Economic Reasons for Legalizing Marijuana

Economic Reasons for Legalizing Marijuana The war on drugs- no matter how you feel about it- is undoubtedly expensive. A great deal of resources go into catching those who buy and sell illegal drugs, prosecuting them in court, and housing them in jail. Critics of the war on drugs believe these costs are especially exorbitant when it comes to marijuana, a substance that is widely used and, according to numerous scientists, no more harmful than legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. Theres another cost to the war on drugs, too- the revenue lost by governments that cannot collect taxes on the sale of illegal drugs. In a 2010 study for the Fraser Institute, economist Stephen T. Easton attempted to calculate how much tax revenue the Canadian government could gain by legalizing marijuana. In 2018, for many of the reasons Easton outlined in his study, Canada passed the Cannabis Act, which legalized the adult use of recreational marijuana. Revenue From Marijuana Sales Eastons study estimated that the average price of 0.5 grams (a unit) of marijuana sold for $8.60 on the black market, while its cost of production was only $1.70. In a free market, a $6.90 profit for a unit of marijuana would not last for long. Entrepreneurs noticing the great profits to be made in the marijuana market would start their own grow operations, increasing the supply of marijuana, which would cause the street price of the drug to fall to a level much closer to the cost of production. Of course, this doesnt happen because the product is illegal; the prospect of jail time deters many entrepreneurs and the occasional drug bust ensures that the supply stays relatively low. We can consider much of this $6.90 per unit of marijuana profit a risk-premium for participating in the underground economy. Before Canada legalized cannabis, this risk premium was making a lot of criminals, many of whom had ties to organized crime, very wealthy. Marijuana Taxes Easton argued that if marijuana were legalized, the excess profits produced by the risk-premium could be transferred to the government: If we substitute a tax on marijuana cigarettes equal to the difference between the local production cost and the street price people currently paythat is, transfer the revenue from the current producers and marketers (many of whom work with organized crime) to the government, leaving all other marketing and transportation issues aside we would have revenue of (say) $7 per [unit]. If you could collect on every cigarette and ignore the transportation, marketing, and advertising costs, this comes to over $2 billion on Canadian sales and substantially more from an export tax, and you forego the costs of enforcement and deploy your policing assets elsewhere. Supply and Demand One interesting thing to note from such a scheme is that the street price of marijuana stays exactly the same, so the quantity demanded should remain the same as the price is unchanged. However, its quite likely, in places where cannabis use is currently criminalized, that legalization would change the demand for marijuana. We saw that there was a risk in illegally selling marijuana, but since drug laws often target both the buyer and the seller, there is also a risk (albeit smaller) to the consumer interested in buying marijuana. Legalization would eliminate this risk, causing the demand to rise. From a public policy standpoint, this is a mixed bag: Increased marijuana use can have ill effects on the health of the population, but the increased sales bring in more revenue for the government. By legalizing marijuana, governments can have some control over how much marijuana is consumed by increasing or decreasing taxes on the product. There is a limit to this, however, as setting taxes too high will cause marijuana growers to sell on the black market to avoid excessive taxation. When considering legalizing marijuana, there are many economic, health, and social issues to analyze. Although one economic study should not be the basis for a countrys public policy decisions, Eastons research does conclusively show that there are economic benefits to the legalization of marijuana. With governments scrambling to find new sources of revenue to pay for important social objectives such as health care and education, you can expect to see more leaders exploring the idea of legalization.

