The war on drugs, declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, is a failed attempt at protecting the people of America from the harms of intoxicating substances. Though surely it was meant to save lives and improve the health of our society, the effect has been opposite, the prohibition policies on which the war on drugs is built cost tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year. Though the laws against the possession, use and sale of drugs had already been in place for years, the comprehensive drug abuse prevention and control act of 1970 marked the legislative beginnings of the war on drugs,  categorizing (and often miscategorizing) drugs based on their potential for abuse and medical uses.

There never really was much logical thought behind the war on drugs. President Nixon came up with the idea, and he was motivated mostly by fear and preconceived prejudice that anyone who uses drugs must be harmful to society. He never considered any other measures than making more prohibition laws and throwing money into their enforcement.

The worst part about the war on drugs is that it kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. Surprisingly, most drug-related deaths, especially those resulting from drug-related violence, are caused at least in part by drug prohibition. Since the beginning of the war on drugs, drug-related deaths have steadily increased. Every day, there are people killed by drug users, drug users killed by police, police killed by drug users/dealers, drug dealers killing each other in territorial disputes, drug-funded gangs killing each other, deadly riots in prisons overcrowded with drug offenders, and that’s not even considering what’s happening outside U.S. borders. Even more tragic than the deaths of dealers, addicts and inmates are the innocent lives lost in the crossfire- drug dealers and gang members don’t seem to care whether their stray bullets end up lodged in an innocent child’s head. If drugs had never been outlawed, there would be no drug dealers to fight over turf, users would not have the fear of incarceration that drives them to fight the police, law enforcement would have no justifiable grounds to break down random doors and start shooting, and the cartels would never have become so powerful.It seems that the harder our government tries and the more money they spend to enforce drug laws, the more people die. Just as was the case with alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition has inflamed the drug problem by forcing the drug trade underground where it is run by violent criminals.

Violence isn’t the only way the drug war kills. As black market products, there is no standard for quality of drugs, and they are often mixed with toxic chemicals to increase profits. Most heroin overdoses occur because the user must approximate their dosage based on the last time they injected, and it is impossible for them to know the potency of drugs they bought on the street. Pesky customers or suspected informants are often poisoned by dealers. Users die of severe allergic reaction from fillers added by dealers to increase profits. Addicts, some of them prostitutes, spread blood-borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis-C because they can’t get clean needles. People jump from buildings because they underestimated the potency of their hallucinogens.

Another deadly consequence of the drug war is the raucous amount of power it gives our government and law enforcement to strip anyone of their civil liberties.  For example, Jose Guerena Ortiz, a US marine combat veteran who suffered from PTSD, was fired upon 71 times in front of his wife and toddler by a SWAT team who broke down his door because he was “suspected of involvement in drug trafficking,” although nothing illegal was found in his home and to this day there is no evidence that Ortiz had ever been involved in any illegal activities. Because of the fear tactics our government has used to weaken our civil liberties in exchange for protection from the underground drug culture which they created, senseless murders like this go unpunished, and will continue to occur. None of the officers involved in the slaying of Ortiz have been disciplined, they are still out there kicking down whatever doors they please, brandishing the license to kill that is the drug war.

As if the roughly 16,000 deaths it causes per year were not a high enough price to deem the drug war counterproductive, consider the financial cost- at least $52.3 billion per year  (Richardson). That’s $21.9 billion spent by federal and state governments on drug law enforcement, then another $30.4 billion on incarcerating drug offenders. One would think that for all this money, we would be making some progress, but the truth is that the trillions of dollars we have spent over the past four decades have been wasted. Drug use, addiction and sales have increased by almost every possible measure. Even worse than the monetary cost is the millions of nonviolent drug offenders wasting their lives in prison on the taxpayers’ dime. 55% of federal prison inmates are there for drug offenses, and we paid law enforcement to hunt down and arrest every one of them. Coincidentally, $52.3 billion is only a couple billion dollars short of the estimated yearly cost of universal health care (Richardson). This means that we are allowing sick and injured citizens to die so that we can fund an uphill battle that victimizes and often kills our own countrymen.

