s half-sister’s home. These frames focused on the current situation of Kristina, where she is on a run low on money, and caring for Eli’s son, who has contracted an illness. ... We can see that Kristina is very confused and afraid while on the run and she expects and fears Eli’s anger and its impact on her future. In this story, Eisenberg is actively implying that there will be risk behind every decision, whether we will be able to see it or not. While providing us a detailed account of Kristina’s fall from youth and emergence into adulthood, Eisenberg also opens out a window in to her psyche, to reveal the fury of conflicting emotionssuppressed within her heart, bordering her on the verge of explosions. But Eisenberg’s character is neither too weak to go numb before the looming danger, nor is she rebellious enough to stand up and assert her individuality. Instead, she is a woman in conflict with her own demons, her emotions and she is trying to run away from her husband and the danger of being kept in captivity and abused all her life. But, we can find that Kristina is far more courageous than Eli’s first wife, who deserted her c hild with Eli for â€Å"unknown reasons†, as Kristina chooses to take the child with her, pretending to avoid the probability of Eli hunting her down. In the opening scene of "Window", we find Kristina and Alma drinking coffee engaged in small talks, while the toddler is playing. The tension in the story starts to surface only when we come to know that Kristina and Alma are the estranged sisters who are trying to move on from their reminiscent and depressing past by forcefully engaging themselves in small talks. The tension felt in the scene forces us to delve deeper in to the story, which then, slowly opens a window to the past life of Kristina. The rendering of the story goes smooth but it get its power from those things that are kept untold and hidden. Eisenberg unwinds her story

Mao Zedong Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Mao Zedong - Essay Example He used the communist ideology as a rallying point for the Chinese people and prevailed against Chiang Kai-Shek in the Chinese Civil War. Although China became more insular in the early years, it was able under Mao's leadership to gain a greater degree of political and economic independence. It would never again become a colony of foreign powers, it would decide its own internal affairs, and it would begin the political process of reclaiming lost territories such as Macau and Hong Kong. It is hard to argue that Mao's unification of China, and his role in reestablishing sovereignty and political independence, were not beneficial for China and the Chinese people. Despite these superficial achievements, however, the methods employed by Mao to achieve certain goals have been heavily criticized. From 1958-1960, for example, Mao spearheaded a national economic campaign designed to transform a predominantly agrarian Chinese economy into a more modernized industrial economy. He called this the Great Leap Forward and it has been judged an utter failure by historians.