Hailey Richman
Health 1050 - Professor Lawanda Esquibel
Decemeber 8, 2023
Reflection Paper
Throughout this class, I have learned a lot about my future choices and how I think about
others that might be using the drugs that we discussed. I can understand now that marijuana has
great medicinal uses when used correctly, and I personally saw this through my grandmother
when she went through chemotherapy. I was able to learn about the ways that it helped with the
growth of tumors and cancer cells, and allow chemotherapy patients to gain their appetite again
through decreasing the nausea side-effect. I also know that this can be seen as a “gateway drug”
for some people, and it can be true. People who are prescribed medical marijuana need to be
cautious and realize the meaning behind it, but that does not mean that we can be blind to it’s
wonderous effects for people who are in pain. A true danger that isn’t talked about enough is the
international usage and history of amphetamines, cocaine, heroin, and opiods, which took over
the drug cartel when consumers had started to cultivate marijuana all over the world. The cartel
still found a way to stay in control and now amphetamines are so widely accessible through the
power of the cartel. I really saw the impact of the cartel when reading the book “Wolf Boys: Two
American Teenagers and Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Cartel” by Dan Slater. I was able to
see how the cartel was intertwined in everything in Mexico and Laredo, Texas, whether we
realized it or not. I had seen that even the police officers were involved at some point, whether
they were being paid to stay quiet through Los Zetas or police mafia’s that were formed through
the GAFE officers that were originally an antinarcotics group but soon turned into their own
drug-trafficking group. This truly showed me that people were willing to do anything for money,
whether that meant that they needed to do it to survive, or were greedy.
Hailey Richman
Health 1050 - Professor Lawanda Esquibel
Decemeber 8, 2023
The thing that shocked me the most was the international connections that I had noticed
throughout the whole semester. I had said before that I learned about the connections between
Mexico and Texas in the book I read this semester (“Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and
Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Cartel” by Dan Slater) but I had learned about several other
international connections that were present with the cartel and the production of drugs. For
example, most of the world's illegal cocaine production occurs in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia.
After it is produced, the cocaine is then shipped around the world via Mexican and South
American drug cartels. These countries that are producing the drugs are strictly doing it for the
money, because it is the only way they are able to make a living for themselves and their family.
This is a vicious cycle that ruins families in several ways; through DEA officers taking down
these farms that are producing these drugs in other countries and ruining their source of income,
but allowing the addictions to continue worldwide, if they keep these farms alive. This ties in the
idea that some people are in the drug business/world just to keep themselves afloat.
Learning all of this infomation allowed me to see the connection in my major and passion
for psychology, and get a deeper understanding as to why people are addicted and how society
can help them. I have gained knowledge on addiction and how easily accessible drugs can be to
anyone that is just willing to pay for it, which can be dangerous for people who are looking to
numb their pain through drugs and alcohol. I have personally been affected by alcohol addiction
through a family member that recently passed away from alcohol poisoning, so this unit helped
me really understand what she was going through when she was struggling with her addiction. I
was able to see how evil the cartels and producers of these drugs can be because they are simply
Hailey Richman
Health 1050 - Professor Lawanda Esquibel
Decemeber 8, 2023
in it for the money, and it doesn’t matter what damage they are doing to families. With that being
said, this semester was incredibly eye-opening, and has ultimately helped me understand and
connect the psychology of addiction and mental health diseases.
