Have your own blog, but are itching to say something that won't fit your format?
Have your own drug war tragedy or victory to share?
or just want to get something off your chest?
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Letters to the Editor
Quincy Herald Whig
Quincy, Ill. 62301
Dear Editor:
"Those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success." says Bush. You’re on, George!
End the “War On Drugs”! Stabilize Afghanistan through legal opium, marijuana and hashish markets. They’ll produce these anyway - they’re the only things which make them real money - so let them do it above board for a change. After oil and armaments, “drugs” are the third largest cash market in the world. But it’s a black market! Strategically, don’t loud alarm bells go off? The UN estimates it’s worth at half a trillion dollars/year. This black market is the world’s greatest corruption engine. There will never be peace until it comes in out of the cold.
How did we get where we are? Follow the money. As the Iran-Contra and Bank of Credit & Commerce International (BCCI) scandals clearly showed, when the Reagan/ Bush I Administrations wanted to get around Congress - the Boland Amendment- to engage in extra-Congressional wars, all it took was a dip in the great ocean of black market drug money and bingo! - money for the Contras, money for the Mujahideen. Executive Branch proxy wars where the American people stay nicely in the dark as to what is really being done in their name. Or who pays for it or reaps the “benefits”.
The BCCI scandal showed the Reagan/ Bush I Administrations allowed the Mujahideen - i.e. Osama bin Laden - to launder drug money through the BCCI Bank in Pakistan to buy arms from US corporations and fight the Russians. Such a nice little trick! Only it brought the CIA, Islamic Jihadists, organized crime, various dictators, arms dealers and corporations together in a devil’s bargain which underlies the “blowback” of 9/11 and Bush’s folly in Iraq.
Congress has “the Power of the Purse” to serve as a check on Executive Branch warmongering. But if the Executive can just avail itself of a little laundered drug money to cancel that check then the “democracy” has lost control of the purse strings of war. “We the People” becomes “Me the Decider”.
The “War On Terror” and the “War On Drugs” are opposite sides of the same circular Equation of Corruption: “War On Terror “ / “Military Industrial Complex” = “War On Drugs” / “Prison Industrial Complex”. Strategically, to de-fund “terrorism” and cancel both sides of the above equation, the “drug trade” should be legalized.
This article was written under the influence of LSD
Now I try not to complain about something that's obvious, or can't be helped, or has been beaten to death already. In this case, I think that most people aren't aware how much this affects the half of the country that doesn't vote.
This is a problem that goes back to the founding of this country, and it's something that Americans brag about.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Freedom of religion is so fundamental to American ideology that it has been misused by the Christian Right to defend government favoritism toward Christians. But do we have freedom of religion? We definitely have the freedom to be Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. If Hindus had the Christian Right's "religious freedom" they could outlaw hamburgers. What about animal sacrifice? You can legally feed certain animals to other animals, but to ritualistically kill an animal you own is "animal cruelty". Rastafarians are not free to practice their religion. Natives can use peyote for religious purposes. Why not hippies?
I found the sticking point in an older ruling that was actually a victory at the time. US vs. Boyll decided that adherents to Native religions need not be of Native descent to get the exemption.
[Erowid]
Individual freedom, whether it be freedom of religion, expression or association, has been particularly important to maintaining the culturally diverse character of New Mexico. Here, we celebrate the right of the individual to revel in the passions of the spirit. The survival of this right owes much to the protection afforded by the First Amendment, which has allowed New Mexico's distinct cultures to learn mutual respect for each other's jealously-guarded customs and traditions. Diversity is new Mexico's enchantment.
For the reasons set out in this Memorandum Opinion and Order, the Court holds that, pursuant to 21 C.F.R. 1307.31 (1990), the classification of peyote as a Schedule I controlled substance, see 21 U.S.C. 812(c), Schedule I (c)(12), does not apply to the importation, possession or use of peyote for bona fide ceremonial use by members of the Native American Church, regardless of race.
My problem is with the term "bona fide". What's bona fide mean?
bona fide adj. - (legal)
Characterized by good faith and lack of fraud or deceit (a bona fide offer)
Valid under or in compliance with the law (retirement incentives made part of a bona fide employee benefit plan)
Made with or characterized by sincerity (a bona fide belief)
Being real or genuine (bona fide residents)
Basically it comes down to this. If Republicans don't want the government to exclude religion from "public life" (that's politicianspeak for laws, executive orders, and departments of the federal government) they have to define religion. What is a legitimate religion? Who get's to sign up for handouts under the Faith Based Initiatives program? Furthermore, what makes them legitimate? Until we either stop acknowledging religion in our laws or set some sort of standard, we are automatically playing favorites. Everything Christians want to do is already legal.
My personal problem is this: How come some asshole who says that peyote is his God gets to trip, but I don't? Why? Because there are a bunch of other people who say the same thing? Because we (Republican-equivalents) historically screwed their race? I mean, I can do all the same shit they do. I'll get a tent, build a fire, do some chanting. I can even play hand drums!
