Racism In America Essays (282 words) - Discrimination, Hatred

Racism In America Racism In America Race is a socially constructed category. Society assigns races to people based on opinion and social experience. If races are socially constructed, then racism must also be an offshoot of race and derived from social experiences too. Racism, as defined by Webster's New American Dictionary, is ?a belief that some races are by nature superior to others.? Why is there racism in America today? There are two distinct schools of thought; the social psychologists and the sociological theorists. There are two social psychological theories. The scapegoat theory, that argues ?historically, members of the dominant group in the United States have harbored various frustrations in their desire to achieve social and economic success? and vent these frustrations in the form of anger towards other racial groups (Andersen, Taylor, 291). The authoritarian theory ?is characterized by a tendency to rigidly characterize people? (Andersen, Taylor, 291). The sociological theories focus more on institutional racism. Racism appears to be a mixture of the scapegoat, authoritarian, and sociological theories. While majority of the people automatically characterize people into groups, they also have a tendency to turn these groups in punching bags. The reason from this may be the detachment associated with categorizing people into groups other than your own. Therefore, detachment of one person from another allows each person to feel able to blame or hate the other without feeling guilt. George Ritzer would argue that ?Mcdonaldization of society? definitely helps to create the dehumanization needed to ignite and cultivate racism. Symbolic interaction theorists ague that greater interaction within the groups will reduce racism. If racism is socially constructed, then changing the structure of how society allows only brief and indifferent interactions between people, (curbing the growth of mcdonaldization) will help create a more equal society. Environmental Issues

What Is Content Hacking (How to Be a Content Hacker) - CoSchedule

What Is Content Hacking (How to Be a Content Hacker) Have you ever heard of growth hacking? Its a  marketing technique developed by technology startups that uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure. Its a bit scrappy, and completely focused on results. Does that sound familiar? Growth hacking isnt too far off from its counterpart, content marketing, a technique that we all know and love. In fact, its so close that it just might call for an entirely new breed of hacker:  The content hacker. Wait, hacking? Cant you go to jail for that? #ContentHacker = A growth-focused content marketer. #growthhacking #infographicListen, if you want your blog to grow, you may want to learn a thing or two from the content hacker. He or she is traffic-obsessed and focused on nothing but growth. In my upcoming book,  The 10x Marketing Formula, I describe in depth how to combine the best of growth hacking and content marketing. Heres an excerpt from the book that sheds more light on how to become a content hacker. Becoming A Content Hacker In 2010, Sean Ellis, co-author of Hacking Growth and CEO of GrowthHackers, coined the term growth hacking in a blog post entitled, â€Å"Find a Growth Hacker for Your Startup.† Ellis wrote: â€Å"A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.† He further explained, â€Å"An effective growth hacker also needs to be disciplined to follow a growth hacking process of prioritizing ideas (their own and others in the company), testing the ideas, and being analytical enough to know which tested growth drivers to keep and which ones to cut. The faster this process can be repeated, the more likely they’ll find scalable, repeatable ways to grow the business.† From its inception, growth hacking described people whose sole focus is growth. And whose process is a thousand short-sprints that methodically test ideas. Keeping what works; killing what doesn’t. Growth hacking has never been code for being irresponsible and unaccountable. Running fast doesn’t mean running without strategy. But strategy in this context isn’t traditional fare. In marketing, growth strategies are confused with 52-page internal documents that spell out how often you’re going to blog, publish to social media, and push ad campaigns. The stuff of marketing plans. But think about this. Every second you’re not finding ways to directly benefit your customer base and audience is wasted effort. Because once the strategy is submitted, reviewed, and approved by your boss, it’s over. Now, instead of assuming responsibility for the results, you’ve passed it off on your boss. He or she now owns them, not you. In the bureaucracy, so long as you have a strategy, you’re safe. I see this happening all the time. Writing it down feels safe. But the problem with feeling safe is it becomes the goal