An Apple for the Teacher

An Apple for the Teacher The tradition of putting an apple on teacher’s desk was allegedly started by a grade-school student who polished a red apple and placed it on teacher’s desk just before the class start. The â€Å"apple polisher’s† intention was to ask for a better grade or bribe the teacher with a bright and shiny red apple. REMEMBERING OUR FIRST STAGE OF EDUCATION Apple as a Symbol of Teaching in Different Countries The apple has been the symbol of teaching for many years but used differently some parts of the world. For instance, seems so different from the original apple polisher’s intention, students in Europe who cannot afford school fees traditionally bring an apple for the teacher as acceptable payment in kind. In Nashville, Tennessee, U.S, a crystal apple award is given to a teacher â€Å"who made a difference†. Moreover, the apple according to literature represents the happy relationship between teachers, students, and their families and from a teacher’s perspective, an apple on their desk is an appreciation of their hard work and a gift from people who like and see them as noble professionals. Teaching is the most demanding of all profession but according to a teacher with more than thirty years in service, teaching is the most rewarding and noble profession of all. For one thing, teachers help younger generation survive the challenges of present and future by transferring their knowledge and skills. The reward on the other hand such as simple a bear hug from students, an apple on the desk, a birthday card with a note, and so on is far greater than the demands. Teaching Is the Noblest Profession of All Teaching is a profession that is conceptually and ideally noble. Compared to another profession, teaching has a multitude of dimensions and it is considered to be the only profession that requires becoming a qualified practitioner.  For instance, teachers must undertake sound professional training before they can teach, undergo induction training at work and update their knowledge and skills through continuous education. Moreover, teachers are mostly engaged in human development activities. Qualified teachers normally mastered the knowledge of the subject, the pedagogy, teaching techniques, dedicated to students’ learning and betterment of our society. The professional and cultural dimensions of teaching made it an even  more difficult profession. However, the most inspiring justification for being an exceptional and noblest profession is the reality that monetary consideration in teaching is often secondary. One of its primary principles is selflessness and required by the code of ethics to maintain dignity and avoid controversies in and out of school. In fact, aside from maintaining a high standard of personal appearance, a teacher’s own life should reflect dignity in education, act as people with superior educational skills, blameless, obedient, and neutral to any social, economic, and political issues. Despite enormous demands and pressure, teaching is a poorly paid profession, teachers do not usually have similar public respect that other professionals enjoy, considered professional but not autonomous at the workplace, they normally need to work in the evenings and on weekends, perform enormous clerical activities, and in most occasion dealing with poor working condition. JUNK FOOD IN SCHOOL

Businesses and Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 15

Businesses and Society - Essay Example As the paper outlines they also need to meet other expenses such as food as well as other related bills from this same income. Against this backdrop, it can be noted that the basic problem addressed is that elderly people remain citizens of their given communities and they should be honoured and cushioned from paying high prices especially on drugs that are meant to save their lives from threatening diseases. The main concepts being addressed here include the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and that of morality which derives from the concept of ethics. There is need to balance the needs of the people in the society and the need for businesses to be profitable in a moral fashion. This paper highlights that Strydom suggests that â€Å"Social responsibility is the concept that maintains that businesses are part of the larger society in which they exist and are accountable to the society for their operations.† In other words, there is need for the organisations to strike a fine balance between the needs and interests of customers, needs of the environment and the need for businesses to realise their financial goals. This goes hand in hand with the concept of ethics, which is loosely defined as an attempt to distinguish between something that is morally good from bad. The issues of morality and social responsibility have gained prominence especially with regards to the ways businesses operate. There is need for businesses to establish goodwill with the values and norms of any given society it would be operating in as a way of promoting mutual understanding. The success of any given company would be determined by its willingness to observe the social norms of the areas it would be operating in.