For me, LSD is not a pleasure drug. I can't say it's a religious thing either, because I've never been religious. The only thing I can say is that psychedelics are the closest thing I've ever had to religion, and it seems like they fill the same mental and emotional space. My demons are figurative, but if I believed that they were actually real demons the government should still respect my beliefs. Last time I tripped, when I quit smoking, I hallucinated my cigarette craving as an animal that chewed up my insides. How is this different from eating peyote and communing with the spirit world?
The federal government has made an ongoing effort (the War on Drugs) to systematically incarcerate a specific type of person. This type is most notably distinguished by race, and it's pretty obvious that race was and remains a major factor in marijuana prohibition. In the case of psychedelics it essentially makes it illegal to be a hippie. People will say that it doesn't count as much as race or religion, that it's just fashionable hedonism. I just don't understand why we need to sacrifice a few individuals' religious freedom in order to crack down on people who want to get fucked up. How are hippies supposed to establish a church and hold "bona fide" religious ceremonies when their special plant is illegal?
Drug prohibition has been maintained by fear since its inception. The problem is technically very easy to fix: just repeal the appropriate laws. When it comes to complicated problems like social justice, there is a question of whether or not people's best intentions will be twisted and used to justify something less noble. There is such a thing as an effective vs. an ineffective social program. In the case of drug prohibition there is actually a will to keep the pernicious laws. That such a fundamental injustice is an object of such enthusiasm from politicians is very depressing.
What makes it worse is that the War on Drugs is a complete waste, even by their standards. What excuse do they always use? THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Our poor depressed Christian youths are being tempted from a virtuous life of faith by these evil pleasure drugs. So what do they do? They make pot the easiest drug for kids to get. Instead of telling people how to use drugs safely, they scare the shit out of everyone with stories of some guy who thought he saw God an jumped out a window.
They should be afraid. Take a hint! How effective is your religion when your kids would rather rape their own minds than put up with it, and you need to force it on others to get off. I doesn't compare. Psychedelics alone do not constitute religion. You need a lot of bullshit and trappings and paperwork and slaves before you have one of those. Psychedelics do make individualistic spirituality possible, and it's a spirituality that is more real than the depressing filth peddled by America's churches. It's real because there is no faith involved. Faith is what makes you go through the motions when you know its not real. Faith is what makes you put up with it every time you get screwed. Faith is your excuse for not making your own decisions, your own judgments, or your own values. I'll believe in your god when I see it.
Faith can be great, but you can't just pick something random like giant expensive spy satelite missile defense, or Star Wars style combat robots, or new kinds of nu*c*le*a*r weapons. No, he's not stupid. He can point to Iraq and yell Armageddon , then crank out the tactical warheads here, just as long as he drawls like an illiterate hick. Shit, can you imagine what would happen if this country were ruled by some acid gobbling mafia? They would probably outlaw Christianity.
Without arguing the fact that drugs are an ongoing problem in our society, this is an attempt to expose the absolute futility of the current approach to resolving the problem of drug use and addiction in our society. This is not meant to be a tool for partisan politics, yet if ever published, I am sure there are many that will attempt to use it as such. My true intention is to expose the fact that the current approach to drug policies in the United States is creating more problems than they are solving. I will attempt to spark a conversation rather than a heated debate on the issues at hand. These issues can be outlined with one simple question. Which is worse, drugs or "The War on Drugs"?
I have had many jobs in my life, none of them being extremely prosperous, yet some paying more than others. A few of these jobs actually had medical insurance. I am now self employed and uninsured. In my business, I attempted to provide medical insurance for myself and my small staff. This was soon halted when it became obvious that my small business could not afford this expenditure. Reluctantly, I dropped the medical insurance for myself and my employees and purchased a private health plan. As we all know, the cost of medical insurance is on the rise and I found my insurance premium started looking more like a property payment. As businesspeople we often have to make decisions that are risky, and with my good health at the time, I considered dropping the expense of my health insurance to be not such a big risk. I was wrong.
Approximately six months after I dropped my medical insurance, I was at my cabin working on my floating boat dock. I had a new boat slip built and had tied my old 20' X 20' flat dock to the new slip. I put a canopy for shade and shelter on the flat dock and boat wakes were causing the pole on the canopy roof to clamor against the roof of my newly build boat slip. This was going to scratch the coating on my metal roof. I couldn't have that, yet I did not have a ladder to reach the canopy top. In a moment of what I thought was one of enlightened ingenuity, I figured that I could cut a foam beer can koozie and tie it around the pole to pad it so my new slip would be protected, but I had one problem. I did not have a proper ladder with me at the cabin to reach the roof of the boat dock. So I came up with another brilliant idea. What about the dock ladder? You know the ladder we use for swimming, to get in and out of the water. We only kept in the water when we used it. It is quite portable, yet not so functional for the task at hand, and my ever so precious dock roof was at risk. Just like dropping my medical insurance, I decided to take another risk.
The ladder seemed to be fairly sturdy when I propped it up against the steal pole on the new boat slip, so I decided as long as my wife was holding the ladder, it would be fairly safe, after all, it wasn't that high. So I cut and prepared my beer koozie and had my wife hold the ladder, without giving her any instructions as to how to do so. Subsequently, she held it with her hand in about the middle of the ladder rather than putting her feet at the base where it was apt to slip outward. I climbed into position and found that to reach my target, I had to reach and lean somewhat to the left and up high, yet it seemed doable. So I reached, the bottom of the ladder slipped and I found myself lying on the wooden dock in extreme pain. I had fell head first and landed on my right shoulder.
