Evaluation of General Sources

In this post, I will evaluate two sources that focus on my topic of controversy for Project 1.

Troha, J. "Prescription Drugs" 1982. Public Domain.

Governing's “America’s Biggest Drug Problem Isn’t Heroin, Its Doctors”

This source is credible because it is a national monthly magazine that mainly focuses on state and local government in the United States. The author of the article that interests me is John Buntin. After doing extensive research, I learned that he is a widely known writer who mainly covers health care, public safety, and urban affairs. He has also published several books that are based on the government.

The Web page does provide the date of when the article was last updated; the date was June of 2014, which is relatively recent. There are links to videos that were posted that same year regarding the subject of the article. The text’s purpose is to persuade readers that doctors are to blame for America’s present day drug abuse epidemic. There are graphics of nasal application of Narcan. There is also a photo of a police officer holding a drug kit with a caption below stating, “All squad cars in Quincy are now equipped with tow-dose kits of naloxone.” This further supports Buntin’s argument. Additionally, there are photos of past drug abusers.

This source is doubtlessly biased; if viewers of the website believe its information is true, I am not entirely sure who profits from it, but I can say who doesn’t profit from it: doctors. This source suggests other links that are related to this controversy. It doesn’t cite other sources, however, it does list specific names of institutions and people directly involved with this issue.

TIME’s “Are Doctors Really to Blame for the OverdoesEpidemic?” 

This is a credible source because not only is it a source that professor Bottai provided, but it is a well-known magazine. The author of this specific article is Maia Szalavitz; she is a neuroscience journalist and author of the book “Unbroken Brain: Why Addiction Is a Learning Disorder and Why It Matters.”

The Web page was last updated November 2, 2011; therefore, it is relevant to the past decade. Additionally, there are links to related articles such as “U.S. Aims to Reduce Overdose Deaths, But Will the New Plan Work?” The purpose of this article is to inform and persuade readers that doctors are not entirely to blame for America’s drug abuse issue in the past decade.

There is a picture of a hand with an excessive amount of pills, signifying present-day America’s desperate reliability on drugs. The source is not as biased as the previous article I read, but still leans towards the position of defending doctors. The source provides several links to related articles, as well as names of people involved.