Narrative criticism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Narrative criticism - Essay Example es of narrative criticism have emerged; some people have claimed that narrative criticism is a fundamental tool in communication processes owing to the fact that it facilitates the understanding of texts and how they reflect on human life structures, thus creating a platform for information sharing and exchange (Pullman, 7). As a method of literary analysis, this approach has been a subject of negative and positive criticism. To begin with, some scholars have claimed that the application narrative criticism is majorly based on a dimension of literary analysis that allows readers to assess literary works in a holistic manner, by noting different characteristics and styles that are similar to other literary works, taking into consideration, the beginning, middle as well as the end (Powell, 3). On the other hand, some narrative critics have asserted that it is basically a method that does not focus on a holistic analysis of literary works, but rather focus on specific elements of literary works, which seem relevant to the story line or the main theme. Moreover, this group of critics has claimed the narrative criticism is a basic tool for literary analysis that engages its readers through understanding how the literary works relate with real life experiences (Byron, 13). This is usually achieved through various points of view passed by the narrators and relating them to the real life experiences of its readers. According to Allan Powell (1990), Narrative criticism can be considered a function of events. This is because in its application, a high sense of priority is given to the text from the ideas of ‘implied readers’ and ‘implied author’: The essence of implied author as well as implied reader are usually determined by signatures emerging from the text. Powell also asserts that narrative criticism is a function of events, basically due to the fact that it involves taking into consideration characters and settings of a literary analysis that forms its

Gold as a Hedge against the Devaluation of the Dollar Research Paper

Gold as a Hedge against the Devaluation of the Dollar - Research Paper Example For example, the price of gold had been remained the same for about two hundred years after when Sir Isaac Newton had set the gold price at L3, 17s. 10d. per troy ounce in 1717. The gold prices have been raised to extreme levels after 1973. The gold rate in 1973 was $97.39 which was average price, and it rose to $444.74 in 2005, which has now become $1224.53 at the end of 2010. The calculation of five-year annualized rate of return on gold as an investment alternative has been given below. The gold rates have been taken for year 2005 and 2010, which are $444.74 and $1224.53 respectively. The formula for computing the rate of return of gold is as follows: 100*(second price/ first price) ^ (1/ (second year – first year))-100 Putting the values for second price ($1224.53), first year ($444.74), second year (2010), and first year (2005), we will get the rate of return on gold as an investment alternative for the period of 2005-2010 as follows: 100*(1224.53/444.74) ^ (1/(2010-2005) )-100 = 22.4539074 From the result we have got, we can get the rate of return on gold as an alternative investment, which is in this case is 46%. Relationship between gold and USD value: This section will provide the necessary details about the relation between the gold and USD value in both the domestic as well as in the international economy. Some of the key factors will also be presented that affect key changes into the value of USD. Firstly, we will be talking about some of the factors affecting the US economy on the domestic economy. The domestic economy actually tends to affect the exchange rates of a country. The apparent position of the US economy in the economic cycle is one example, in which we experience a boom, bust, and then expansion or contradiction. Factors such as economic growth, inflation and economic outlook actually highlight the economic condition and health of the country. The level of interest rates will be influenced depending upon the economy’s posit ion in the economic cycle, e.g. the economic cycle’s booming phase will experience the interest rates to be increasing despite the slow demand. The possibility of the occurrence of the inflation is also reduced. The monetary policy of the US is quite similar to that of Australia in terms of interest rates rising to lower down the pressures from the inflation or monetary demand. On the other hand, an increase or a decrease in the interest rates in the US causes the demand or supply of the currency to increase or decrease. ‘Debt levels’ is considered to be the major problem with the US economy. The USA is still facing the severe debt crisis as it owes to the other countries trillions of dollars. This has the effect of pressurizing the economy of the US. Another alarming factor is that the US financial institutions pay more interests to their lenders than the one they receive from their borrowers. The difference in the two countries’ interest rates really aff ects the demand of the foreign currencies. In simple terms a country will only invest into another country if the former is getting a good return from the latter on the investments. The most suitable example for this event is the higher interest rates in Australia in 2009 and the US interest rates were lower. Hence the investors moved to Australia instead of US. The overall effect of that was the upward pressure imposed on Australian dollar and a downward on US dollar. Now about the gold