I have never been one to frequent doctors, and without medical insurance, you want to try to tough out minor injuries without the aid of a medical professional. The time of my accident was right at dusk on a Friday evening in June. I was in pretty bad pain so I made my way up the hill to the cabin from the lake and took some headache powders for the pain. I don't bruise easily so there was no external injury other than a minor scrape on my arm from the fall, but the pain made it all too obvious that I injured myself and had done quite a good job of it. By around 1:30 AM, it was apparent the pain was not going to subside, and if for no other reason, I had to go to the local hospital emergency room to get something to ease the pain at the very least. At this time I asked my wife to drive me to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital, probably after 2:00 AM. There was very little going on in the emergency room when we got there. I was the only person waiting. Meanwhile, I saw one patient come out of the treatment area, so I assumed that was the only other customer at that time of the morning. I believe that assumption to be correct.
I initially reported in where they of course wanted insurance information. I stated that I was uninsured. Well now it was time to wait. It was after 3:00 AM when I was taken back for my initial interview. There they check your body temperature, blood pressure and ask questions off of a preprinted form concerning your medical condition. One of the questions was to rate the severity of your pain on a scale of one to ten. Difficult question when I knew that I was in more intense and constant pain than I had ever been in, but I am sure there are conditions much worse than mine that would constitute the worst pain being a ten on the scale. I answered eight. In retrospect, I should have answered fifteen.
Now that this part of my visit to the emergency room was completed, it was time to wait again. Not so bad, about twenty more minutes of waiting and I was called back to the examining room. Not long after I entered the emergency room the doctor came in to examine me and I began to answer his questions concerning my injury. Just as his questioning started, a female medical professional entered. What her title was I am not sure, but she seemed to be wearing a nurses whites. She had some questions for me.
Her questions were not related to my injury though. In an interrogational manner, she asked me if I knew a certain doctor in my hometown. She stated that they were suspicious of me because I was from a town more than an hour away and at their emergency room in the middle of the night. Well I explained that the injury occurred at my cabin on the local lake. At that time it was apparent to me that I had been a subject of conversation during my substantial waiting period to receive emergency medical treatment. Knowing the current problems with prescription painkillers in our society, it was all too obvious the reason why, so I did not take too much offense to this at the time. They were just trying to make sure that I was not an uninsured patient whom they would never receive compensation from. Was I a patient scrupulously trying to obtain painkillers in order to support a drug habit? Surely such precautions are necessary. So I said nothing.
I was sent across the hall for an x-ray. The technician was real nice and I was sure there would be an obvious problem that would show up in the x-rays. She took two x-rays, one front view and one right side view, and I returned to the examining room. Shortly, the doctor came back into the room with the two views of my shoulder. Apparently he assumed that the technician had said something to me concerning my x-rays, because he said something to the effect that sometimes his technicians saw things that are not there. I was prescribed ten mild painkillers and a larger prescription of Naproxen, and sent home with no pain medication administered at the hospital. It was 4:00 AM and no pharmacies were open. I had to wait another five hours until 9:00 AM for the local pharmacy to open before I could get anything for pain. When I did get the painkillers, it took two of them to have any affect on my discomfort. These were soon gone and the Naproxen was ineffective.
It was apparent that I was going to need follow-up medical treatment for my injury, so I decided to see a local doctor in my hometown. The pain in my shoulder was too extreme and arm was extremely bad and now. My shoulder and upper arm had turned purple and black and it was apparent to me that I had a fracture. Remembering the words of the doctor when he referred to his x-ray technician, I thought at this time there was something in my x-rays to show what the problem was. In order to save money on new x-rays, I decided to pick them up from the hospital and take them to the local physician.
Upon arriving at the local physician's office on a weekday afternoon, approximately ten days later, with the original x-rays, I was informed that the doctor required a fee from uninsured patients before they could be treated. So I filled out the forms and paid the fee and waited. Well, there were several people in the waiting room and I was a walk-in patient, so it took quite a while to be seen by the doctor.
While waiting I noticed that many of the people in the waiting room were known in the local community for their usage of prescription painkillers. I know this because I run a restaurant that serves beer and wine in the local area and many of these people would have been considered undesirable customers for my business which is not frequented by this portion of the community. My waiting room observations made it quite apparent that many of these customers were there to try to obtain narcotics. There was even a confrontation with a man who had brought a mother and her children into the office and obtained prescriptions of Ritalin for her children. The relationship of the gentleman to the lady was not apparent, but he did let the staff in the office know that the Ritalin was being used by the mother and not the children. He was obviously tired of the ladies drug usage. Yet, it was nothing but a short scene with the man leaving the office after voicing his complaint without any apparent result.
