Dr. Carl Hart’s Incredible Ted Talk Essay Sample

The problem of drug use and drug addiction is one of the key problems recognized by the majority of contemporary American and world society. Therefore, the lecture of neuroscientist and expert in the area of drug addiction user Dr. Carl Hart represents special interest for the analysis and research.
In his speech, Dr. Hart gives the ability to see the other side of drug usage and people that are defined by the society as drug users and the attitude towards these people (Hart, 2014). He ruined a lot of existing stereotypes about drugs, as well as their use and misuse. One of the most important parts of his lecture is the one when he brightly discusses the destructive influence of the drug hysteria on the formation of ineffective drug laws that do not decrease the level of drug abused people, but in fact lead to the enlargement of this problem.
The main issue is that drug users to not always become addicted to drugs. A lot of people that have the experience of drug usage are not addicted to any kind of drug. Moreover, the association of drug addiction with poor black people is a dangerous myth that resulted in the huge number of people that are currently incarcerated and are dying in prisons because of flawed drug regulatory system.
Moreover, Dr. Hart perfectly demonstrated the absence of any connection between drugs and crime and poverty. These negative outcomes of imperfect social system are independent from drugs and have been present in our life long before cocaine or methamphetamine came to the streets. Drugs do not make people commit a crime. Black people do not have to be associated with drug usage. Restrictions do not have to be targeted against representatives of particular ethnicity. All laws appear to fight against some of the negative effects of drug usage, but not against the destructive nature of drugs.
A lot of people die because of taking preventable overdoses of drugs, or because of multiple cases of violence and police interface while the main step that has to be made is change of the attitude of society towards this problem and the change of laws that do not work. Dr. Hart has proposed a lot of alternative solutions that can beat the problem of drug use and addiction in the country. However, the most important is to stop discrimination and criminalization of that part of population that is seriously harmed by racism, social discrimination, unemployment and poverty.

References

Hart, C. (2014, Nov. 21). Dr. Carl Hart's Incredible Ted Talk! Must See. TedMed Talk. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgVfJG_LpZI