I'd like to start this viewpoint by praising "The Secret Life of... | Casual Coke Users" article that came out in the Daily, Thursday, Dec. 1, titled "Dabbling in the white dust." The article brings to light cocaine use at Tufts, but I'd like to shed some additional light on the subject of drug use, specifically cocaine.
The common phrases used among the "casual" cocaine users in the article were that they were not addicted or could stop when they wanted to or weren't predisposed to the addictive traits of cocaine. Do people do anything that's a vice in hopes that they'll get addicted their first time? Ask a person that is performing fellatio for a gram of coke if they saw themselves in this position ten years ago when they first started - the answer would be a resounding no. The excuse many people use is, "It's college and I'm supposed to be experimenting and what better place than college, which provides a safe environment." You think you've got the drug under control and you don't have an addictive personality. What happens after college, when you leave the safe environment and enter an often hostile competitive world? Things may not go so well and what probably will end up happening is that you'll go back to the drug that separates reality from fantasy, a drug that made you feel good in the old days. This is where the danger lies.
Won't happen to you, you say? That's probably the same thing the person performing gratuitous sex acts for blow said. The illusion of "free will" quickly unveils.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "regardless of how cocaine is used or how frequently, a user can experience acute cardiovascular or cerebrovascular emergencies which could result in sudden death. Cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest." If you're not pre-med, that basically means you can die from a heart attack or stroke. Regardless of your age, gender, ethnicity or health, every time you snort, smoke or inject cocaine, it is playing Russian roulette.
Even if you don't believe me or the scientists that say cocaine use is dangerous, realize that every time you buy cocaine, you're funding a drug cartel. A drug cartel that resorts to torture, murder and rape to spread its disgusting product. According to the U.S. State Department, "Ninety percent of the cocaine Americans consume comes from Columbia. In 2000, Americans spent almost 63 billion dollars on illegal drugs. To put that in perspective, media giant AOL-Time Warner's total revenues for 2000 were 36.2 billion dollars." Dawn, a senior whose name had been changed in the article, said "Me dabbling with some yeyo isn't going to make anything worse." Well, when many people ignorantly think the same way, it adds up to 63 billion dollars in waste that could have been spent on education, healthcare or any number of constructive projects.
Those who help distribute cocaine need to get their heads examined. "Friends" who give friends drugs are not friends, but acquaintance murderers. Drug dealers like Marcus Mattingly are parasites of society. The same way a murder during the commission of a burglary is considered first degree murder in many states, drug dealers should be punished for attempted first degree murder. They knowingly sell a lethal drug in hopes to make a profit. Drugs slowly torture and turn apart an individual and surrounding friends and family. I'm not a lawyer, but that's premeditated and malicious.
Brian Yun is a senior majoring in economics.
