Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Legalised'

Juliette Hughes wrote an article for The Age newspaper about how she thinks drugs should be legalised. She used many different sorts of metalanguage techniques such as using expert’s opinion, appealing to people’s self-interest etc. Hughes is an ethicist; her point of view is from an ethical standpoint. Hughes used examples from history and scientific experiment. The intended audience is a mature audience, who are open minded about the legalisation of drugs.
Hughes starts off by talking about cannabis and the effect it has. This leads to talking about drug users being criminalised and how she opposes. Hughes writes “whether we approve of the activity or not, it is not ethical to punish people for what they do to themselves.” She is appealing