The war on drugs is most winnable on the social side. A drug being used as social recreation, whether those drugs are marijuana or cocaine, is arguably the most complex aspect in the war on drugs. Kids are easily influenced by what their friends do; if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you? The answer, sadly, is yes. The teenage mind is easily malleable. The brain of a teen between the ages of 12 and 16 lacks the proper development of the frontal lobe, which means that the brain has not completely matured. With this in mind it is easy to see how teens can be pulled into the world of drugs.
16-year-old Caroline Wakefield was a bright, straight-A student, with a dark secret: she was a drug addict. Wakefield came from a distinguished family, her father was an Ohio judge who headed the President’s Office of National Drug Control. Caroline was greatly influenced by her peers, and boyfriend, who participated heavily in drug use. Their recreational drug use was extraordinarily dangerous and threw Caroline into her world of addiction. Her parents sent Caroline into rehab, but after her escape, she dove into the seedy drug world and went as far as prostitution. It was a slippery slope: because of her friends’ influence, Caroline became a drug addict; because of her drug addiction, Caroline was sent to rehab; because she was in rehab, her need for a fix increased; because she needed to be high, she traded sex for drugs and/or money to buy drugs. All of this was a social aspect of the war on drugs.
Eventually, Caroline’s parents do put her back into rehab and, apparently, help her overcome her addiction. But that is only after Caroline’s father coaxes Caroline’s boyfriend into helping him find Caroline’s dealer. He breaks the barrier of the social contract Caroline, her boyfriend and their drug dealer have, thus making great progress in the groups social recreational drug use. This is the first defense on the social side of the drug war, getting kids to understand what is wrong with drug use and getting their friends to understand it as well. I believe it is totally winnable if the children have heavy parental influence, or if their friends aren’t completely jaded by the “fun” of being high. Of course, the idea that kids will stop doing drugs overnight is a ludicrous one, but it is possible to win the social side of the war on drugs.
You give a good summary of the the Wakefield section of the film, but you might do a bit more with analyzing the importance of Robert Wakefield's change of heart.
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