rather than results. After you’ve spent a week or more in documentation mode, all that’s left is working the strategy. But in the digital landscape, what’s the likelihood said strategy will be viable three months from now? This is the primary fault line in the marketing-plan mindset. Ready for the good news? You can become a superhuman marketer by merging the best of growth hacking and content marketing. The Three Constraints Growth hacking is about turning clever tactics into fast-paced growth. Content marketing is about creating, publishing, and sharing valuable content with your audience to convert traffic into customers. But as we saw in chapter one, with its rising popularity, content marketing alone may not be enough. This means marketers need to take a page from the growth hacker’s playbook. We need to become content hackers. A content hacker is a results-or-die! marketer who merges agile growth tactics with high-converting content to achieve rapid 10x growth. And they never stop doing this. All you need to start are the three constraints: One Metric that Matters + Goal + Timeline = Content Hacker One Metric that Matters The first constraint is focus. Content hackers doggedly pursue growing one, and only one, metric. It’s the gas pedal to slam on- the one metric that will accelerate your business more than any other. Goal The second constraint is specificity. Content hackers set specific goals for measuring the one metric that matters. They’re not looking for â€Å"more† users or â€Å"increased† revenue. They are dead-set on a $100,000 increase in monthly sales. Content hackers set hard numbers to reverse engineer from. Timeline The third constraint is speed. Content hackers define a clear timeline for when their goal will be a reality. It’s a specific month, day, and year. And ideally, it’s much shorter than what sounds safe or comfortable. And there you have it. The three constraints are your new documented marketing strategy; and the tactics and communication between your team remains fluid. People are usually stunned by this. But it’s the happy truth. It’s neither complex nor gangly. Instead, it’s simple, messy in the middle, and effective in the end. We hope you realize that you can do this, too. That doubling your sales, tripling your email list, or increasing users tenfold isn’t outside of your grasp. And even better, you can start sprinting toward 10x growth in the time it takes you to drink a cup of coffee. This infographic will give you a peek inside their inner psyche and help you become a content hacker. The Tweetable  Characteristics Of A  Content Hacker The #ContentHacker doesnt see product/market fit, he sees content/audience fit #contentmarketing The #ContentHacker eats, sleeps, and drinks blog growth #contentmarketing An opportunistic #ContentHacker turns contacts into connections #contentmarketing Where a #GrowthHacker sees scale, a #ContentHacker sees sustainability #contentmarketing The #ContentHacker eats data and only settles for moving the needle forward  #contentmarketing An SEO-minded #ContentHacker has been leveraging the search base since 1991  #contentmarketing Viral growth can be manufactured if youre a real #ContentHacker  #contentmarketing

Warfarin Vs dabigatran Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Warfarin Vs dabigatran - Essay Example Any discrepancy in diet mediated intensity of vitamin K, directly influences the efficacy and dose dependency of Warfarin for the patient. It is essential to determine appropriate therapeutic dosages on individual basis by means of standardized clotting test (international normalized ratio [INR]). Although, Warfarin potentially diminishes the risk of stroke in AF patients by ~ 68%, patient compliance with treatment (time in therapeutic range [TTR]) is a noteworthy predicament because of the essential periodic supervision of dose efficacy and the risk of major bleeding events (Ezekowitz, 2007). On the contrary, Dabigatran does not entail labor and time intensive monitoring and therefore expected to provide enhanced patient compliance over Warfarin. Atrial fibrillation is asymptomatic and generally not life-threatening. It augments the risk of stroke as well as systemic embolisms as the upper chambers of the heart begin to beat irregularly, impairing the efficiency of blood flow. Sympt oms found to be associated encompass rapid heart rate, palpitation, shortness of breath, dizziness, faint or fatigue. Reduced flow of blood results in blood pooling in the heart chambers which may culminate into clot formation. When such clots enter the brain it results in stroke, it is therefore essential for physicians to prescribe anticoagulants to prevent formation of clots. The prevalence of AF in the United States display augmentation from 10% for individuals above 80 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2003). Deaths associated to AF affect 1 in 4000 cases per year, of these, 84% cases