Legal Pot Is A Public Health Menace Summary

The argument of legalizing pot has been in question for years now. William Bennett, who served as the Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan and a Drug Czar under H.W. Bush, wrote an article called “Legal Pot Is a Public Health Menace”, that is full of hard hitting facts. Though all his facts go against the legalization of pot, not all of them are trustworthy enough to decide whether or not to legalize pot. Most of Bennett’s facts are unrepresentative, unclear, or insufficient for the claim he wants to get across to his audience. Among the many facts Bennett uses, it is more than likely to see some way where it falls short to support the logic of the article. In his first fact, he states that “a decades-long study of more than 1,000 New Zealanders who frequently smoked pot in adolescence pegged the IQ loss at eight points.” This not only brings breaks down Bennett’s logic but questions his intentions. Though this fact is true and sounds very important Bennett is hoping that no one thinks about how his article is talking about the legalization of pot in America and New Zealand. This fact is completely unrepresentative of America’s pot smokers and does not help his point along. When looking at
He states it by saying that “2.7 million Americans and older meet the clinical criteria for marijuana dependence or addiction.” The way he makes it sound is that 2.7 million is a ton of people, and it is, but when looking at the entire population of America which right now is 318.9 million. 2.7 million is not even one percent of the population. By not stating in a percent form he is hoping to trick his readers into believing 2.7 million is a large number. By doing so he is breaking down his logic by not making it clear to the reader the small percentage it is, and hoping the reader is not intuitive enough to look into the facts that Bennett gives