Joe Lau's wiki: Courses/2012b CCH U9005essay 2

Second essay assignment

Title: Should drugs be legalized in Hong Kong?

Details

• Write 8 -10 pages all inclusive, A4, font size 11 / 12, line spacing 1.5, about 1" margin.
• Write down your name, your student ID, your email address and the name of your tutor and your tutorial group number.
• Deadline: Submit a word document file or a text file through moodle BEFORE Monday 5pm 13th May. Your submission will be checked for plagiarism using turnitin. Make sure that you do not copy passages without proper acknowledgment. Otherwise you might fail the course. Print a hardcopy and hand in to Loletta at the Philosophy Dept office BEFORE Wednesday 5pm 15 May. A collection box will be available outside the department office.
• Late submission penalty: -25% if you miss one or both deadlines, and 0% for submission after Friday 17 May.
• DO NOT use a title page.
• The second essay is worth 30% of the total marks (first essay 20%, online quiz 10%).

Suggested readings

• See course web site: https://sites.google.com/site/foodvalues/home/food-drugs-and-alcohol?pli=1
• This is also useful and discusses a lot of the material we talked about in the lecture: http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/160/3-drugs.htm
• You can also cite and make use of any other material you can find. But make sure you give the proper citation.

Guidelines

• The legalization of drugs is a big topic, and you are not expected to go through all the arguments for and against legalization. So focus on the issues most relevant to the topic.
• The focus is on legalization in Hong Kong, not other countries. You can of course take the position that the same answer applies everywhere.
• You are expected to give your own opinion on this issue, and not to write a survey of what other people think. In other words, you are expected to take a position on whether drugs ought to be made legal. You can of course argue for the position that there is no correct answer, but whatever your answer is, you need to give reasons. You can also of course discuss what other people think and agree or disagree with them, but again you need to give reasons. You should not write: "X says that drugs should not be legal in HK. Therefore I agree with X."
• Think about what other people might say if they disagree with you and anticipate the objections and offer some replies.
• We have discussed many issues in the class and you are expected to know that some of the issues are quite complicated. So do not give simplistic arguments like: "drugs should not be legal because they are unhealthy", "drugs should be legal because we have the right to do what we want.". You can of course talk about health and freedom, but the discussion should be more sophisticated than that.
• The same guidelines from the first assignment apply too.

I might add more guidelines later so come back and check this page now and then.