Who is my audience?

1. Who is your specific audience?
   1. I choose for my audience to be the doctors of America. I will write to every doctor in America that is allowed to prescribe pain medication to their patients, specifically targeting the doctors that deal with patients in extreme pain due to cancer or lack of appetite due to the treatment of their cancer.
2. Why did you chose them?
   1. I decided that that would be the most effective audience to sway in my favor. The doctors are the ones prescribing the pain medication. If they think that marijuana is a reasonable and effective drug in reducing the pain in patients that cannot receive relief from any other drug, then it will be easier to convince the legislature. The doctors have more ethos than I do. If I have the doctors on my side, I will be able to make a more credible argument in the future.
3. How will your audience affect your argument?
   1. I will be able to use medical terms  with ease. My argument will need more medical evidence. More emphasis on logos and ethos than on pathos will be necessary.
4. Which fallacies will you need to focus on keeping from your argument? Why are these (individually) important to consider in  your argument?
   1. Hasty Generalization- Everybody who wants pot to be legalized is only a pot head. The only reason they want it legal is so they can smoke it all day.
   2. False Analogy- If pot is equivalent to smoking 3-5 cigarettes a day, then the smoker is 3-5 times more likely to develop lung cancer.
   3. Ad Hominem (Against the Person)- All of these people who want it legal are just a bunch of pot heads, what do they know?
   4. Appeals to False Authority and Bandwagon Appeals- Many other states are already legalizing marijuana for medical use.
   5. Non Sequitur- Because pot is legal, children will hate their parents.
   6. Red Herring- The crime rate due to drug related crimes will be affected..
   7. ***Slippery Slope*** If marijuana is legalized, eventually every other drug is going to be legalized, which will lead to increased drug abuse, high crime rates and we will all become drug addicts.
   8. Equivocating- leading the audience down the wrong path because you leave out important words Anderson-”marijuana has been legalized in 8 states” legalized? what does that mean?
   9. Overreliance on authority- The experts say that weed is terrible for you and should not be used under any circumstance.
   10. Over simplification- This is an easy decision because there is no point in keeping it illegal.

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