If a Person is Drunk or High, That Person is Responsible for Their Actions

Many uneducated people believe that if someone is drunk or high, she or he is not responsible for her or his actions. My opinion? I smell BS. Why do I say this? Well, the reason I say this is because the person who is high or drunk had the decision to take the drug in the first place. A very good counterclaim to this is well, what if the person was drugged? After all, the person didn"t decide to get high or drunk. The person had absolutely no responsibility toward being stoned. My response? You are completely right. The only thing I can say toward this is that that is very situational. That happens in a very precise, planned, and manipulated environment, where someone completely different is in control. In this situation it is the person who drugged the victim is in the wrong, not the victim. I say, again, that a person who is drunk or high is responsible for their actions. It is true that technically they are not in control of what they are doing while they are stoned. You would be completely right in saying this. Their actions are not being completely controlled consciously, so yes, they can not really do anything. In some situations, however, people do have control. Maybe not completely, but some. There is evidence suggesting that a person can be "half conscience" through an impaired state. Some, though not all, physical and mental attributes are still in the ability of control of the stoned person. Of course, another variable to this heavily debated argument is the person itself. Height, sex, and even personality traits affect how the drug affects the person. Say, for example, someone is drunk as flippity doo dah, and they realize (kind of) they"re drunk (i.e. "Bro, I"m really out of it."), and they say that they are going to go and get some more beer to play more beer pong. In this situation, they are consciously able to tell whether or not they are physically impaired. They have the ability to know that they should not be operating heavy machinery, especially in that state of mind, know they are "really out of it". Another point that others argue is that a person who is not educated enough on knowing what drugs can do to you is not responsible for his or her actions. After all, that person can not be held accountable for something they did not know of. It"s as if you were to give it to a child. They honestly don"t know what the consequences are for taking this pill or for drinking a beer. All the info they ever received about drugs and alcohol was that "it enhances the party experience" or that "it makes things way more fun". In this specific situation, you would be absolutely right. In fact, this is one of the only situations where a person should not be held accountable for their actions. They were misinformed, thinking of it as nothing but a pill or a drink. To this claim I say, it is very, very situational. This person would have literally have to come from a different country or even environment in the US where education is not available. They had either very irresponsible parents who did not bother to tell their child of these things, or had no parents or parental guidance whatsoever. This person would also have to be very separated from society, or be in a very uneducated society which was cut off from education. In conclusion, there are many debates, arguments, and discussions you can have about this statement. After all, many problems that happen in the world can somehow be traced to some kind of drug, be it alcohol, cocaine, or tobacco. So my final statement to all is that a person who is educated enough to know about drugs and its effects, who willingly takes a drug or drinks alcohol, is most definitely responsible for his or her actions. Thank you.