The fact is that there will always be demand for drugs in this country, and where there is demand supply will follow. Before they were illegal “street drugs”, marijuana, cocaine, heroin and amphetamines were over-the-counter medicines available at any drug store. Before coca-cola was America’s most famous soft drink, it was a medicinal cocaine solution that could be bought in a pharmacy. The prohibition of drugs not only caused the value of drugs to skyrocket, it stigmatized what had been medicine as dangerous intoxicants, spurring even more demand from young people, kickstarting the illegal drug trade.

Our only hope to remedy our nation’s drug problem is to legalize everything. Although decriminalization has improved situations in other countries, it only solves half of the problem by keeping drug offenders out of jail. The real danger of drugs is the outlaw culture that surrounds them. If we legalized drugs and regulated their sale and usage, the drug dealers would be put out of business, and demand for illegal drugs of questionable composition and potency would disappear.

-http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9252490

—http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/drug-war-facts-090109
“A Radical Solution to End the Drug War: Legalize everything” by John H. Richardson

–http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9252490

Walk Straight? I Can do That…

Anyone who has ever played pin the tail on the donkey knows how hard it can be to walk in a straight line while blindfolded. Now imagine doing that over a distance of fifty yards, or even a few miles. It has been proven that, while blindfolded, people tend to walk in circles even though they think they are going straight. In a NPR article written by Robert Krulwich he states that “Jan Souman, a research scientist in Germany, co-wrote a paper…about…human tendency to walk in circles” (Krulwich). The main reason for this is believed to be that people need to have a visual landmark of some kind to be able to navigate in a straight path. When someone is blindfolded, that visual landmark has been taken away.

While researching this topic, I found it very beneficial for me to perform my own experiments. In my original experiments, there will be more variations later, the goal of the participant was to walk in as straight of a line as possible. The distance they walked was fifty yards. I told them to stop once they had reached the extended line of where the target was. It was then measured how far to the left or right the walker was from the target. The average miss was by forty yards, with one participant walking in a complete circle. This, again, proves that people have a much harder time navigating when there is an absence of a visual landmark.

Animals actually use many of the same techniques we do to keep on a straight path. It is proven that many migrating birds use the sun as a navigation tool, and many migrating land animals use visual landmarks. For example, in an article for the website How Stuff Works, Ed Grabianowski says “whales traveling in the Pacific Ocean near the North American coast use…their landmark…the entire continent of North America” (Grabianowski). However, many animals will migrate using scents or magnetic fields. In these cases they can be easily drawn off course by a similar scent or a man made magnetic field that may replicate the magnetic fields of the planet. There was a study done at the University of North Carolina by Dr. Kenneth Lohmann in association with his wife and two graduate students with sea turtles that make their eight thousand mile migration route the first time that they ever see it. The turtles were first intentionally moved off course, and using the magnetic fields of the planet they were easily able to get back on track. However, a second experiment was preformed where the turtles were introduced to many man-made magnetic fields throughout their journey. The turtles went off course and were unable to find their way to their normal migration spot. In an article in Science Daily, it was written that “when exposed to a magnetic field like the one that exists in northern Florida, most of the reptiles swam eastward, a direction that would carry them out to the north-flowing Gulf Stream” (Lohmann, Lohmann and Cain). It might be possible that when we lose our sense of sight, we might be able to tap into our other senses and navigate in a different way.