LOreal Global Marketing Strategy

LOreal Global Marketing Strategy LOreal is a great example of how global branding strategy can be used to generate new growth opportunities when all other companies were not going great guns. In the late 90s and early 2000s when the Asian and Latin American economies were shaky and doing poorly, and numerous international brands struggled, LOreal surged ahead. How did it happen? The answer lies in their beautifully framed mission statement as it elaborates their understanding of the marketability of their product and the need of marketing it globally: at LORÉAL; we believe that everyone aspires to beauty. Our mission is to help men and women around the world realize that aspiration, and express their individual personalities to the full. This is what gives meaning and value to our business, and to the working lives of our employees. We are proud of our work. (Source: LOreal website, www. loreal.com) 1 In 2005, the $18.89 billion LOreal group was the most successful cosmetics brand. According to the business week survey 2004 LOreal was ranked 49th. LOreal marketed beauty products e.g. Makeup, perfume, and skincare and hair products to both women and men in approximately 150 countries. The LOreal group reported its 19th consecutive year of double digit growth in December 2005. Since 1989, LOreals sales had grown at a compounded annual rate of 12% to 1.7 billion. Analyzing the kind of growth story it has written an analyst has rightly described it as the United Nations of beauty .the kind of global presence LOreal has it can only be compared to the United Nations. LOreals global branding strategy thats doing wonders has been actively spearheaded by Owen Jones himself. Lindsey Owen Jones has been the CEO of LOreal for nearly two decades and a chairman now, and under his leadership LOreal has really fine tuned its global branding strategy. Interestingly some press reports tell us that he has been seen roaming around streets in foreign markets to understand the new and existing trends. And without any doubts his interesting work style seems to work wonders. The branding strategy of LOreal has such an impact that LOreal seems to be the only global leader in every segment of the cosmetics industry, right positioning of its products seems to be the key .whatever its trying to sell the French elegance or street smartness of America; is getting good response throughout the world .and LOreal has been able to reach its consumers across the national and cultural boundaries. Owen Jones says: We have this great strategy back in the head office of how we are going to do it worldwide. But when you go out and look at what is happening, is there a big gap between your projections and the reality of what you see and hear? It is so important to have a world vision because otherwise decentralized consumer goods companies with many brands can fracture into as many little parts if somebody isnt pulling it back the other way the whole time with a central vision. This really explains why he prefers roaming in the streets for his strategy making rather than sitting in the boardroom. Having said all that its quiet evident that the global branding strategy of LOreal has paid huge dividends to the company overall. In order to understand this splendid growth story we need to see how exactly LOreal applied their strategy to the countries that were entirely distinct as far as the lifestyle, spending pattern and culture is concerned. LOreal was started in France, has a good brand value in the united states of America, is reaping good dividends from India and has a remarkable presence in Japan. These are different complex societies with different needs, so how exactly LOreal managed to be equally successful in all these places? This question needs some fact finding to be done on the basis of country specific products and strategies adopted by the cosmetics conglomerate. Thats what exactly we will try doing in the next section of this case study. In India 4 billion 7.5 ml sachets are sold every year and thats a staggering 66% of total shampoo consumption in India. Most of the urban Indian women (96%) use shampoo, however only 46% use foundation. For hair care a huge 74% population of Indian women still rely on home remedies, 42% use henna and 94% use hair oil, as far as the LOreals sale per person in India is concerned is just 10 cents compared to 28 Euros per person in France. In India skin lightening creams (fairness creams) constitute more than 50% of skincare market people seem to be crazy for getting for getting fairer. (Source: LOreal, Nielsen) These facts are self explanatory about the nature of Indian market and its clearly stating that the strategy used in USA or any other European countries is not going to work in India. USA is a mature market as far as cosmetics consumption is concerned India is an emerging economy with most of the population below 35 years of age and a huge aspiring middle class. The cosmetics market is growing approximately at an annual rate of 16% in India, still a long way to go. The youth in urban centers is very concerned about the image but the larger section is still off the fashion map. Interestingly even after the success story of corporate India , apparently its still a country that is very much community oriented. The great Indian middle class is aspiring but still has the community driven cultural values intact. LOreal has