are reported to be above 75. Warfarin was drug of choice for past decades as an effective oral anticoagulant to prevent and treat thromboembolism. Over the years researchers were constantly trying to relieve patients from troubles related to diet and drug interactions. Three randomized, controlled trials are available on the safety and efficacy of Dabigatran, they are summarized b elow- Atrial fibrillation patients frequently suffer from coronary artery disease, which is the focus of a Dabigatran phase II clinical trial, to establish its safety in combination with aspirin (Ezekowitz et al., 2007). Three Dabigatran doses (50, 150, and 300 mg) were administered twice daily to patients for 12 weeks, unaided or in combination with 81 or 325 mg aspirin, thereby generating nine experimental groups. The patients treated with Warfarin (INR = 2.0-3.0) were used as a control. The primary outcome of concern was bleeding events encompassing major (6% increase, p < 0.02) or all sorts of bleeding events (26% increase, p = 0.0003), that was reported in patients treated with 300 mg Dabigatran twice a day along with aspirin. On the other hand, 50 mg Dabigatran was less likely to cause bleeding as compared to other conditions (15% increase vs. 300 mg p = 0.0002; 11% increase vs. 150 mg p = 0.01; 11% increase vs. Warfarin, p = 0.044). On the contrary, two embolisms reported in the study were from the cases taking 50 mg Dabigatran twice daily, unaided or accompanied by 81 mg aspirin. On the other hand result indicates that 50 mg Dabigatran, with or without 81 mg aspirin, does not accomplish successful shielding against stroke or systemic embolisms. This possibility was sustained by finding

Fundamentals of Communication Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Fundamentals of Communication - Essay Example 29-44). In other words, the information comes under sharing and transmission in such a way that the receiver must understand the meaning of the exchanged information. However, verbal communication is one of the modes of transmitting the information that also involves face-to-face communication. Sound, words, and language are the few essential elements that come under association with the verbal communication. Although, the authenticity of the origin of the language come under exposure to substantial assumptions and theories, yet several people believe that fundamental sound that incorporate natural sounds and expressions of emotions and gestures are the leading cause for the development of the language. While, on the other hand, according to various theorists, the development of the language is the outcome of the group activities or people working in amalgamation with each other (Alberts et al, pp. 51-57). The history and records reveal the fact that, more than three thousand languages come under speaking by the inhabitants of the globe in the present day. Moreover, it has also come under observation that class, gender, age, and a variety of other social factors exhibit the development of the languages (Alberts et al, pp. 39-56). Although, it has also come under view that the vast and extensive range of languages at many occasions creates complexities between them, yet a single language can eliminate these problems. In addition, language plays a profound and critical role in creating and communicating the meaning (Alberts et al, pp. 12-19). It is the elementary quality of human intelligence to give meaning to the verbal, non-verbal, and written words to communicate. Therefore, people make use of language to â€Å"express, create and interpret meanings so that they can establish and sustain social and interpersonal associations and

Analyze the Effects That the Wealthiest Individuals of the Gilded Age Had on America Essay Example for Free

Analyze the Effects That the Wealthiest Individuals of the Gilded Age Had on America Essay As the American Civil War came to an end, an era of phenomenal economic growth was spurred by a second Industrial Revolution. It touched all geographic areas of America, evident in increased farm output and labor efficiency. The magnificent flow of goods generated could be efficiently transported by freshly lain transcontinental railroads made of Bessemer steel. Presiding over these late nineteenth century developments was a new class of extremely wealthy industrialists, the main beneficiaries of the era’s prosperity. They dominated substantial sectors of the new economy such as steel, oil, banking, and rail transportation. While these individuals created and donated outstanding wealth, they also engineered one of American history’s most corrupt and unequally heterogeneous time periods, dubbed the Gilded Age by Mark Twain. Such ambiguity blurs the legacy of these incredible few, who some call â€Å"robber barons† and other call â€Å"captains of industry†. However, neither polarity is completely accurate. The wealthiest Americans during the Gilded Age