Review Findings Contradict Drug Czar's Rosy Views 1/23/04

Someone needs to get a clue about what he is talking about. i am composing my response to your previous post, but everything that bama just said is dead-on balls accurate (it's an industry term ).

Prohibition of drugs has it's roots in racism and is bloodied with racism throughout the system. I understand that you have seen the wreckage and I have seen more than my fair share as well. The point is that another system would be better for dealing with the issue of drug use.

I would encourage you to educate yourself on this subject as I can see that you have an open mind and the ability to process what you see. I understand your viewpoint, I was there myself a decade and a half ago. I have been where you have been and have seen much of what you have. I just took it a bit further and learned about the subject from top to bottom.

 

Decriminalization (the way I understand the term) basically keeps the harms from prohibition but exempts users from prosecution.

While a good start, this type of system continues to give $60 billion per year to organized crime and ensures that our children will have easier access to drugs than they have to alcohol (study done by Harvard a couple of years ago). With a black market, there is no emphasis on keeping drugs from kids. In fact, kids are an easier target because they don't know what they are doing. We must destroy the black market like we did after alcohol prohibition. The only way to do that is to regulate sales to adults.

Actually, it makes a ton of sense that they do not have those problems with drinking and driving. People in those countries are brought up with a great deal of respect for alcohol through education by their parents. They know not to drive drunk because it is dangerous and that has been ingrained in them since they could understand.

The same could be had with an end to prohibition. We could send a unified message to kids that there is NO circumstance under which it is OK for kids to use drugs. We could say with one voice that ONLY adults can use certain substances (whatever those turn out to be). We could further drive home the message through mandatory education classes the prospective buyers must go through to get licensed to buy.

If we can reduce the number of kids using drugs, when we educate those people as adults, the VAST majority will make responsible choices and will not abuse drugs. Once we are treating drug use as a health care issue, we will be able to deal with addicts more effectively with treatment paid for by the taxes that drug users will pay. We can have a system where people just don't abuse drugs once we take away the "forbidden fruit" aspect of drugs like England and Germany have taken it from alcohol.

Exactly. Prohibition is the single biggest waste of money that this country has ever engaged in. It is hard for me to believe that you support decriminalization, which would keep the spending on the drug war up, only to recover a fraction of it in saved jail space.

You need to ask different questions, then. Ask them how old they were when they started. Ask them if they had reached adulthood before using those drugs, would they have used them. Ask them if they would have used them if they had been educated as to the effects beforehand. Ask them if they would have been able to stop if someone had put them through treatment VERY early in their drug use.

Of course a junkie doesn't think heroin should be legal. Duh! Do we ban fast cars because some people are idiots? Do we ban skydiving because some people die doing it? No, we mitigate the risks and make sure that as few people as possible die as a result. Just like we should do with drugs.

That is absolutely untrue. I know that for people willing to do what it takes to get treatment, recovery is possible (sometimes it is a stint in the joint, sometimes it is a stay at a treatment center). I worked in CD hospitals for several years and have seen literally hundreds of people recover from addiction. It would be even easier if health care professionals were monitoring purchases and usage levels to help identify possible abuse cases to nip them before it becomes full blown addiction. We can help these people before they lose everything, but we have to have a regulated system to do it.

I am not trying to be an ass, just mentioning that it is a "moot" point. For future reference.

And yes, we agree on this. Read "Saying Yes" by Jacob Sullum. Very interesting discussion of drug use.

Bias could have been avoided if he had been educated as to the health risks. In addition, I am pretty sure that in a regulated market, crack will virtually disappear because people who want ot smoke will freebase rather than cut their coke down. The real point is that we would also see alternative, lower potency products enter the marketplace (I mentioned Coke and wine mixes earlier). Cocaine sales SHOULD be regulated BECAUSE it is so addictive. Who would you rather have providing one of the most addictive chemicals on the planet: a legitimate businessperson or a criminal. It will be one of the two so if you tried to answer "I would rather have nobody providing them" then you are distracted by visions of a Utopia that will never exist.

They are the only stats that exist! Look at what happened after alcohol prohibition ended for your model. Organized crime lost most of its funding, deaths (and other health hazards) from bad products ended, and violence took a nose dive (based on homicide rates).

The only NEW stats point to prohibition being expensive, counterproductive, and lucrative to criminals.

I don't either, which is the entire reason we need to change the system. Look at my description of the system I would create:

http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63243

We could virtually eliminate abuse and addiction by treating drug use as a health care issue rather than a criminal justice issue.

