More anti-science from the political left

The anti-science political left

Interesting turn about, as the political left tries to make sure that smokers have no alternative that they might actually like.

Swat Team Shoots Dogs

Swat Team Shoots Dogs

End the Drug War

Today's Washington Post has a thoughtful article advocating ending the drug war. Written by a couple of Law Enforcement Officers, it has an interesting angle. A police officer dies in the line of duty every other day, and stopping the futile and harmful War on (some) Drugs will reduce that tremendously. The war destroys communities. Stopping the war could create and save 77 billion dollars per year.

I have posted time after time that there is no constitutional basis for prohibition. Indeed, alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment, and another one for repeal. But this nation had much more respect for its founding document eighty years ago. The concluding paragraph sums it up well:

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die.

A free society can not long survive alienating large portions of its population. If Obama really wants to provide us with "change we can believe in," he should read this article, and ponder the consequences of inaction on his people.

Prohibition

Prohibition

Self medication is something almost everyone does. Start with Aspirin and Tylenol. People feel the need to medicate themselves, maybe a headache, maybe some other pain, maybe a fever, so they take a pill. All other OTC meds as well, including Nyquill. Now say you need something else. The law says that you need a prescription for that.

Historical note: Thomas Jefferson thought that the imposition of the world's first prescription law, in France, would signal the end of freedom in France. He was right. He died before they dared to institute one here.

The doctor needs to select whatever drug he will prescribe from a few government mandated lists. Some substances are considered trivial, and others are on another list that confers more liability on the doctor. These lists are political in nature. Many prescription-only substances are shared between citizens - we all have done it. That is a felony. Who is the victim worthy of protection here?

But what happens if your need for self medication will not be met by your physician? Many turn to alcohol as the cure-all. (Many medicines contain large amounts of alcohol anyway.) Politically we are allowed alcohol in most places. But what do you do if alcohol does not alleviate your symptoms? And what then if you find something else, either not on any list of legal prescriptions, or not allowed for your particular condition? Or maybe your symptomatology is not on the government list of diseases for which a particular substance is allowed? Or not confirmed by xray or mri or other tests? Pot, crack, heroin, and other substances are used for many reasons by people seeking to self medicate conditions that physicians would gladly prescribe for, but they are not allowed to. Cocaine is the absolute best anesthetic for eye surgery, yet is not allowed anymore. Some psychiatrists used to prescribe Cocaine for depression,until a few years ago. No more.

Drug prohibition and prescription laws are another scam the government is running on We the People. Why can doctors prescribe narcotics for pain but not for depression? Feel anxious or violent today? You can get a valium or haloperidol from your doctor, but not pot or heroin. Why is this freedom denied to us?

Why are so many on the political right so willing to continue to scam the public with excessive government restrictions by buying into this one, hook line and sinker. The most basic freedom is being denied here. And where in the constitution do you find the power given to government from We the People to put us in jail if we grow a plant in our yard and smoke it ourselves, instead of buying alcohol in a government store, or at least paying a government tax? I can make wine, brew beer (most of the founding fathers did both) but I can not grow a plant? Why? Because someone believes that I will get high? And what is wrong with that? Do you get high from alcohol? What is the difference? And why is it preferable, from what perspective is it better, that I can get addicted to oxycontim or morphine from my doctor, but am denied marijuana for chronic pain? And why, in states where pot is a legal prescription, do the federal authorities harrass and threaten doctors who prescribe it?

Your answer to that is that somewhere, somehow, someone will "get high," and perhaps enjoy their medicine. What is wrong with that?

Obama's Drug Policy

Obama's Drug Policy

President Obama made statements during the campaign about states with legal medical marijuana provisions. He said these states should be allowed to pursue their medical policy unimpeded by federal interference. So far his DEA has continued to raid legal clinics, particularly in California. Maybe his dope cops have not gotten the message yet, but that remains to be seen, especially since he has already broken so many of his campaign promises in the first few weeks of his nascent presidency. But beyond merely leaving decision making to others, maybe "The Won" should reexamine feseral drug policy in general.

Back to basics - a zero base examination of the drug situation in the U.S.A.

There needs to be a dichotomy in the way we perceive and deal with the issue of drug use. We need to discern between the two effects of drug laws, the first being the consequences of drug use upon individuals, and the other being the consequences of public policy toward substance distribution and use. Tobacco, alcohol, heroin, cannabis, and other substances have both good and bad effects on people, and create social and health sequelae on users and their associates. Harm reduction efforts should be undertaken where appropriate.

But laws have consequences as well as the substances themselves, mostly in the areas of driving up the price and the need for incarceration. Is there any doubt that criminal gangs garner their income directly from the prohibition of the substances? Where taxed, a substance provides money to government. Where prohibited, a substance provides profit to black market providers and exact costs on government. The fact of prohibition itself creates the price so high, the profit margins and therefore the excesses of the drug cartels so massive, that their murderous carnage becomes so much a part of the way they do business.

Maybe this is one place where our new cigarette smoking, coke sniffing, Wagyu Steak eating, pot smoking president can actually be effective. The first thing he can do is live up to his promise to stop federal law enforcement from overruling state law about medical marijuana. After that, if the lost "war" on drugs can be shifted towards a harm reduction paradigm from the current prohibition paradigm, the nation can shift untold resources toward real crime and away from the self perpetuating policies of the past.