had both positive and negative effects on American society. While a large group of individuals amassed incredible wealth during the Gilded Age, there existed an even more elite group consisting of individuals that rank among the richest men in history. It included John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, James Fisk, and J. P. Morgan. To understand their later deeds, one must understand the strikingly similar environments in which these men came of age. For example, all of the aforementioned men were born in the Northeast during the Second Great Awakening, an environment in which principles such as self-discipline, frugality and efficiency were highly valued. Preachers of the time period endorsed the Calvinist view that â€Å"where you find the most religion, you find the most worldly prosperity†, while poverty was considered a condition of the lazy and spiritually weak (Chernow 55). Like many others have done in history, the wealthiest industrialists established religion as the concrete foundation on which they justified their actions. With the exception of J. P. Morgan, the most affluent robber barons also grew up with little material means. Carnegie worked as a bobbin boy at age 14, earning about $1. 20 a week, and Rockefeller picked potatoes for 37 cents a day in his youth (â€Å"Andrew Carnegie†, Chernow 32). These challenging living conditions further instilled frugality and grit inside the destined business leaders of America, qualities that would help them conquer industrial America. Most of the future industrialists also entered the business world in their teenage years. Sixteen-year-old Rockefeller so furtively pursued employment that he visited businesses from early morning to late afternoon six days a week for six weeks until he finally found a job as a bookkeeper (Chernow 44-45). Additionally, they were all in their early twenties when the Civil War began. Amusingly, not one of them enlisted; each hired a replacement for $300 instead (Zinn 255). The young entrepreneurs sought to benefit financially during the war instead of fighting in it, although most supported the Union cause (Chernow 70). The road that each of these extraordinary men walked led them into a monumental era. War raged, new industries boomed, and they had the chance to take advantage of their rapidly changing surroundings. Few in history had as fortuitous opportunities as these men who were born in the right place at the right time. The Civil War gave young industrialists an opportunity to flaunt their business acumen during â€Å"wartime prosperity†. However, with the exception of John D. Rockefeller, who quadrupled his and his associate’s company profits and then bought the company through fair and hard work, their ascent during the period was generally cluttered with acts of questionable morality. In one notorious negotiation, J. P. Morgan bought 5,000 rifles for $3. 50 each and sold them for $22 each to an army general, making a handy $90,000. It was later found that the rifles shot off the thumbs of the soldiers using them. However, no compensation was given because the purchase was an authentic legal contract (Zinn 255). In addition, Jay Gould and James Fisk heftily profited from trading railroad stocks. With inside information, they unfairly beat out rival speculators. James Fisk also commonly sold war commodities for triple their market price to desperate armies (Josephson 66). These young men were still largely in a developmental stage during the Civil War, but their actions during the time period heavily foreshadowed their later actions. Postbellum America was said to be â€Å"the most fertile in American history for chemers and dreamers† (Chernow 97). The young industrialists naturally continued to increase their wealth in the decades after the war with blazing speed, but the actions they made to do so further polluted their legacy and adversely affected American society. Perhaps the most notorious robber baron was John D. Rockefeller. During the war, the twenty-five year old had bought his condescending associates out and then opened Cleveland’s largest oil refinery. â€Å"It was the day that determined my career† he later said (Chernow 87). After the war, Rockefeller sought to further expand his business. He established the Standard Oil Company, a trust with $1 million dollars in capital, with the goal of controlling all of the oil industry (Chernow 134). An action that largely epitomizes his company’s chicanery is the formulation of the South Improvement Company, a collusion with three powerful railroads to increase Standard Oil stakes. Under the SIC, Standard Oil would receive a payment for every barrel of oil shipped by his refineries as well as other refineries, a deal that would discourage railroads to ship oil from refineries outside the SIC, virtually rendering it impossible for small refineries to survive. In exchange, Rockefeller promised to meet a daily