Jill Jonnes

Jill Jonnes argues in the following viewpoint that legalizing drugs will not reduce crime, as many legalization advocates suggest. Drugs, not the drug trade, are responsible for many people’s antisocial and violent behavior, she says. Legalizing drugs would cause drug use and addiction to skyrocket, she maintains, and the cost of supporting and treating so many addicts would be extraordinary. Finally, writes Jonnes, heroin and crack are much more addicting than alcohol is; the claim that all drugs can be regulated in the same way is specious. Jill Jonnes is the author of Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. Why do people use heroin, according to author Elliott Currie, as quoted by the author?
2. What properties...