Knowing that people can easily end up going in circles without a visual landmark, and that there are other ways to navigate other than with a sense of sight. The question is raised of how ancient sailors were able to navigate the open ocean without going in giant circles. Well, the most popular among the ancient sailors was to use the sun and stars as a navigation tool to stay on as direct of a path as possible. However, there were times when the sun or stars weren’t out and the navigators had to use different methods of navigation. Written on a PBS site, NOVA, Peter Tyson states that the ancient Norsemen “One method they relied on was watching the behavior of birds…If the beak of this seabird is full, sea dogs know, it’s heading towards its rookery; if empty, it’s heading out to sea to fill that beak” (Tyson). There were also ancient compasses and maps that they could use although they were not thought to be as reliable.

I also decided to test a theory that someone can use auditory clues to replace a visual landmark in navigation. To test this, I took the same participants and had them run the same experiment over again, however, this time with the noise. The noise that was used was a loud and continuous beeping similar to that of an alarm clock. It was placed at the target area. The walker was told to stop when they had walked the fifty yards and was even with the extended line of the target. All of the participants hit the target perfectly. However, they all took a curved path in getting there. This leads me to believe that the auditory clue can effectively replace a visual landmark, although it is not the most efficient way to navigate.

There have been other tests that are similar to the one that I have conducted, most notably at the Helsinki University of Technology. In their experiment the “test task [of the participants] was to find a sound source in a dynamic virtual acoustic environment” (Lokki, Grohn and Savioja). They were testing to see if sounds could help someone navigate through a virtual environment, and eventually find the source of the sound in the virtual world. In the results they found that “in most cases subjects did find the target area.” and that “over half the subjects made less than three errors” (Lokki, Grohn and Savioja). This provides substantial evidence that someone can walk in a straight while blindfolded, so long as there is a noise to guide them.

Next I looked into what Jan Souman calls “reorientation techniques” (Souman, Neth and Engel). Reorientation is the ability for the walker to have realized that they have gone off path, and to be able to correct themselves into a straight path. Jan Souman researched this in a virtual environment, and had two possible methods of returning the walkers to a straight path. One was a freeze turn, where the walker turned one hundred and eighty degrees but it looked to them that they went three hundred and sixty degree. In the other method he would have the walker turn a full three hundred sixty degrees, and have the virtual world stay still. However, all of the methods he tried to use had no success.

In my own experiment I attempted to try a reorientation technique that consisted of me telling the participant if they missed to the left or the right and by how much. I then allowed them to walk again and see if they were able to fix their previous mistakes. I found that if the participant made any corrections it was always an over compensation. For example, if they failed to the right, they would over compensate for their mistakes and end up missing to the left.

I then looked into if the walker would listen to direction while walking. To perform this I walked behind each participant, telling them if they were going left or right. The participant listened one hundred percent of the time. Through the directions given, each person was able to correct their minor mistakes, and find their way to the target area in a relatively straight path. So, even though the participants were not able to learn from their mistakes and correct themselves on their own, they were able to take direction from a third party and respond to feedback.

Walking in a straight line while blindfolded is impossible. However, when there is a distinct noise for the walker to follow they are able to get to the target area, even though they may not take the straightest path in getting there. It seems that people are unable to teach themselves how to correct their own mistakes while they are blindfolded, but at the same time can respond to feedback.

Works Cited

Grabianowski, Ed. How Animal Migration Works. 18 March 2012.

Krulwich, Robert. A Mystery: Why Can’t we Walk Straight. 7 march 2012.

Lohmann, Kenneth, et al. Baby Sea Turtles Use Earth’s Magnetic Field To Navigate Across Atlantic Ocean And Back. 12 October 2001. 16 April 2012.

Lokki, Tapio, et al. A Case Study of Auditory Navigation in Virtual Acoustic Enviornments. 3 April 2012.

Souman, Jan, et al. Velocity-Dependent Dynamic Curvature Gain. 8 March 2012.

Tyson, Peter. Secrets of Ancient Navigators. 6 October 1998. 8 March 2012.