taken this fact very much into consideration while preparing the marketing strategy for India. A very good example would be the launch of garnier fructis shampoo in India. The concept was to rely on idea rather than relying on advertising a brand. The idea of getting five times stronger hair was the central point that created the hype, through word of mouth or network marketing. Initially it was positioned as product for young and teenagers, once the product was established in the market it tried to change or rather increase the target base by shifting gears. In a recent advertisement of garnier hair color a daughter is shown advising her mother to try the garnier product and explaining the benefits. Again it relies on the concept of idea getting spread by word of mouth to another customer segment. This is the best example of marketing in a closed community driven society. There is one more remarkable thing about this entire campaign the catch line take care. It shifts the focus from the product to the core value of Indian society caring about others and the entire advertisement becomes more of a good advice rather than publicity. China is the worlds most populated country in the world and that makes it very clear that it has the potential of being the biggest consumer market. These days Chinese women are spending on an average 10 to 15% of their income on cosmetics products, an urban Chinese lady would use 2.2 cosmetics products on an average every morning. Evidently most of them want to be fashionable and the LOreal punch line if you want to be fashionable, just choose Maybelline, really seems to work. Masses are made to believe that this is something that represents America and it ought to be trendy. Maybelline is the product line for the masses and LOreal really uses the tendency of masses to look towards the USA thats why the Maybelline products are displayed against the backdrop of shiny skyline of New York City Chinese women prefer skincare and beauty products. According to a research by LOreal in china women are concerned about the radiance of their skin and prefer skin nourishing lotions that protect their skin from skin-drying winters. Unlike us customers most Chinese women like skin whiteners rather than tanning products. Its a sign of beauty for Chinese women. Also, the texture of Chinese hair is thicker and more course than typical US Caucasian hair. This requires different product, and really a different skill set to effectively sell and get these products moving in China. LOreal has dedicated research facilities for these and other issues, and followed up with more innovations to suit the needs and preferences of Chinese consumers.   There is one more very interesting fact about Chinese cosmetics industry; Chinese women are very concerned about the ingesting of lipsticks. This is the most interesting food attitude about Chinese women. Now following its global strategy LOreal even took this into consideration and developed lipsticks containing vitamins; as soon as this was told to the women they were more comfortable in using the product. European countries are mostly developed, here LOreal has the liberty of publicizing the brand value rather than focusing on pricing, the benefit to LOreal in these markets is that it is already well established and the brand is well known so it can concentrate on grabbing the attention of individualistic feminist women. Pricing is not a concern in these markets so LOreal can afford to have punch lines like-I am worth it because these punch lines justify the high pricing of the products and fulfill the feeling of exclusivity of high end clientele. Now lets take another example from the European and us markets, LOreal brands in these markets are quiet well established. LOreal products have been used there for few generations now; once young consumer of the LOreal brand has started aging and the same street smart products could not be positioned to them, they have started becoming the mature citizens; now their priorities have changed. A recent market report suggests that the new target segment in the cosmetics industry is 40 plus women who once used the teenage cosmetics products. The thrust is on anti aging products because it not only adds the new customer base but retains the once teenage customer also. Customer from the baby boom generation reaches the retirement age and tries to maintain healthy and youthful look and finds out that their favorite cosmetics brand is still making products for them. LOreal capitalized on their desire to look youthful and started marketing it anti aging products, it has signed sixty year-old D iane Keaton to represent the Age Perfect Pro-Calcium skin care line. Also LOreal has signed Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, Eva Longoria and Beyoncà © Knowles to promote specific cosmetics lines according to the age groups. Now this tells us how LOreal used the desire of customers to position its products. The French conglomerate believes that only two different cultures as far as fashion is concerned, are dominant, represented by two flagship brands LOreal Paris and Maybelline new York. LOreal has been projected as a French origin with elegance, high end presentation and obviously high pricing. Whereas the Maybelline product line represents the street smart American babe who is looking for the value of the money. America seems to be the growth engine of the world, in the cosmetics industry as well. LOreal has understood this and they made a strategy based on the trends in the USA