Overview
In a short essay (800 words minimum, no maximum), respond to the following prompt/question(s):
What would you argue would be an optimal relationship between criminality and drug use? That is, should any drug related activities be criminalized? If so, what should the criminal justice response be? Note that you are not necessarily limited to thinking about “criminalized” or “drug related activities” in conventional terms. For instance, you might propose criminalizing corrupt or deceptive medication advertising practices by pharmaceutical companies. Or you might discuss whether drug activities of all kinds should be decriminalized, or whether the implications and meanings of “crime” should be changed. Your might begin with the conception of a society you would consider good, or healthy, most just, or most functional, and stretch your “sociological imagination”, in order to contemplate how drugs and crime would or would not exist as concepts, how your conception compares to our current social order in the U.S. and how drugs and criminality could be organized in contrast. Within your discussion, you should incorporate at least four of the five course materials indicated here: the reading by Davis, the reading by Rothe and Medley, the reading by Roberts, the reading by Peretti-Watel & Moati, and the film “Big Bucks, Big Pharma” (screened in class in January).
For written assignments, please use double-spacing, 12-point font, and insert page numbers. No particular essay style is required, but your papers should involve paragraphs, rather than notes. When citing materials, you may use any academic citation style (e.g. APA, MLA, ASA), as long as you use it consistently. You must cite all sources used. You may use footnotes, endnotes, or in-text citations with a bibliography, to cite your sources. Uploads may be in PDF or Word only. Bruin Learn will not open documents uploaded in Pages, or other alternate word processing software.
Important: No assignments have “hidden” or unstated requirements not indicated explicitly in the syllabus, or in the assignment in Bruin Learn. There are no requirements regarding writing style or tone, and no formatting requirements besides those listed in this syllabus. Grammar and writing skill are not part of the grading criterion, although proofreading is recommended. All students are invited to make a free appointment with the UCLA Writing Center, for assistance in developing your writing ability.
Per the UCLA Code of Conduct, plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct. Incidents of plagiarism may be reported to the College, and may be subject to further discipline. Assignments containing plagiarized material will not receive any credit. Plagiarism includes submitting the work of someone else, adopting language from another published work without quotations and attribution (citations), using artificial intelligence software to write for you or to re-write/edit your work, or resubmitting your own work for two different assignments. In this course, students are discouraged from using any software that includes an AI component that changes wording, including Grammarly or translation software that combines translation with AI re-writing.