Finally, it was my turn to see the doctor. He seemed quite amiable and saw the bruises on my arm, which had now faded to about three ugly yellow splotches. He did know I was injured and examined the x-rays that I had brought with me. To him the x-rays showed nothing either. With the extent and area of the pain he assumed that I had a torn rotator cuff which would require surgery. He seemed to know that I was in quite a bit of pain, and I was. My pain was hardly less than it was at the time of my original visit to the emergency room. I was prescribed sufficient painkillers and referred to a specialist. An appointment was not immediately available with the specialist so I was scheduled an appointment about a month later, but before I was to visit the specialist I was scheduled an appointment to revisit this doctor to follow up. I didn't see a reason to revisit this doctor before my appointment but I showed up anyway because I knew I needed treatment. The cost of my treatment was becoming less of a concern after a long period of living in pain.
I returned to the doctor for my appointment, with a shorter wait in the waiting room I paid my fee and went in to see the doctor. He asked if I needed more painkillers, which I did, yet I declined for the fear of being judged as a drug abuser. He then asked me why I had come back for another visit before going to the specialist. I politely told him that he had scheduled the appointment. The appointment was unnecessary, I should have asked for my fee back but I didn't, I thought it best to just follow the system and get the necessary treatment. After all, it appeared I was going to need surgery for a torn rotator cuff.
Now, its time to take the forty five minute trip to the specialist, still carrying the original x-rays to save a buck or two, I go through the process of signing in and filling out the necessary forms. By this time there is no outward sign of injury. The specialist examined me and the original x-rays and his initial diagnosis was a possible torn rotator cuff. To be sure he sent me for an MRI and an EMG. These two tests cost me over $3000.00 altogether. Two months after falling off a ladder and injuring myself, I show back up at the specialist with the pictures from the MRI. The EMG results had not been forwarded back to the doctor but the person that administered the test had stated to me that there were no negative results, which I believe to be true. After one very quick look at the MRI the specialist stated that I had a fracture. He sent me immediately for a new x-ray, which he subsequently did not bill me for. He knew I did not have insurance and was quite upset to find out my problem was a fracture after all that time and money. The break was easy to see on the x-ray because of the angle they took the picture. Standing face forward with my palm facing outward gave a clean picture of the fracture. The first x-ray was not taken in a manner to see my injury. Thousands of dollars later I found that no surgery or treatment was necessary for my fracture. Painkillers and a sling were sufficient for such an injury.
My shoulder is fine now, yet definitely not one hundred percent. This could have been resolved with one or two trips to the doctor and proper medicine prescribed. If the doctors did not have the responsibility of determining who is or is not a drug user, they would not have to make these decisions and this type of prejudging can be avoided. Paying customers should not be scrutinized in this manner when medical care is purchased. We do not pay to be scrutinized.
In order to insure proper treatment of patients, who are paying customers whether they have insurance or not, it cannot be the doctors' responsibility to make the final treatment decisions for their customers. It should be the medical provider's job to advise and administer treatment and follow the instructions of the patient who has considered the advice of the medical professional.
As is, drug abusers flood our medical offices trying successfully sometimes and some places, and unsuccessfully at others, to obtain their narcotics. This is enriching the physicians with an astounding amount of office visits where there would only be a fraction of the traffic if this problem did not exist. Genuinely ill patients are getting caught up in the middle of this situation and being denied treatment by physicians who should not be put in the position to make such judgments.
By forcing the public to obtain prescriptions for specific drugs is causing many people to go completely without treatment for some conditions. Antibiotics are not obtainable without a visit and a fee to a physician. When the doctor makes a decision on what antibiotic to prescribe to his patient, he does not necessarily prescribe the least expensive applicable medication for the ailment of the patient. He is now able to make a decision based on the amount of rebate he receives from the pharmaceutical manufacturer. In other words, a shot of penicillin may suffice for your ailment, yet this other shot will cost you ten times more and the doc gets a rebate. What shot do you think you will get?
As a restaurant owner, I see the pharmaceutical representatives court the physicians' offices. I send many large food orders to the local medical offices which are frequently supplied by the pharmaceutical companies, while trying to push their product through the local doctors. Should the medical provider be making decisions on your health based on rebates and sales pitches by drug companies? This should not be how a doctor makes a decision on a patient's treatment. It is leading to the improper and overmedication of a large number of genuinely ill patients in our nation.
Well, this practice is not just prevalent in the non-narcotic variety of pharmaceuticals; it is present with some of the most addictive drugs in our society. This may mean that when you go to the doctor and you do need just a mild pain killer, you may get prescribed the more expensive, stronger, time-released form of the narcotic which is designed to stay in your system longer. Taken as prescribed, these narcotics never leave your system until the prescription is gone. You don't know you're addicted until the prescription runs out and physical withdrawal symptoms occur. The doc just got his rebate and the patient just got a monkey on their back. Now the doctor has become the worst form of drug dealer there is. The doctor has become the pusher. The doctor created the addict and the demand. If the supply runs out from the doctors, the addict is forced to find the supply elsewhere. Where there is demand, there will always be supply. There is nothing a free nation can do about that without severely infringing on everyone's freedom of movement. So, now the new addict must obtain his/her medicine off the black market.
We are all aware of the rising cost of medical insurance in this country. Insurance coverage paid for by the employers of this country is decreasing due to the rising cost of medical treatment. It is also due to the rising number of patient visits to providers to obtain prescription medicines. Whether the patient is or is not insured, a fee is charged for each visit to the physician. This is driving the cost of everyone's insurance to the moon.