and thats how Maybelline came into existence. Maybelline currently is the second largest brand in share of unit sales of cosmetics products and number one in makeup brands. It claims to be totally consistent with todays confident woman. Maybelline products targets three customer segments; youngster (16 to 25), office lady (26-35) and career women (35 plus). Marketing mix for Maybelline line of products consists of two main strategies: foreign consumer cultural positioning and symbolic New York City imagery that women can relate to everywhere. Maybelline promotion include different way of grabbing attention including promotional coupons, online advertising, sponsorship of fashion shows, signing fashion icons as spokesperson of the product ,free make up consultancy and providing scholarships etc. we can see as American cosmetic market is a mature market so LOreal tries to rely on mature marketing tactics. In the early 20th century, even American society was not very much open to makeup and skin care products .people thought that only sinful women should wear makeup but eventually with the economic independence that the American women gained; makeup and cosmetics started coming into mainstream. Cosmetics apparently became the symbol of new self belief that the American women was beaming with; and remember even Maybelline claims to be totally consistent with todays women, there are several other punch lines like maybe shes born with it, maybe its Maybelline, all the punch lines keep the self confidence of women in centre as if its not the make up but its the attitude that has to be worn. Thats why women of every nationality and culture started identifying herself with the product and this became the symbol of the 21st century woman. We always say that the world has turned into a small village. Production houses are becoming more and more global. But same cant be said about the consumers as they would still be using the products because of their own reasons. Someone in the USA can use a product just to feel exclusive however the same product could be used in the UK for health reasons. So the companies need to identify the demands of a specific market to effectively satisfy the demand while planning the globalised marketing strategy. Therefore the challenge posed to the companies is whether they should just keep changing their strategy according to the culture or can they consider every customer as a global customer with all common needs. Thats the irony we are supposed to work with these days; on one hand companies are on a global platform more than any other point of time in history however they have to adapt to the mindset and lifestyle of the customer as well. The mindset and the lifestyle of the customer are heavily impacted by the culture. Culture is defined by different norms, values, interactions, language and others personal components shared by groups of people across the world. It is a social phenomenon which defines peoples interests, thoughts and other behaviors they may exhibit in the social life. From one country to another, humans have evolved and developed different types of expressions, beliefs and behavior which can be difficult to understand for someone who does not belong to the same culture. culture is the way how the members of a particular group interact with each other on the sharing of the available means, now that determines what is going to be the need for a particular product in that society, that also decides whether a particular advertising strategy will work or not and how exactly that will be interpreted by the target customers. In different markets consumer requirements and consumer behavior may vary. Cultural aspects deeply impact the consumer behavior; the impact may be direct or indirect. The culture distinction creates the consumer behavior difference, as it can be noticed between the Asian and European continent where the culture and the behaviors are very different. Being a global organization LOreal certainly needs to understand the cultural differences and position its products accordingly otherwise the results may be far more different than they are at this moment. The thrust has to be on hitting the right customer with the right product. This can be possible only if one has a deep knowledge of local culture and beliefs. A very interesting example would be of lipstick use in china; according to a research only 3% women use lipstick for makeup. The reason that was supposed to be behind this low percentage of lipstick use is even weirder; women in china have concerns about ingesting lipstick. LOreal conducted a survey to see whether this is just an age old saying or it holds some truth, based on the findings it came up with a lipstick that had vitamins in it and in turn the demand for LOreal vitamin lipsticks increased. Another example could be real handy; in India long hair is considered necessary for a woman to be considered beautiful. LOreal considered this fact while launching its shampoo product in India and it focused on publicizing the fact that using the garnier fructis shampoo helps in getting long and strong hair. This strategy made the product very popular in India. In china or India people like to have fair complexion. In Asia, women take special care of their skin. People want radiant skins and lotions that can nourish their skin against sun .whereas in the United States people would rather buy tanning cream. On basis of this knowledge LOreal can position their whitening creams in India and the interesting part is the way the