CPAA

My cultural problem is drug addiction. I am analyzing how drug addiction is dealt with. What brought me to this topic was watching a loved one overdose and take their last breath.

The first article that I chose to use is written by Mark Walters and he uses an appeal to emotion by showing us a chart with little people to represent each person that has overdosed and revived with naloxone. The purpose of the article is to address the issue of naloxone being an enabler. Walters starts out by giving us an example of an overdose and he uses emotional appeal yet again, by telling us that a man overdosed with his four year old son in the car and it is not the first time that they have revived him and he may go out and commit a crime to get the drug and use again, which may yet again result in an overdose. These appeals illustrate that people are being revived and instead of recovering they go out and use the drug again because they think that they will always be saved and there is no permanent consequence other then a criminal record which shows us that the police deal with this by giving them a record after saving them.

The next article that I found was on how addiction affects the family in a negative way. In this article emotional appeal is used because it doesn't just affect the addict. The article tells the reader about how it can affect the family and then goes into detail describing all the different issues that it causes. It appeals to emotion because it explains how the family goes through emotional pain, stress, and a feeling of mistrust for the family member which makes them want to push them away. These appeals illustrate the fact that drug addiction causes the family to resent the drug addict, so the family deals with this by pushing them away.

The last article that I chose to use uses emotional appeal along with some facts and statistics from the American Medical Association to help the reader to understand that addiction is a disease. This article tells us that addiction changes the way that our body and brain function and causes major changes on the addicts physical and mental health. The author explains that the use drugs changes the brain by stating facts, she tells us that the brain releases chemicals when the drugs are used that satisfy the body and through time the body won't be able to function normally without using the drug. She then states the definition of a chronic disease that states that it is "a long-lasting condition that can be controlled but not cured." This explains drug addiction almost to a tee. She then tells us the opposite point of view which is that drug addiction is not a disease which states that the first use is a choice of the user and they just end up losing control of their behavior. The opposite point of view also states that some addicts reach sobriety without treatment. These appeals tell us that drug addiction has not been classified as a choice or disease yet because the debate is only getting bigger.

Through analyzing these three articles I have shown my readers that naloxone may be an enabler, addiction is extremely destructive not only to the addict but also to the family of the addict, and that addiction is not yet classified as a disease or a choice but each argument has some pretty good reasons to back them up. I learned a lot about the affects of addiction on the brain and what it really does to the addicts family. I think that I should still explore the criminal aspect of addiction and what happens to the addicts when they get "caught" by authorities.

Works Cited

The Effect Of Addiction On The Family. (n.d.). Retrieved from Drug Rehab: http://www.drugrehab.org/effect-of-addiction-family/

The National Center On Addiction and Substance Abuse. (2017, April 14). Addiction As A Disease. Retrieved from Center on Addiction: https://www.centeronaddiction.org/what-addiction/addiction-disease

Walters, M. (2016, August 29). Police save lives using naloxone, but worry about enabling. Retrieved from Transforming Health: http://www.transforminghealth.org/stories/2016/08/police-save-lives-using-naloxone-but-worry-about-enabling.php

http://www.drugrehab.org/effect-of-addiction-family/