Letting Baseball Evolve

The most prominent issues in professional baseball is anabolic steroid abuse. There are many critics who want steroids completely out of baseball for good. But, what they do not understand is that allowing steroids in baseball would result in a multitude of benefits for baseball as a sport and for each individual who plays the game. It will increase the popularity of Major League Baseball. The reasons for why steroids should be allowed in baseball far outweigh the reasons why they should not be. Allowing the use of anabolic steroids in baseball will make it a more flashy and interesting sport. There are numerous reasons why athletes take steroids. Along with these reasons comes all the effects of using anabolic steroids and arguments against these effects from critics.

“The never-ending expectations of audience and the desire to enjoy an invincible winning streak has allured many sportsmen to take steroids” (“Athletes Using Steroids”). The pressure put on athletes by their fans and managers causes them to seek any means to enhance their abilities. It is no different then the pressures that young students face everyday that cause them to stoop to cheating. Sometimes the pressure from their parents causes them to study, and when studying is not enough they resort to cheating to get the approval of their parents. This is similar to what is happening to many athletes. Professional athletes practice and practice, but sometimes they still can’t seem to achieve success the at such a high level so they resort to steroid abuse. These athletes believe they need the help of anabolic steroids in order to excel in their area of expertise. The steroids will allow these athletes to break through their plateau. Even those athletes who do reach the top of the game may have to resort to using steroids in order to stay in the spotlight.

If the pressure of advancing to the spotlight is not the cause of anabolic steroid abuse then it may just be simply that they work in making them a better athlete and in turn cause them to earn more money. “Teams reward players for performing well in the immediate past, ignoring other evidence of a player’s quality from his earlier performance” ( Jacobs). This means that by taking steroids and performing better before an athlete signs a new contract with a team will allow them to earn more money  no matter how they did before their recent success. Using steroids will cause an athlete to gain mass, strength, and speed faster than normal. With these increased attributes the athlete may  be able to make it to the top of their sport. This will earn them a larger salary in the future. Like Ralph Kiner said “Home run hitters drive Cadillac’s, and singles hitters drive Fords” (“Home run hitters”). Not all athletes play for their love of the game. Some play for money and prestige. The athletes that are the most successful generate the greatest incomes. For instance, Barry Bonds made millions and millions of dollars because of the popularity he gained by hitting so many home runs. He would have still been an extremely talented baseball player and maybe even one of the best without the strength he gained from steroids. But, he would have never beaten the home run record without the help of steroids, therefore he would have not made nearly as much money as he did. Meaning that the desire to excel is one of the main reasons for steroid abuse. Imagine someone having the opportunity to put their talents over the top and become one of the greatest athletes in the world. If this could be achieved by taking anabolic steroids there is not many athletes, who have worked hard their whole life to achieve this goal and be the best, that will say no to steroids. People doing whatever it takes to make money and be successful is not something new in our society. It is hard for some fans to grasp the fact that even some athletes that are supposed to be role models for children and teenagers all over the world are willing to do anything to enhance their performance.

It is no secret that an increase in the home run production in baseball will excite the fans increasingly. Anabolic steroids could make this happen if they became legal. Taking steroids will cause someone to gain more muscle mass when combined with a good work out routine. Alan M. Nathan has proven that a gain in muscle mass results in faster bat speed (2). A batter taking steroids has a faster bat speed that causes the batted ball speed to increase (Nathan 2). It is obvious that an increased batted ball speed will cause the ball to go farther off the bat. Which in turn means more home runs.  This increased home run production will allow fans to see more of what that want. Anyone who has watched sports center recently and seen all the home runs they should every day would know that home runs are the most popular aspect of baseball. If this is not enough to convince someone of the importance of home runs they could watch any recent home run derby and notice that the stands are nearly packed with fans wanting to only see home runs. This makes it nearly impossible to argue against the popularity of home runs in Major League Baseball.

