The Case for Not Medicalizing Heroin
             "The Case for Medicalizing Heroin" by Alan Dershowitz is an absurd idea for so many reasons that this reader is infuriated. Dershowitz believes that forced treatment to addicts may eliminate some of the problems associated with this particular drug. He thinks that by giving addicts a daily fix without chance of overdose will, somehow, help them. He also believes that politicians will never legalize it simply because the idea is seen as being "soft on drugs" to their respective voters. Dershowitz also states his view that decriminalization will cause less of a black market and produce a dramatic difference in the number of people who become infected with AIDS virus because of the sharing of needles. Perhaps it would, however, heroin is an addictive narcotic that has as much of a right to be in hospitals as it does on the streets and Dershowitz commits many common fallacies trying to prove otherwise.
             Dershowitz commits a non-sequitor fallacy in his argument by assuming that giving addicts their fix for the day is the best solution. Not only does he believe that it is the best solution, but he also believes that "we can neither eliminate heroin nor the demand for it." (Dershowitz 99) Why not start by first preventing the use of heroin? In all of my 20 years on this earth, the only anti-drug commercial that I can remember from childhood pertaining to the prevention of heroin usage was not even specifically designed against it. A jogger is running, at first appearing to be exercising. A police officer is then shown chasing him as the slogan reaches out to us, "Nobody ever says, 'I want to be a junkie when I grow up.'" The picture and the slogan paint an ambiguous picture of the definition of a junkie for our youth. Memory sometimes being what it is, I cannot be sure that more preventative measures were not taking place, but the key of
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