Final Blog - Mohamed

Although many of the topics we discussed required me to think deeper than usual, one of the most interesting was the drug trade discussion. Before discussing this topic, I never really thought about where hard drugs come from, or how they affect the lives of those who grow them in other countries. A lot of people will argue that since these hard drugs are obviously very damaging to our society, people should just stop making them. But unfortunately its never that easy. 

I always like to keep an open mind, and I encourage others to do so as well. For many of the topics we discussed throughout the semester, there was always more than one viewpoint. In this case, we in America see drug users and immediately start to judge them. But we don't know how that person got hooked on to drugs. One very dumb decision can change your life forever. But you never wake up and decide to go get hooked on meth or crack or whatever. At the end of the day, its a bad choice, and instead of judging, we should be encouraging people to get help. 

The other viewpoint comes from those who are selling the drugs. Many of the people who synthesize these drugs in other countries do it because they simply have to. They know that what they are doing is negatively affecting so many peoples' lives around the world. But if they did not make these drugs, then they wouldn't be able to support their families. Additionally, in many of those countries, medical care lacks in many ways. Because of that, they use those drugs for pain relief and so on. The same goes for those who sell drugs here in America. Many of them sell drugs because of how and where they are brought up. They never got a good education and the community they live in doesn't have many opportunities for jobs. So they turn to drugs, because its truly their only way to make a decent living. It's hard for us to put ourselves in their shoes, because most of us don't grow up in those conditions. 

At the end of the day, it's just better to be open-minded.