shipping quota which would stabilize railroad profits (Chernow 136). When struggling Cleveland refineries heard of the SIC plan, they immediately protested. The plan eventually failed; however, while the plan was intact, Rockefeller bought 22 out of 26 Cleveland refineries in one month, a shopping spree dubbed the Cleveland Massacre (Chernow 145). One Cleveland refiner’s daughter said â€Å"Father went almost insane over this terrible upset to his business. His whole life was embittered by this experience†. Countless similar stories were told as Rockefeller ruthlessly conquered the oil industry by means of horizontal integration. â€Å"The day of combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return† he said (Chernow 148). Whenever legitimate competition arose, Standard Oil took extreme measures to corral it. When a rival pipeline company threatened Standard Oil’s dominance, Standard Oil hired lawyers to act as farmers and landowners who opposed pipeline construction, bought entire valleys of land, persuaded companies to not sell construction supplies to the rival company, and generously bribed legislatures (Chernow 207-209). Using similar coercive means as well as outright bribery, Rockefeller came to control 95% of the oil industry by 1877, eventually accumulating a fortune that makes him the richest man in American history (Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen 541, Chernow 505). His success inspired countless business leaders to form trusts that further disproportioned American wealth, hence indirectly harming America socioeconomically on top of his colossal direct harm. Other industrial captains also amassed their fortunes at the expense of others. Railroad builders such as James Hill, Vanderbilt, and the Big Four employed Irish and Chinese workers at the cost of one or two dollars a day. Hours were long and the work was dangerous. In just 1889, 22,000 railroad workers were killed or injured (Zinn 256). The most famous demonstration of railroad labor unrest was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 which was triggered by wage cuts. 100 people died, and millions of dollars of property was damaged (Carrigan). The steel industry also generated aggrieved workers. Two-thirds of the workers at Andrew Carnegie’s largest steel manufacturing plant, Homestead, earned $1. 40 every 12 hour workday, barely enough to keep a family above the poverty line of $500/year. Asked about working conditions, one Homestead worker said, â€Å"I lost forty pounds the first three months I came into the business. It sweats the life out of a man. I often drink two buckets of water during the twelve hours; the sweat drips through my sleeves, and runs down my legs and fills my shoes† (Reilly 8). The wealthy inequality created by big businesses like Carnegie’s begot class warfare. In 1892, Homestead workers went on strike after the manager decided to cut wages and break the union. When Pinkerton detectives failed to stop the riot, federal troops were called in (Zinn 276). The Gilded Age naturally produced monopolistic big businesses that were owned by immensely wealthy individuals due to the nature of the technological innovations of the time period. They established an unfortunate precedent of greed and â€Å"survival of the fittest† in American society. One must also never forget the hundreds of thousands of forgotten men who toiled twelve hour workdays to enlarge a few men’s coffers. Much like the actions of the Spanish conquistadores, those of the wealthiest industrialists of the Gilded Age are mainly noted for their detrimental effects. However, this Black Legend of the late nineteenth century is not entirely accurate. It is true that greed and inequality loomed over them; however, they also developed the American supereconomy. For example, aided by the Bessemer process, Andrew Carnegie led a dramatic increase in steel production. In 1880, one million tons of steel were produced. By 1910, output reached 25 million tons, largely thanks to Carnegie’s innovative vertical integration (Zinn 254). Incredibly, before the 20th century, Carnegie Steel Company was producing more steel than all of Great Britain (Roark, Johnson, and Cohen 633). Rockefeller also utilized his unmatched executive skills to create a remarkably efficient business machine. For example, by applying thirty-nine drops of solder on cans of oil instead of forty, he saved $2,500 a year early in his career. In time, this tweak saved the Standard Oil Company hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Rockefeller constantly sought for such minute enhancements (Chernow 180-181). His genius can be seen in his jaw-dropping wealth; in 1902, his income was $58 million, over a billion dollars in 1996 dollars (Chernow 504). From 1865 to 1900, the American economy grew eightfold, and this was largely thanks to the talents of the industrialists who aided America in becoming the world superpower