Can someone review my persuasive essay?

[montrel68]

This is for 7th grade english. It is a persuasive essay. Please provide constructive criticism.

The Solution to the Drug Problem
The first time that an effort was made to ban a drug internationally was a gathering in Shanghai on February 26th, 1909 and that same gathering agreed to set up the International Opium Commission. As you can see the drug war has been going on for some time. The United States spends $40 billion a year on it and in return for all the cash we still receive negligible results. We need to stop this war and actually control the drugs. We need to tax, legalize and control the less-addictive (soft) drugs. Legalizing drugs would cause crime rates to drop, lessen the amount of money wasted and debt of the US, and stop the waste of government resources on soft drugs that could be better used on hard drugs. More than three-fourths of drug arrests are for marijuana. Legalizing soft drugs would free up resources for highly addictive (hard) drugs. We all want a world with less drugs and this is the step we need to take to achieve that goal.
When alcohol was banned by a constitutional amendment the United States entered a period known as “Prohibition”. Alcohol was outlawed because it was believed that it caused crime. Ironically crime rates increased as Prohibition began. And alcohol was being consumed like never before. Prohibition cradled organized crime because it gives it ground to stand on. You cannot smuggle something if there is no law against it. But alcohol was smuggled and its price was much higher than before because of the danger of smuggling. And since people craved alcohol even more than before they would need to steal so they could have enough money to satiate their alcoholism. Drugs today are expensive because they are illegal. People become broke because of drugs. People begin to steal so they can buy more drugs and they are also influenced by drugs. It’s a vicious cycle. The government can sell soft drugs in quantities that prevent people from overusing drugs. Since the government is selling the soft drugs it means that they will be cheap because they are not illegal. That means that people won’t steal for drugs and they won’t get addicted because the amount of drugs sold to a single person is limited to a certain quantity. As with the repeal of the Prohibition crime will drop considerably and the number of drugs addicts will drop if soft drugs are legalized. But a lot of money is spent on this war.
Do you know how much of taxpayers, YOUR, money is spent a year for the battle against drugs? The amount of taxpayer money spent on the drug war every year is $40 billion. And that isn’t even counting the money spent taking care of the 2 million new prisoners each year. Imagine if the amount of people who do soft drugs is lowered, half the drug arrests are for cannabis anyways. Cannabis is not that addictive. If just cannabis could be legalized then the government could spend much more money trying to stop harder drugs like Methamphetamine, Heroin, and Cocaine.
The legalization and control of soft drugs will most likely end the drug war. It is a war we cannot win with brute force. It is a war we cannot win by just sending people to jail. Because taking care of people in jail costs even more resources. So many police are wasted by hunting for soft drugs like marijuana when the police resource could be better used to hunt down hard drugs that are addictive and ruin lives. It’s like a chess game. Would you rather fight 2 queens and 5 pawns or 2 queens and 50 pawns? It would be easy enough to tame and control what we are fighting over. We could simply legalize soft drugs and we would be able to control their sale and use. Taxes could be used to discourage the use of drugs. But taxes should not be very high because that will make people think that drugs are still expensive and it’s a better thrill to get them from dealers. The legalization of drugs would solve so many problems.
Legalizing drugs means that taxpayers’ dollars would be better spent, there would be less drugs and drug addicts in America, and that crime will decrease significantly. Drugs are expensive and cause people to go bankrupt. People start stealing so they can get money. Drugs are expensive because they are illegal. Legalizing drugs would mean that drugs would be cheaper but controlled (meaning that people can’t get too much at once), so crime rates will fall and drug arrests for harder drug will rise. America will finally start fighting the real problem, the one that we can defeat. Because we all want to be assured that everything is being handled. But that’s exactly the lie politicians have been saying for a long time. We can finally defeat the USA drug problem. After all we have the most in the world.

[bean]

This persuaded me to do drugs.

[lamarr3]

This persuaded me to do drugs.

This isn't a persuasive essay this is more of research paper.

[nann]

First off, you did a great job on this. as far as this being a persuasive essay i'd take out some of the bigger words because people don't really get into what your saying if you sound like your just rereading something from a textbook. I almost fell like you don't really know what your talking about, just repeating stuff you've heard. use words your peers would understand. it would be easier to read infront the class if that's what your teacher makes you do.

your title is the solution to the drug problem. and you give all these facts about drugs and the negative effects on our society and how things would be better if some drugs were legal. that's great. but you don't really have an answer on how to make all this happen. you do mention ending the war on drugs, which is right, that is what needs to be done. but before that could happen we would have to end the marijuana prohibition. because prohibition doesn't work.(and i think you should make that point very clear in your essay. you did a good job doing that with alcohol, now do it with marijuana. talk about how it's being used more today than before it was illegal) I think that's what you should aim more toward writing about. you lightly scratch the surface of drugs in general. but if you were to stay on one topic (marijuana prohibition) i think your paper would be alot better.

"Drugs are expensive and cause people to go bankrupt" I'd take this statement out because it's not true. Marijuana or "soft drugs" as you put it is easier to get than alcohol or cigarettes. it's consumed more by underage kids who do not go bankrupt trying to get it. and i would stop saying "soft drugs" and just say marijuana

"Drugs are expensive because they are illegal." you have this sentence in the second and last paragraph. you don't need it twice. decide where you want it. and take out the thing about chess. not many people play chess anymore and wouldn't understand it

your intro covers too much info. it's supposed to be a few short sentences about what your paper will be about. supposed to capture the readers attention. and i'm not feelin it. in my opinion you should mention the first man that was ever arrested for weed. i'll make your job easy. his name was Samuel R. Calewell arrested on october 5, 1937. sentenced to 4 years in jail for possession of 2 joints.

your paper needs to have a sort of formula to follow. i feel like i'm just reading a list of facts.
your first paragraph should be your intro. 3 to 5 sentences. mention that the solution to the drug problem would be to end the drug war.it's been about 70 years and we still haven't won. it's time to give up because we're not going to.
second paragraph is where you talk about when the drug war started and how
3rd paragraph you talk about the prohibition of alcohol, what it involved and why it didn't work
4th talk about the prohibition of marijuana, about how much money is being spent putting people in jail and whatever else you know about it
and the last paragraph should be your conclusion and should be an answer to solving the drug problem. and that's where you say that to end it would be to end the marijuana prohibition

hope this helps. not sure if you have netflix or not but if you do you should watch a documentary that i think would give you a good understanding of the whole situation. it's called The Union: The Business Behind Getting High.