advertisements could be interpreted .the way the advertisements for the fairness creams are made in Asian countries these can be interpreted as racial advertisements in the USA but in Asian countries that seems to be quiet usual. Now thats where the knowledge of the culture and beliefs comes handy and helps avoiding unnecessary problems. From a business point of view, companies have to adapt themselves to the culture of each country in which they want to have business in.  for example, Because of the differences of culture between countries, companies need to adjust their products and services according to the local demands. This will help them to create and develop a brand image across the globe that is based on a large number of globally recognized products. Based on these examples we can say that LOreal was able to be successful in these markets because it adapted to ground realities of the particular market yet it followed a standardized strategy. If we study the marketing mix of Maybelline, it has two pronged strategy -one for the foreign markets another is the global street-smart image of the American chic. The global street smart image of New York chick can be admired in almost all the urban centers, be it India, china or Brazil. However there has to be a right mix of local flavor as well. The most important part of the LOreals strategic plan is opportunity hunting or the marketing of their products worldwide. From the initial days it already started catering to the demands of women worldwide. In order to do that efficiently they were expected to be well aware of the diversities of women across the globe .once they knew the diversities their job was to come up with different line of products suitable to the women from all parts of the world .Innovation has been the keyword for LOreal and this was made possible through constant research and development over the years .the group has already covered most parts of the world and still striving to cover more. In order to do so LOreal group has to keep respecting other peoples identity ,ideas and culture .LOreal has to keep valuing different cultures and nationalities to get their brand value up and it seems that they have been doing it really well. The success story can continue further because even today products of LOreal touches the cultural values instilled in potential customers mind .LOreal just doesnt sell the product it makes the customer buy the idea of dreaming big but still remaining rooted to the core cultural values .it has carefully devised its global marketing strategy and customized it to the local needs, and thats the reason people from Africa to Europe and America to Australia are using the LOreal products. LOreal has been doing pretty well in terms of global presence and monetary growth. The mission today is to understand consumers needs and expectations so as to meet them as effectively as possible along with widening the scope of global line of products.

Ecstasy :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Ecstasy† MDMA also, known as ecstasy, has killed at least 15 young people and doctors are extremely concerned with it’s long term effect from continued usage. The usage of ecstasy increases every year and is usually taken by teenagers at clubs. But, more importantly the people taking this drug are young and that has to be a concern. Many of the drug users have no idea what there in for. Many don’t know that it only takes one pill to ruin a lifetime. Like any drug once it enters the human body, eventually the brain comes in contact with it. That’s when the psychological and physical effects come into action. MDMA is currently classified as a Schedule I substance. Until 1985, MDMA was used extensively by psychiatrists and psychologists to help people with certain psychological and emotional difficulties. Although it was said to be a aphrodisiac drug there is no evidence to prove it. Many of those who take ecstasy say it brings them a feeling of expansive well being. As the drug comes in contact with the brain, which is the control center for all thoughts, the neurotransmitter called serotonin is alerted. Serotonin controls our sensations of hunger, fatigue and depression. If serotonin increases in a great amount, that’s when the user feels satisfied and no guilt for decision on taking the drug. Ecstasy is taken in the form of pills, though there are different types of pills. According to some sources, six new designs are produced every month. Some include red and black capsules, known as â€Å"Dennis the Menace†, â€Å"White Doves†, and â€Å"Hamburgers†. An Ecstasy high can last from six to 24 hours, with the average â€Å"trip† lasting only about three to four hours. Ecstasy has the tendency to break down barriers between therapists and patients, lovers, and family members. Many of the risk user’s face with MDMA are similar to those of cocaine. Ecstasy causes many psychological difficulties, including confusion, depression, sleep problems, drug craving, severe anxiety, and paranoia-during and sometimes weeks after taking MDMA. Ecstasy causes confusion because it’s usually taken at a club where a lot of people attend and loud music is played. Ecstasy is a tolerant drug. In order to get the same effects after a period of time; the user needs to increase the dosage. MDMA has also shown some cases of liver damage and heart attacks. Although research has not yielded evidence of Ecstasy-induced brain damage in humans, heavy administration of the drug has produced neurological damage in rats and monkeys.