Open your eyes just a bit further and you will see it.

 

Since you cannot understand this without my entire life history, here you go.

I didn't get drunk for the first time until I was 15, a pretty late start. I smoked pot for the first time at 16 and graduated VERY quickly to much harder drugs, one of which I quickly became addicted to. I went through too much to detail in the following year, but was exposed to some people who got me into the 12 step circuit and I remained absolutely sober for 5 and a half years (I have since decided that I do not have a problem with alcohol). During that time, I worked in psychiatric hospitals and did my written work and internship as a Certified Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor (CADAC, the predecessor to the LCDC cert.). I recovered from drug addiction, as did several of my friends and hundreds of my clients.

I HAVE been there and done that. I HAVE had those experiences. I just added to that experience with alot of research and a lot of thought. You have the experience, but I don't think you have thought your ideas all the way through. That is not to impugne your ability to think them through, I just don't know that you have actually researched this issue. Your opinions come from the perspective of the drug user and one who has lost people to drug abuse.

I would challenge you to think about how the system could have helped you and the ones you love.

 

Education may not deter current drug users much, but I am talking about educating people before they use drugs. We will have to have a plan to deal with all of the people the current system has allowed to become addicted to drugs, but we can reduce overall drug use, and especially use of the most dangerous drugs through education and health care. We will never have a positive impact on rates of use (as evidenced by 30 years of failure in that area) as long as we adopt a criminal justice approach.

Actually, if the entire system is anonymous and not available to the criminal justice system, it should not infringe on anyone's rights. We track rates of use on a number (not a name, totally anonymous) and offer health care options when a person comes in to purchase more drugs. Your Lotus eaters reference is colorful, but I want people to know exactly how bad drugs are for them. If a fully educated adult still chooses to ingest that crap, the role of government is to regulate and tax the product to recover the social costs that will result from that drug use.

Actually, I could see a much bigger stigma in the type of system I am talking about creating. If you wanted to avoid people who use cocaine, you ask your date, acquaintance, dance partner, or whatever, to see their drug purchase card. If they have only tobacco and alcohol listed, you know that they will be cool for you. I want there to be a stigma that drugs will limit your potential and could cause serious damage to your life. I just want to create a system where deaths due to drugs are a thing of the past (we could easily eliminate overdoses and cross reactions with education), addicts are properly treated before their addiction passes the point of no return, and most importantly where kids find it somewhere between difficult and impossible to acquire drugs.

We can have such a system but it will require regulating the industry.

 

I start the threads when the topic strikes me. I am pretty up front about my feelings on this issue, and I will continue to speak the truth and try to get people to open their minds until this work is done.

You would rather that it is available outside your local high school or in your local back alley instead, huh? Drugs like heroin are so dangerous that they should be distributed by doctors and legitimate businesspeople, not criminals.

If you look at the statistics, your buddy is in the minority because LSD does comparatively little damage to the body and mind when viewed next to alcohol. If one is disturbed or on shaky mental ground to start with (something that could be determined during drug education classes), LSD can do some pretty serious mental damage, but those cases are so rare that I have only seen one in my entire life. And that guy was pretty sick to start with.

Think about how much better it could have been had your buddy found it nearly impossible to get LSD in high school in the first place. Then ask yourself how easily he could have been helped if health care professionals were looking over his shoulder at purchasing history. They could have helped him before the abuse became truly life threatening.

 

To say nothing of peyote, opium, mar1juana, and coca. They are all naturally growing plants (didn't God give us permission to use ALL the flora and fauna on this planet in Genesis?) which are unnaturally banned.

 

Of course, what all of the drug war hawks are ignoring is that they could take this source of funding away from bin Laden overnight by regulating the industry. With a regulated market, profits will go to the government and legitimate businesses as opposed to organized criminals and terrorists.

Want to cut off drug funding for terrorists? Regulate the industry and that funding (an estimated $400 billion per year) goes away.

 

Actually, I just read a great book that went over the theological issues involved with intoxicants in various religions and nowhere in the Bible is "sobriety" mentioned, but the virtue of "temperence" is extolled over and over. Look it up sometime (or if you are in Houston, I would loan it to you). "Saying Yes" by Jacob Sullum.

In all things (including drugs), moderation should be the driving virtue. If one exercises moderation with drugs, it is highly unlikely that they will suffer horrendous consequences.