What is one solution to the problem of drug addiction?

I thought that Poome asked a good question this morning, and I thought a bit more about his examples on my walk home after class. I'm not sure about Poome's idea number 1, plant trees, but his second suggestion, feed cats, seemed more promising.

At first glance, both sound perhaps a bit silly, but they can nonetheless be written up as answers to the question.

Hartmann's question, from page 227 is: "What can be done about the problem of drug addiction?" (2007). Although worded differently, all of the questions offered for you to choose from on page 224 are asking for the same thing: a solution to a drug related problem.

The thesis statement that I'm going to support in an essay is:

For reasons that may appear purely economic but are essentially humane, the sale and use of all illicit drugs should be legalised, nor is there any foundation to the too common fears that such legalisation will lead to an increase in the number of addicts.

This  is a little longer and more complex than the one I wrote up this morning because I've added a clause to directly address Bank's opposing argument. The rest of it very closely follows Hartmann's topic sentence in the example paragraph on page 27; I've just made it a bit stronger. Since I've already written the essay, I'm confident that I can provide the solid support that this thesis statement promises to deliver. If I could not have supported it, I would have changed my mind. The added complexity is what we would expect in a thesis statement compared to a topic sentence. As before, the most important elements of this answer to Hartmann's question are: 

• the topic = the sale and use of all illicit drugs
• the main idea about that topic = it should be legalised = my proposed solution (which I've pretty much copied from Hartmann). The body of the essay has to give support to persuade my readers, especially those such as Bank with strong opposing arguments, that my proposition really is a solution to the problem of drug addiction. If I can't give solidly persuasive support for my thesis, I will fail. 

Tomorrow, we will more carefully analyse Hartmann's one paragraph answer to the question.

Getting back to Poome's suggested solutions, which is why I started writing this blog post, which has wondered a little, I tried to think of some thesis statements where the proposition, what to do to achieve solve some problem, was similar to Poome's specific solutions. These are what I've come up with:

1. Since it can develop the character traits of responsibility and discipline needed to enjoy social drug use safely and responsibly, parents should give their children a pet cat or dog on the child's thirteenth birthday.
   I think that "feed cats" is a bit too narrow, and not something I would want to support as a solution to the problem of drug addiction, but it might be possible to make a reasonably persuasive case for the value of caring for a pet. Of course, it might not be possible, in which case we should drop this answer and look for a new one, such as 
2. In order to teach habits of independence, self-respect and team work, schools should regularly take students above the age of 10 on wilderness trips, which will provide them with the strength of character to say "No" to drugs.
   Again, "plant trees" did not seem promising to me, but it suggested the above, which might be supportable. I haven't done the research or given it much thought, but is does sound like a strong answer to the question. 

The meaning of solution does not include the idea that everyone else has to agree with it, or think that it might work, all that is required is that it is proposed as "a way of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation" (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 1.).

What do you think of provisional thesis statements 1. and 2. above?
Do you have a more interesting solution to suggest? I mean something unexpected or surprising. If you can successfully support something that surprises or shocks, it's likely to be a very good essay.

__________

References

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing, (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hilll.