Chapter II
Illegal Drugs and the Damage to our Society
There is a large demand for narcotics in our society. At one point in time aspirin, cocaine and heroin were about the same price in our country. Crime related to what seemed to be moderate drug use in this nation was low. Any person could obtain any medication without a physician. There were no illegal drugs in our country. Slowly over time, political activists have enacted laws requiring a doctor's approval so that free people may obtain necessary medications for their illnesses. If the patient does not have access to a doctor, or cannot afford one, he/she can no longer ask the advice of a pharmacist in order to make an informed decision as to what medication he/she may need. So, this patient is denied medical treatment and medication for his/her ailment. The pharmacist is trained in this country to give such advice, yet their training is no longer used or needed in their profession. They simply dispense the product. You could have a high school graduate perform this function. If the law forces a trip to a physician to obtain medication, should they not fund the physician's fee. If not, the government is denying medical treatment to those who cannot afford to visit a doctor's office.
This situation has created a thriving black market for narcotics in our society. Massive amounts of money are allocated throughout the nation's law enforcement community to battle this market and its customers. These customers being the addicts, of which many were created by the system of rebates that are received by doctors for prescribing specific narcotics. This market has caused the price of the illegal drugs on the street to rise phenomenally. The addicts are caught between a rock and a hard place now. They cannot obtain decent employment due to the vast amount of drug testing in order to obtain many of the jobs in our nation. Therefore, they cannot afford to support their habit. When this occurs, crime becomes rampant, and the innocent citizens become the victims of the war on drugs in our society. We are subject to crimes committed by addicts that will do anything possible to obtain their illegal narcotics. We the people are now caught in the middle of the battle, subjected to theft and violent crime due to idealistic laws which limit the freedom of the American citizen. As a nation, we were founded on the idealism of freedom and progressed in this philosophy for many years. In a society such as this, if these liberties are taken away, there will be constant strife causing many undesirable results.
For many years, amphetamines were prescribed liberally by physicians throughout the nation. In the mid 1990s, the manufacture of these amphetamines was banned. As a result, methamphetamines are now dangerously created in homes throughout the nation. This has become a dangerous and growing epidemic in itself. Not to mention the pharmaceutical company that used to manufacture the amphetamines had to find a new product. This new product being the time released pain killer that has also become a dangerous and highly physically addictive. This has created an unprecedented epidemic in the United States. This product, in this writer's opinion, was created to replace the widely used amphetamines. It was marketed as a less addictive drug due to the time-release form in which it was manufactured. It seems to have been created due to the fact it was so addictive and repeat customers were pretty much guaranteed. In the beginning, this drug was praised and widely prescribed by doctors who received rebates on top of rebates as they rampantly distributed this drug. They collected their rebates and patient fees as visits to their offices to obtain the drug increased significantly. In the long run, it looks to me as if this drug was created to directly compete with the heroin market in this country. It has succeeded in creating an unprecedented amount of opiate addiction in the United States. We have built a severely unethical narcotic industry within our system at the expense of the American public.
Marijuana has been used by the human race for many years. It has no physical addictive qualities. If a patient or recreational user discontinues use of this mild yet effective and natural medicine, there are no physical withdrawal symptoms. It is commonly used for anxiety, sleeplessness, stomach disorders, glaucoma, pain, muscle spasms, etc.... The worst known side effect of this substance is the effect on the lungs. Before marijuana was criminalized, many users put the plant in confections and the product was eaten rather than smoked. Due to the criminalization of marijuana, more smokers were created in order to get the most out of an illegal and more expensive supply of the plant. The price and availability of supply has also created more IV drug users of opiates, in an attempt to get the most of narcotic painkillers. Activist politicians continue to inaccurately describe marijuana as a gateway drug. A drug that only leads to the use of much more dangerous drugs, when in fact, regular marijuana smokers are apt not to turn to harder more addictive drugs such as alcohol, opiates and amphetamines. Marijuana used on a regular basis does not produce the same problems in our society that alcohol and narcotics do. The illegal trade of marijuana does cause these problems.
Resolutions
So the next question is how do we resolve this problem? It is obvious that the current methods of battling drug addiction in this nation are only multiplying the problem. Yet, politicians on most sides of the political spectrum want to continue to pump money into increased law enforcement which continues to infringe on the rights of the citizens, in what is becoming a less free nation.
How can we call prescription medications controlled substances where proper controls do not exist?
How do we keep these uncontrolled substances away from our children? The black market services all customers, regardless of age.
How do we decrease the cost of medical insurance as long as drug abusers continue to use medical providers to obtain prescriptions, resulting in doctors' fees paid for by the insurance companies?
How do we insure that people with genuine health problems do not get caught up in the middle of a medical industry that is bogged down by addicts?
How do we insure that genuinely ill patients are not incorrectly stereotyped as drug abusers?
How do we significantly decrease violence and crime in this country that result from the current laws and policies?
How do we put the drug dealers in our nation out of business?
How do we dissolve the street gangs of the inner cities of our nation?
How do we dramatically decrease the murder rate in the United States?