it is today (Watts). The 19th century industrialists also did not solely harm the common man. For example, Rockefeller’s monopolization of the oil industry ruined many common men, but it benefited even more by making kerosene widely available. This was because of Standard Oil’s foundational principle: â€Å"that the larger the volume the better the opportunities for the economies, and consequently the better the opportunities for giving the public a cheaper product without the dreadful competition† (Chernow 150). Rockefeller accomplished just this, as the price of refined oil was cut in half as a result of his enterprise. Because of Rockefeller, millions could light their homes for a penny an hour, a cost that would be much higher if not for Rockefeller’s dominance (Folsom 83). Perhaps the advances he gave to the common man outweighed his sins against the relatively few in the oil industry. Adhering to the doctrines of Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, the wealthiest industrialists donated stupendous amounts of money to charitable causes. In 1911, the Carnegie Corporation was founded, a charitable enterprise with $125 million in starting capital founded by none other than Andrew Carnegie. To this day, it is one of the highest ranked charitable foundations with over $2 billion in assets for education, prevention of deadly conflict, and strengthening of human resources (Traub). As an extremely devout Christian, Rockefeller donated money from his very first paycheck, a fact that renders any extremely stingy and greedy portrayal of him false. â€Å"I have my earliest ledger and when I was only making a dollar a day I was giving five, ten, or twenty-five cents† he said. What distinguished Rockefeller from other great donors was his generous funding of medical research, an interest sparked by his father’s shady career. When asked about building medical facilities, Carnegie once said â€Å"That is Mr. Rockefeller’s specialty. Go see him†. In 1901, the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research was founded. Its work produced the first American Nobel Prize for medicine (Chernow 478-9). In 1910, Rockefeller fought hookworm on a global scale and within five years, it was nearly eradicated (Chernow 481). In donating to charitable causes, Rockefeller managed his charitable expenditures as he would with Standard Oil. By his death in 1936, he had given away $550 million, making him American society’s greatest philanthropist (Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen 576). One area that almost all of the late nineteenth century capitalists contributed to was education. Rockefeller himself supported UChicago, Huntington, two Negro colleges, and the famous Tuskegee Institute. Carnegie personally contributed $60 million to the construction of public libraries (Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen 576). Many others also contributed to America’s education. Cornell, Duke, Vanderbilt, and Stanford were all captains of industry. The colleges that they founded are among America’s top colleges to this day. Largely thanks to the donations of the industrialists, the illiteracy rate fell from 20 percent in 1870 to 11 percent in 1900.. It has been said that â€Å"a free government cannot function successfully if the people are shackled by ignorance† (Bailey, Kennedy, and Cohen 573). Thus, the donations of the wealthiest industrialists have had a profound effect on American society as young men and women in schools and libraries across the country to this day have been influenced by them. During the Gilded Age, the combination of laissez-faire economics, post-war sentiment, and technological innovation led to a spur of rapid change that forever altered the American landscape. The wealthiest industrialists of the time period became wealthy by taking advantage of its developments. In retrospect, late nineteenth century American society can largely be viewed as the results of the influences of the industrialists. The effects had no definitive net impact, but they did forever shape American society.

Dangerous Minds Essay examples -- essays research papers

Dangerous Minds In chapter 4, Freire begins to discuss freedom. Although he believes that it should have some limits, he wants us, as teachers, to give our students all the freedom they need. Watching the movie Dangerous Minds made me question where one draws the line and if we even have that choice over our students. In this movie we see how these students in her Academy class are "bright, challenging" students who actually turn out to be rowdy and disrespectful inner-city kids. These students have all the freedom in the world to do and say whatever they want causing a BIG interruption in the lesson and teaching process. In reading Adams- â€Å"The School as an Ecosystem†, he brings up the question of who should control our schools and how? In the U.S we have a multilevel governmen...