A critic to allowing anabolic steroids in baseball may say that it won’t increase the number of home runs hit because it will allow pitchers to throw harder, making them harder to make hit. But, this is not the case for all pitchers. In order for a pitcher to be effective at such a high level they need more than just a lot of muscle. Even with steroids a pitcher needs high quality mechanics and pin point execution to throw the ball harder and accurate. This means that steroids will not necessarily make every pitcher more difficult to hit. These critics may only be right for the already top-notch pitchers that have great mechanics. For an average, run of the mill pitcher taking steroids and throwing a little harder will not solve their problems. Nobody is an amazing pitcher at that level by just throwing hard and wild. In order to be among the best a pitcher needs control and an arsenal of pitches they can throw well. It is even reasonable to say that pitchers on steroids could result in more home runs. The harder the ball comes in, the faster it goes out. The increased bat speed that steroids cause will allow hitters to capitalize on every mistake a pitcher makes. The quick bat speed will make up for the increased speed of the pitches. Although, it may be different for highly skilled pitcher on anabolic steroids.

With all the benefits anabolic steroids bring to the sluggers of baseball comes the benefits to the prized aces of baseball. A pitcher can gain from taking anabolic steroids. Upper tier pitchers have even more to gain than other pitchers because of the skills they already possess. Taking steroids will allow pitchers to throw harder than they could without steroid use. This increase in speed combined with what they already bring to the table will give some pitchers an edge over most batters. For instance, Cliff Lee on steroids could be virtually unhittable. With some pitchers being almost unhittable it would result in more no hitters or even some perfect games. These spectacular achievements would surely result in more excitement from the fans.

Increased speed in their pitches is not the only benefit a pitcher receives from taking anabolic steroids. Throwing a baseball is extremely straining and unnatural on a pitcher’s arm. Using steroids will enhance tissue repair so a pitcher will feel better the day after pitching and could result in less injuries (Olney). This would be a huge benefit to pitchers and could allow some of the best pitchers to be able to throw more often with the reduce soreness to their arms. Having the more prized pitchers throwing more often would benefit the club and the fans. Everyone wants to see their ace throw a good game and help their team win.

An argument from a critic of allowing anabolic steroid use in baseball is that home runs being hit more often will make them less exciting and rare. This is not true considering the fact that a home run hit in a close game is always thrilling. This is like saying that game winning goals in the NHL would be less exciting if there were more close games. No one complains about someone hitting too many home runs. More home runs will just result in more intense home run races that bring millions of fans to baseball. Anabolic steroids will make the chances of having another epic home run race like Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire had more likely.

Anyone who says a home run race would be less exciting with hitters on steroids because it is like cheating is completely wrong. This argument would not be relevant if steroid use was legal in baseball because then it wouldn’t be cheating at all. Also, if the majority of baseball fans actually had a serious problem with steroids they would have all ready stopped being a fan since it has become apparent that many of baseball’s recent all-stars have used steroids. Critics may say that even if it was legal it is still cheating and would take fans away from the sport. But, is evening the playing field really cheating? According to Jose Canseco, up to 85% of MLB players currently playing today are using performance-enhancing drugs (Anderson). This is coming from someone who was in the locker rooms of major league baseball for many years. This shows that even though steroid use in baseball was illegal many players were willing to risk it to enhance their performance. This makes it necessary to allow everyone in the league to have the opportunity to enhance their performance the same way. If those who obey the rules had the chance to take steroids like most of the players already do it would allow the players with greater natural talent to shine and become the stars they should be (Anderson). There is an immense pressure to use performance enhancing drugs in baseball. Allowing anabolic steroids in the sport is actually the way to get rid of cheating and even the playing field for all of the athletes. Evening the playing field for all of the athletes in professional baseball will do nothing but benefit the sport as a whole and satisfy the players.