How do we halt the flow of illegal drugs that flood across our nation's borders?
How do we decrease the use of physically addictive narcotics in our society?
How do we decrease the ever increasing population of our prison systems?
I know that the war on drugs has been going on for many years. What I am about to suggest is not a cancellation of the war on drugs. It is merely a different approach.
The current methods have been in place for many years and have proven to be unsuccessful. It should be apparent to most that as long as the demand is out there, society will find a way to fulfill the supply. When trying to cut off the supply, the product only becomes more expensive, creating rebellion, crime and violence. This theory was proven to be true during the years of alcohol prohibition in this country. Prohibition was lifted simply because it created more problems than it solved. Upon the lifting of prohibition, activists found another target, and organized crime was able to recover and recreate the prosperous years of prohibition. Every time a new law was passed prohibiting the trade in narcotics, organized crime gained a new product.
Now we are in the midst of the violence and chaos created by our nations own policies. The laws that were passed with good intentions, to create law and order in our society have had the opposite result. Anarchy is taking over in our inner cities and rural communities. Is it not time to learn from our mistakes and change our tactics?
Education, not prohibition will solve this problem. Get the product out of the doctors' and drug dealers' hands and put it back into the reputable business environment of our economy. Let the doctors worry about their patients' health and they will no longer have to evaluate whether or not their patient has a legitimate illness or injury. Pass laws against rebates to medical and pharmaceutical professionals so they may make unbiased recommendations concerning a patient's medication.
Insurance companies should only be liable for physician prescribed medications. Potentially dangerous or narcotic medications not prescribed by a physician should be dispensed by the pharmacist and signed for by the buyer. This includes cold medicines used in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamines. Restrictions on minors purchasing controlled substances should be put into place.
We should allow the diet pill (amphetamine) manufacturers to restart production. This would dramatically decrease the amount of methamphetamine that is currently produced, resolving this rapidly increasing problem in the United States. Time released narcotics should not be produced due to the increased physically addictive attributes of that form of the medication. I have personally seen the effect of time released painkillers in my own community. Recreational use of painkillers has been going on for some time. The recent overwhelming increase in addicts has been due to the time released form of these medications.
If these resolutions were enacted, what we now call controlled substances will actually have some controls. Organized crime and inner-city gang activity would be reduced dramatically. They would simply be put out of business. The prison population would dwindle. The demand would be met and we could now concentrate our efforts on education and prevention rather than on law enforcement and prisons.
Drug users would no longer be exposed to the criminal element created by the illegal industry. This will decrease the social nature of drug use that is created by a black market which would no longer exist.
It is the nature of humankind to resist absolute authority. We get more results when we educate people on the dangers of their actions rather than prohibiting them altogether. Complete prohibition only creates rebellion resulting in higher rates of drug use. Isn't it time to put our faith in humankind, and trust the citizens of our nation to make the right decisions? We as a government and our medical system have failed miserably. I think it just might be time for the American people to take the responsibility. Personally, I think we are better qualified for the job than our political and medical institutions.
The false claim that getting tough on marijuana helps children
is easily disputed. While heroin arrests and court referrals for treatment dropped precipitously, heroin use by eighth graders spiked along with arrests and so-called treatment mandated to marijuana users in lieu of jail. Also, Barthwell, Rathbone and their cronies all carefully avoid mentioning that vaporizers and cooked marijuana completely eliminate tars and resins believed to cause health problems in smokers.
Of course, fanatical zealots have long made it their business to lie in an effort to collect often tax-free government, corporate and private money for or in support of marijuana drug testing. Take, for example DeForest Rathbone's associations, the National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy and 'Drug Free Kids: America's Challenge.' Rathbone claimed in the June 1 letter, "Drug Czar Defended" that former drug czar Barry McCaffrey did not support drug testing while in office. Historical records, including many news clippings prove that claim is untrue.
"Darligton's reference to Clinton administration former drug czar Barry McCaffrey promoting drug testing while he was in office was false."
"The success of Wada is essential to the continued involvement of the world community in the Olympic movement," US drugs czar Barry McCaffrey told reporters after addressing the opening session.
Sydney testing
Wada is to establish a list of banned substances, coordinate unannounced out-of-competition drug testing, develop standards for collecting and analysing samples, set unified drug sanctions and promote research.
, by not testing for drugs, baseball now appears to have the same problem other leagues have. Officials of the league and its players union have allowed -- even encouraged -- steroid use to take hold in America's pastime, said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Only the community, Mr McCaffrey suggested, had any hope of winning the war. The best he could offer was the idea that anyone arrested by the police should be required to submit to "rehabilitation" if they tested positive for drugs.
On October 19, Clinton announced that his administration will develop a plan to test the urine of driver's license applicants under the age of 18, and he gave drug czar Barry McCaffrey 90 days to present the plan to him.
" . . . so-called medical marijuana is really nothing more than a form of snake-oil medicine backed by a $500 billion international drug trafficking industry as a ruse to gain acceptance of marijuana, which serves as bait to lure children into addiction and the subsequent compulsive consumption of the drug traffickers' lucrative evil products. "
Open Letter to the President of the United States George W. Bush
I work for a French NGO , "Tchendukua" whose goal is to recuperate land for the Kogi Indians living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia.