The Effects Of Drug Use

Maybe some of us have a good idea that the illegal drug business is still huge but covered somewhere among the â€Å"black† economy markets. After all the numbers one could hear tossed around, I am afraid that the sad truth could be, that no one really knows just how huge this business might be, how many people die, how much blood money has been made and than laundered into legal businesses. It is terrible to imagine how many subways and basements come to be â€Å"the places for being in the clouds†. According to the National Drug Prevention League drugs are an object of the fastest growing trade, except the Internet. Some of you might share my opinion that it is a billion-dollar industry that takes a comfortable place in our society. Drugs have always been with mankind as we seem to carry an inherent need to consume mind altering substances. Many people, who didn’t use drugs before, know only that â€Å"that thing† can make them feel in a strange way. But drugs could harm people when using them. It is not a secret that the consequences could be severe for the users. It is essential that people are educated at a very young age and presented with the appropriate social re-enforcers to understand that there are viable reasons that drugs are dangerous – they destroy lives. Drugs affect people’s thinking, awareness and senses. They have huge effect on people’s physical and mental health because of the chemical reactions they provoke in humans’ bodies. They lead to hallucinations, hearing voices, suspision and a feeling of â€Å"everyone is out to get me†. Also they make most of the organs in your body disfunction, poison blood, kill brain cells and finally, in most cases, kill the person that abuses them. Hallucinations can make people experience things that aren’t real. Probably drug users are looking exactly for that â€Å"escaping the reality† for a while. Don’t you think that until now, modes of life have been based on the material slavery of the masses? Does our society offer us a different life than working all day long and going home to get some rest for the next working day? Maybe not, and maybe that is why people who are using drugs do believe drugs are the magic formula that leads someone to a world totally different from the boring every-day life. There is a clich? that says – â€Å"People have the strange instinct to break every rule once it is established†. When I went to Holland 3 years ago, I found that the government had established some rules that were quite strange for me at first. In 1976, Holland decriminalized marijuana possession. From that time on one can go into a retail shop and purchase small amounts of marijuana. This could be one of the reasons why Holland has a low level of heroin use, a low level of cocaine use, much lower than most of the other countries do. What actually happened was that the marijuana became the filter, preventing harder drug use. But do people of our society really know where the drugs are going to and who are their greatest consumers? It is a pity that one of the easiest places to find some drugs could be in schools. Students who turn to more potent drugs usually do so after first using cigarettes and alcohol, and then marijuana. Maybe there are some people who know that drugs transform schools into marketplace for dope dealers. However, students who continue to use drugs learn that drugs can make strange things with their thoughts and feelings, and the greater a student’s involvement with marijuana, the more likely it is that student could begin to use other drugs in conjunction with marijuana. When talking about night parties, I got used to seeing guys smoking marijuana as imperturbably as they drink their beers. Can you think about somebody you know who has taken drugs in front of you? Here, the bad thing could be that you might have seen at least one person taking drugs freely. â€Å"This is a family problem†- some could say. And according Dan Check’s book † The Success and Failure of George Bush’s War on Drugs† the problem is coming rather from the family than somewhere else. Maybe the society has to rely on the family, as being the strongest entity in its structure to solve the huge-spread drug problem that exists. But here, the weird thing is that parents can’t really see the symptoms of drug addiction in their children. And it is a â€Å"public secret† that the gap between parents and kids is getting bigger and bigger. I don’t want to imagine what the difference between parents and children could be in the next generations. But parents shouldn’t wait until they think their child has a problem. Many young people in treatment programs say that they had used alcohol and other drugs for at least two years before their parents knew about it. Maybe their parents should begin to talk earlier about the effects of alcohol and other drugs use and keep the lines of communication open all the time. Isn’t it better to let your child know that you are concerned, and that you can work together to find answers of these so important questions? It is really harder to stop drug use among children once it is there. Most of the times, after students get involved with drugs, they start to sell them or begin to steal from family, friends, or employers in order to buy the next dose. Determining the consequences of harder drug use could help the new generation stop using them. Maybe facing the answer of this question will make people think about the real price they are paying when drugs are involved. Along with â€Å"escaping the boring reality†, the teeth rot out, the appetite is lost, and the stomach doesn’t function properly. The gall bladder becomes inflamed and eyes and skin turn yellow. In some cases, membranes of the nose turn a flaming red and breathing becomes difficult. Oxygen in the blood decreases, bronchitis and tuberculosis develop. Good traits of character disappear and bad ones emerge. Sex organs become affected too. Veins collapse. Nerves snap. Imaginary and fantastic fears blight the mind. Sometimes complete insanity results. Many times, death comes much too early. Such is the torment of being a drug addict and such is the plague of being one of the walking dead bodies. The statistics show that in the period 1994 – 1999 the rate of death caused by â€Å"hard-core† drugs use has increased with 6%. Maybe the answer for preventing humans and most of all the young people from taking dope is hidden somewhere among all these questions that are hard to be faced by the society. Who is responsible for this to happen? And who is really interested in preventing the dope disaster? Is there something that can be done if we, the human beings, do not realize the importance of the dope problem? Drugs have made a tremendous impact on American society over the past thirty to forty years, yet many Americans are ambivalent regarding their opinions relating to drugs in terms of decriminalization, availability, impact on society, and mental and physical health impacts.