Drugs

8 Pages 1910 Words

America’s inception as a country was founded in smuggling and illegal trade; with that in mind it is of no surprise that drug use and or abuse is a large part of our culture and a fixture in our collective minds. Children today in America go through mandatory drug education (DARE), federal employees are subjected to mandatory drug testing, and all professional athletes are subjected to those as well. Still, even with so many preventative measures being taken to curb Americans from drug use our prison system is choked with drug offenders, and by “drugs” I am referring to the standard grouping of “illegal substances” in this country: what are classified as illegal, naturally derived drugs: hallucinogens, narcotics, opiates, and marijuana. The fact of the matter is that the use of these afore-mentioned drugs has reached an all time high in this country. When an observer to this situation sees only what is occurring presently as the problem, then they are wholly misguided. Drug u!
se has always been, and most likely always will be a popular pastime in the United States, and in fact drug use per capita is only higher, at least my opinion, because of stringent government inter-action and “education”, which I believe only introduces more Americans to drugs than would otherwise be aware of such substances. So where did drugs begin in American life? Getting high at least it seems can be traced all the way back to the first settlement of American land in Virginia…
When Jamestown was settled in 1607 the English colonists were looking for any sort of possible income. As it happened their location for settlement was located in one of the best possible places in the world for the production of naval products. Hemp was one of the first products grown in Jamestown, its primary use of course was for making stiff naval rope for the ships that would be constructed there, however it is noted that along with the growing of marijuana, the ...