In 2000 we bought, La Luna, a land, with access to the sea, It was the first time since the Spanish invasion, the Kogis had a low land. They where so happy, full of hope.
At the end of June 2004, La Luna became an " Indigenous Reserve" , a protected area...
The Sierra is also one of the UNESCO's "Biosphere Reserves".
Fifteen days later, on July 17th, a plane from Dyncorp passed only once to fumigate La Luna. That was enough to provoke a complete disaster.
Some days ago, I saw the rushes of a second movie we have made on the Kogis.
Now, La Luna is like some places in Asia after the tsunami... I could not believe it.
The Kogis took five years to regenerate the soil, now they will have to wait, at least, five more years to replant. Everything is contaminated and the streams are dry because there are no more trees to retain water.
What are they going to eat? What are they going to drink? Where to go?
Tchendukua's director in Santa Marta organized some time ago with the Kogis and the farmers around, the eradication of coca by hand. There was no coca in La Luna.
It is impossible that your sophisticated planes are unable to detect Indians villages.
In the movie there is a scene with a Kogi shaman sitting in front of his house, in the middle of the devastation. He is crying.
This image is absolutly unbearable and it will remain in my memory forever.
Yes, Mr. Bush, an image can turn people really angry.
Remember the picture of Nick Ut showing a little girl naked, burned by Napalm, running on a road in Vietnam. This image had an incredible impact in America.
Condolezza Rice wants Colombia to change its laws and spray in National Parks such as La Macarena, El Catatumbo, La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, etc...
To achieve that dirty job, a new aerial base for fumigation planes will be build, $125 million.
The fumigation of La Luna on July 17th 2004 was completely illegal.
In the Sierra, Kogis, Arsarios-Wiwas, Kankuamos and Arhuacos are starting to have health problems , especially children (see notes-page 14).
In Vietnam, after 45 years, Agent Orange is still active.
The new poison cocktail is called Agent Green. If you take the ingredients one by one, it doesn't seem so dangerous. If you mix them, highly concentrated, it is a terrible weapon. The mixture is made with Monsanto Round Up Ultra, Cosmoflux 411F (illegal in the US), POEA and fusarium oxysporum EN-4.
Dr David Sands, an American scientist who made some researches on EN-4 admits
(interview with the BBC-2000) that you can call it a Green Warfare or a Biological Warfare. When you had a few cases of Anthrax in your country it was immediately called a terrorist biological attack...
The Dutch government donated 500.000 euros for the eradication of coca by hand in the Amazonas and the Sierra. A part of this donation is dedicated for substitution cultures and social development.
The Netherlands asked the parks director, Julia Miranda, to confirm whether the decision to fumigate on the protected aeras was definitive, because if it were so, "it could be motive to request the suspension of activities financed by his Embassy".
Mr. Bush and your government, you will be responsible for the genocide or ethnocide (see notes-page 10)) of the most ancient and sophisticated precolombian cultures in Colombia.
The proper name for this worthless so-called drugwar is « BIOLOGICAL and CHEMICAL WARFARE «.
Before writing this, I've asked to a Dr in Molecular Biology if I could use those words, the answer was yes.
Mr. Bush, will you dare to say that you are doing this "In the Name of God"?
Where are the courageous American scientists who helped to stop the fumigations with Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1971?
REQUIEM FOR THE SIERRA NEVADA DE SANTA MARTA... AND MANY OTHER PLACES!
NOTES:
UNITED NATIONS
Economic and Social Council
Distr. GENERAL E/CN.4/2005/88/Add.2 10 November 2004
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Sixty-first session Item 15 of the provisional agenda
INDIGENOUS ISSUES
Human rights and indigenous issues.
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen Addendum MISSION TO COLOMBIA*
Page 10
On the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an area visited by the Special Rapporteur, the Kankuamo people (3,000 families, 13,000 people and 12 communities), who live inside the "black line" which marks the traditional boundary of their territory, are now in the process of reclaiming their indigenous identity. Their lands have been recognized, but no reserve has yet been established. Guerrilla groups started arriving in the 1980s and AUC set up a base there in the 1990s, with the result that the number of kidnappings and murders escalated to a level far above the rural and regional average, particularly from 1998 onwards. It was then that the massacres of indigenous people, the mass displacements, the blockades and the forced confinement of communities to their villages began. More than 300 families are reportedly still displaced as a result of attacks and threats of various kinds. The accounts given to the Special Rapporteur testified to the continued ethnic cleansing, genocide and ethnocide of the Kankuamo people despite the protective and precautionary measures requested by the Ombudsman and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and several urgent appeals by a number of special mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights.
Page 14
Indigenous organizations described to the Special Rapporteur the adverse effects of indiscriminate spraying, including environmental damage to the topsoil, fauna, flora and water, the destruction of subsistence crops and direct damage to human health, including birth defects. The Special Rapporteur was also told that there are technical and scientific studies to substantiate these assertions. The indigenous peoples see the aerial spraying of coca plantations as yet another violation of their human rights and, save for a few occasions when they have given their consent, actively oppose the practice; this position again brands them as guerrilla sympathizers, as happened after the rights marches organized by certain indigenous communities to protest against the spraying. The Office of the Ombudsman has received 318 complaints concerning spraying operations in three municipalities in Putumayo in July 2002 and their effect on 6,070 families and 5,034 hectares of land.
