Rhetorical Analysis

“Legalize drugs – all of them,” written by Norm Stamper was the article that I chose to analyze. Stamper was a veteran cop on the Seattle police force where he served for thirty-four years, six of which he spent as chief. He has seen the effects of drugs, the harm they do to people and how deleterious they can be and yet he still chooses to legalize them. In the article that he writes he seems to be addressing everyone that will listen but especially those who are against the use of drugs. The articles purpose is to show that drug use isn’t any worse then alcohol and the legalization might actually help the crime rates, related to drugs, drop. Throughout the article he seems to be speaking in a very calm tone but also adds some sarcasm, “We're making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel safer?”

He uses ethos, pathos and logos to convince people that drugs should be legalized. He writes about he was a cop for so long and he used examples of the things that he has seen in relation to drugs to show that this isn’t a new topic to him and it is something that he has knowledge to and has put thought behind what he is saying. “I've witnessed the devastating effects of open-air drug markets in residential neighborhoods: children recruited as runners, mules and lookouts; drug dealers and innocent citizens shot dead in firefights between rival traffickers bent on protecting or expanding their markets; dedicated narcotics officers tortured and killed in the line of duty; prisons filled with nonviolent drug offenders; and drug-related foreign policies that foster political instability, wreak health and environmental disasters, and make life even tougher for indigenous subsistence farmers in places such as Latin America and Afghanistan. All because we like our drugs — and can't have them without breaking the law.” He uses pathos by showing us that we put more people behind bars for drug use then the violent crimes that end up with people dead, not under their own fault. (Quote used in prior paragraph). Finally he uses logos; he tries to show us that it is only logical to legalize drugs. “Regulated legalization would soon dry up most stockpiles of currently illicit drugs — substances of uneven, often questionable quality (including "bunk," i.e., fakes such as oregano, gypsum, baking powder or even poisons passed off as the genuine article). It would extract from today's drug dealing the obscene profits that attract the needy and the greedy and fuel armed violence. And it would put most of those certifiably frightening crystal meth labs out of business once and for all.” He doesn’t say that they should become completely legal but he believes that they should be regulated as we do with alcohol and cigarettes.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20111112/OPINION/111120316/Two-more-reminders-Rx-abuse