United States: Essays 1952-1992 - "Drugs" (1970) Summary & Analysis

This Study Guide consists of approximately 129 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of United States.
Study Guide

United States: Essays 1952-1992 - "Drugs" (1970) Summary & Analysis

This Study Guide consists of approximately 129 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of United States.
This section contains 248 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the United States: Essays 1952-1992 Study Guide

"Drugs" (1970) Summary and Analysis

Vidal proposes a simple solution to most drug addiction in the United States: make all drugs available, sell them at cost and label each drug with an accurate description of the effects—good and bad—the drug will have on the user. Vidal says his plan will work only with the kind of "heroic honesty" that would inform people that marijuana is neither dangerous nor addictive, but that heroin is highly addictive and potentially lethal.

Ideas of personal liberty professed and practiced by America's founders stress that each person has the right to do what he or she wants, so long as it doesn't interfere with someone else's pursuit of happiness, Vidal reminds the reader. This notion, however, is "startling" to a generation of high school students who form the so-called "silent majority." Vidal observes the short...

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This section contains 248 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the United States: Essays 1952-1992 Study Guide
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