Drug Use, Crime, and the Hedonism Theory: Exploring the Criminal Justice Challenge

Drug Use, The Criminal Justice System, and the Theory of Hedonism Introduction Drug use is a critical challenge in the United States that has created political and criminal justice debates. Drugs affect the individuals involved in these practices as well as their family members, the community, and the healthcare systems. Consequently, local, state, and federal laws have been aimed at lowering the use of illegal substances as a way of improving the welfare of communities (Schuler et al., 2019). This project demonstrates that drug use is a criminal justice issue that affects how the system meets the needs of the community and improves people’s lives. The role of the criminal justice system is to deter crimes and drugs have become a key challenge to the accomplishment of this goal in the United States. People involved in drug use are likely to experience mental and psychological episodes that increase the likelihood of committing crimes. The social economic effects of drugs may increase crime rates in communities where this behavior is a problem (Csete, 2019). Through the hedonism theory of morality, pleasure is a key motivation to use drugs and pain is the deterring factor. The pleasure derived from drug use is a motivation for people to use these substances and related the behavior to criminal justice in the United States. I will support my claim by describing the social justice topic of drug use, describing the ethical theory of hedonism, applying the ethical theory to the social justice topic, and evaluating the theory as it applies to this social justice problem. Identification and Description Drug Use in Relation to Criminal Justice One of the most complicated issues of social justice in the United States is drug use especially in relation to the criminal justice system. Drug use affects millions of people in the country and this makes it challenging for communities to grow and meet their social needs (Volkow et al., 2017). In response to the increasing drug-related challenges in the United States, communities have taken measures to improve the quality of lives for the families. This includes the provision of support for affected people and family members, lowering the access to drugs, and treating the effects of drug abuse (Volkow et al., 2017). Moreover, the government has targeted the most affected areas and communities in the country with the goal of assisting the victims recover from the effects of their drug use. With the increase in the diversity of solutions available to the government as well as the communities where drug problems are apparent, this issue becomes essential to the criminal justice system. The relationship between drug use and criminal justice is related to the measures taken by local, state, and federal governments to control the use of drugs. American laws on drugs include the classification of substances based on the potential benefits and the impacts on the users. The drug scheduling system by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) guides the laws made to reduce the effects of abuse (Winkelman et al., 2018). Substances with the greatest potential harms on the users are classified as the most dangerous in Schedule I and could attract serious punishments. Additionally, the substances have no accepted medical advantage to the users and their use could cause significant effects on the body (Volkow et al., 2017). They include heroin, cannabis, extasy, and peyote. People found in possession of these drugs are likely to be using them or having the intention to distribute them to other users. Schedule II drugs have a high potential of abuse and include a range of substances including Ritalin, oxycodone, methamphetamine, and cocaine (Csete, 2019). Drugs classified in Schedule II include anabolic steroids and testosterone which have lower risks of abuse compared to the other substances. Schedule IV and V drugs have the very low potentials of being abused and these two classes are not viewed as posing dangers to the communities. Therefore, the criminal justice system is modelled to abide to the regulations associated with the impacts of the drugs on the community. These align to the implications and the risks that each of the drugs have on American citizens and the penalties for possession may vary depending on the substance. For people found to traffic or sell drugs with the greatest risks of abuse, the pe