The tons of players that brought thousands of fans to baseball and have used steroids add to the proof that allowing steroid’s benefits baseball. Manny Ramirez, suspended for steroid use, brought tons of fans to baseball for years before he retired(“Linked to Steroids”) . Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, who both admitted to using steroids, brought interest to baseball and were many people’s favorite baseball players for a long time(“Linked to Steroids”). These are just a few examples of players who have used steroids and have added to the popularity of Major League Baseball. Critics may say that they brought fans  to baseball before it was known that they cheated by using steroids. This is not the case for many players. When Barry Bonds first got drafted he was skinny and stole bases. Later in his career Barry was significantly bigger and even his head seemed to grow. Anyone who had seen him early in his career would be able to tell that he took steroids. Regardless he still brought millions of fans to baseball because of his amazing accomplishments. This shows that many fans ignored the fact that he took steroids and watched him dominate the sport anyway. This is proof that either fans don’t care about steroids or they’re not devoted fans and just want to see something spectacular.

When not talking about the performance based effects of anabolic steroids the strongest argument against allowing them into Major League Baseball is that it is harmful to the athletes. This claim has virtually no evidence to support it. The possible effects of steroids are vast but nearly none of the serious effects are proven. Anabolic steroid use is associated with hypogonadism, testicular atrophy, baldness, acne, gynaecomastia (Payne, Kotwinski, Montgomery). Hypogonadism is when sex glands produce little or no hormones (“Hypogonadism”). Testicular atrophy is when a male’s testes shrink. Baldness and acne are common in many people and not serious at all.  Gynaecomastia is when a male’s breasts are enlarged (“Gynaecomastia”). None of these effects result in any serious health risk to the athletes. They are all minor effects and should not be enough to have steroid’s banned from the sport. “The potentially serious risks to health of androgenic-anabolic steroids (AAS) use are still unresolved” (“Endocrine aspects”). This means no one really knows if steroids have serious long-term negative effects at all. That is more than you can say for other substances like alcohol and cigarettes that we know both have serious long-term negative effects. These are all things that no one is forced to take, but people take anyway for personal benefits. “The long-term consequences and disease risks of AAS to the sports competitor remain to be properly evaluated” (“Endocrine aspects”). Considering the fact that the negative effects of steroids are not even known you can not argue that steroids shouldn’t be allowed in baseball because of the possibility of them being harmful.

Having a ban on anabolic steroid use in baseball is hurting the sport’s popularity and potential. By lifting the ban it will bring countless additional hours of excitement to Major League Baseball. The use of anabolic steroids by the athletes will increase the number of home runs, no hitters, and possible perfect games. These are all incredible feats that fans want to see. For all the arguments critics make against anabolic steroid use there is a stronger argument for anabolic steroid use. Until there is substantial evidence that steroids are actually severely dangerous to someone’s health there is no reason for a ban. They should allow the player’s, who are all adults, to make their own decisions on whether or not to indulge in anabolic steroid use and let the sport evolve into something even greater than it all ready is today.

 Works Cited

Anderson, M. “Why the Use of Steroids Is Bad for Baseball.” Get Red Socks Tickets. Web.

“Athletes Using Steroids.” E-Steroid. Web.

“Endocrine Aspects of Anabolic Steroids.” Clinical Chemistry. Web.

“Home Run Hitters Drive Cadillacs and Singles Hitters Drive Ford.” The Big Apple. Web.

“Hypogonadism.” PubMed Health.U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Nov. 0000. Web.

Jacobs, Tom. “Baseball Whiffs When Setting Salaries.” Pacific Standard. Web.

“List of Players Linked to Steroids & HGH.” Baseball’s Steroid Era. Web.

Nathan, Alan M. “The Possible Effect of Steroids on Home Run Production.” Webusers.University ofIllinois. Web.

Olney, Buster. “WHY PITCHERS USE.” ESPN The Magazine. Web.

Payne, J.R., P.J. Kotwinski, and H.E. Montgomery. “Cardiac Effects of Anabolic Steroids.” Heart and Education in Heart. Web.

“What Is Gynaecomastia?” NHS. Web.