So this guy shows up at my house saying my address had been randomly selected for a paid survey. I get a quick interview to see if I qualify for the survey, and this is just to basically confirm my age as being over 18 and under 30.
The survey is from the United States Public Health Service and is being executed by the Research Triangle Institute. It is for the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health and takes about an hour to finish. When complete, you get 30$. I don't know how my address was randomly selected, but I am in a pretty good part of town for whatever that counts.
The interesting part to this story deals with the type of questions in the survey. The bulk of the mental health section asked if you were or had ever been depressed, anxious, nervous, etc. The bulk of the drug use section asked if you had taken x drug, and if so, at what age and how often.
The marijuana questions were more numerous than the other drugs. Most of the questions dealt with if you used, when you used, when you stopped using, how often you used, etc. It featured questions like:
"How do you feel about occasional marijuana usage by adults?"
Strongly Disapprove
Disapprove
Neither approve nor disapprove
As you can tell, there was a definite bias in the questions. Directly after this were questions about your spirituality and belief in God, then your mental health.
I'm not someone who smokes pot. I don't, I haven't in years, I won't ever return to it, and I'm not an advocate of its usage. I'll even discourage its usage. But, I'd do the same for tobacco, alcohol, or any other drug. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I own no foil hats and I don't think the government is evil. I am for personal privacy and I believe marijuana is a lesser evil than alcohol and tobacco based on usage-related deaths alone. I'm wholly against what I feel are harder drugs, including mushrooms. Now that you know my position, I'll tell you my honest and mostly unbiased feelings about the survey.
I got the definite feeling that this survey is going to link sanity and happiness to a persons' spirituality and drug habits. I haven't seen the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health to confirm, but this really seemed to link the belief in god to the usage of drugs and resulting depression. It also seemed to disallow positive connotations of light drug use. You could never approve of an action that was illegal (like adult marijuana smoking), but you could strongly disapprove or disapprove. It asked silly questions, like "Have you ever felt depressed," which almost certainly can be used to confuse any relevant statistics.
Having said that, much or most of the survey was definitely statistical, and the majority of the drug questions were about tobacco usage. It asked how harmful I thought smoking and drinking were when done once a week, a couple of times a week, or every day. It was measuring how uninformed or ignorant consumers are, but I believe the way the test was set up will make that problem out to be worse than it really is. I do think, however, this survey is going to be a biased piece of propaganda, and I'm not one of those persons who has really cared in the past. That's the genuine opinion from a regular guy.
Anyone who claims to be 'addicted' to marijuana has either: been misled, is too young to know better and therefore too young to smoke, is an alcoholic, is on medication yet still smokes pot, is lying, is in a court-ordered drug rehab (giving the Repub drug czar (Walters) false statistics/propaganda to spread about the increase of marijuana use and 'treatment'), is just an ass, has never heard the words "grass fast".
Any marijuana 'abuse' comes from lack of education about marijuana 'use'.
For alcohol there's, "don't drink everyday, don't drink too much, don't start too young, take a break, you can die, your liver can collapse, don't drink and drive, don't be an ass, drink responsibly, have fun".
For marijuana there's, "just say no, it can lead to harder drugs, you can get addicted or else driven insane, you can go to jail so be paranoid, be very paranoid...blah blah blah".
The drug war is a lie. Pharmaceuticals are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, killing over 100k each year. Alcohol related deaths in the US are over 300k, tobacco kills 400k--yet these drugs are not only legal, they're subsidized. Illegal drug deaths are around 3,000. Marijuana-----0.
Yet marijuana arrests make up 75% of the drug war's efforts.
Since the budget for the war on drugs is now over $13 billion and the drug-war industry is worth over $50 billion annually, and since 75% of the drug war's budget goes to what is, essentially, a harmless weed; how long do you think it'll take before marijuana is decriminalized and removed from prosecution?
How long will it take before the positive studies done on its use (suppressed during both the Nixon and Reagan Administrations) are released to the public?
And how long before we can expect hemp fiber to be grown in the US to replace the more toxic and dioxin-polluting paper products created by the timber and paper industries, or hemp seed oil used in place of polluting petrochemicals in the production of plastics and related products?
How soon before the $300 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry relinquishes 3% of its profits to allow for medical marijuana?
Don't hold your breath.
Pay attention. This is why marijuana is illegal; Republican and corporate greed--now there's the addiction.
Let's have a toast to all those greedy repubs who would rather clear-cut 500 year old trees to make their toilet paper while they light up their fatties with $100 bills. I hope they gag on it. If there were true justice in the world they would be jailed and their assets confiscated.
The Kogis took five years to regenerate the soil, now they will have to wait, at least, five more years to replant. Everything is contaminated and the streams are dry because there are no more trees to retain water.
What are they going to eat? What are they going to drink? Where to go?
Tchendukua's director in Santa Marta organized some time ago with the Kogis and the farmers around, the eradication of coca by hand. There was no coca in La Luna.