ATTITUDE TRANSFORMATION

"Government exists to defend the weak and the poor and the injured party; the rich and the strong can better take care of themselves." Ralph Waldo Emerson	ATTITUDE TRANSFORMATION
"I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war." Eleanor Roosevelt
Every illicit substance today is now or was at one time legal and used by the public, typically as medication or added to other consumable / non-consumable products. Before World War I, heroin was sold over the counter. Cocaine was used in food and beveragesch2 the same way that nutmeg, sugar or other psychoactive substances are still used today. There were no black-market drug dealers or drug gangs. People never had alarm systems for their homes. Few locked their doors. There was no drug crisis; parents didn't have anxiety over discussing drugs with their kids because there was nothing to discuss. Few people were dependent upon heroin, cocaine or other drugs because physicians responded to their patients. If someone wanted to break their drug habit, could freely consult doctors without fear. Today, there are over 400 chemical and herbal substances that were all made illegal for one simple but very complex reason: Irrational fear to the point of paranoia. The emotion itself, is simple; the expression of it is very complex and misleading. During the 1980s, there was a public outcry over illicit drugs, namely marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. Penalties for drug possession, trafficking, and manufacturing drugs increased, but were ineffective. By 1992, the people of the world had been exhausted by the war on drugs (WOD). European nations had already started migrating to harm reduction policy and the U.S. voters were ready for a Democratic Party solution. President Bill Clinton paled on the issue of drugs and the U.S. Government began moving in one direction as the public underwent the beginning of an attitude transformation. By the 21st century, treatment options and drug courts seemed promising in many states, however, the federal laws did not change. Medical marijuana further impacted voters by 2008 and the public turned to Barack Obama to bring about change. Thus far, the Obama administration has made little progress in adopting federal laws that match the attitude of the public. One of the most disappointing obstacles to come out of the ONDCP under director Gil Kerlikowske has been the lack of a drug abuse prevention strategy. The Drug War has been easily the greatest cause of violent crime in American history: Gangs fighting over monopoly territories, children killed in drive-by shootings, families in the inner city living with the constant sound of gunfire outside their doors, police killing innocent people in misguided drug raids, crooked cops helping to spread poisonous drugs, non-violent citizens sent to prison to be terrorized by violent prisoners – none of which would exist in the absence of the federal drug laws. There is nothing that could make our cities safer than repealing the drug laws – all of them. Does the idea of heroin, cocaine, and opium being sold over the counter sound too ludicrous to be true? You can check it out for yourself. A marvelous website, maintained by the University of Buffalo's Addiction Research Unit, shows the actual labels and ads from patent medicines of the 19th and early-20th centuries. You can see the claims made, the ingredients used, and the acceptance of what so many Americans fear today. That era of innocence didn't end because America was threatened by a drug crisis. It was ended in the traditional way – by politicians looking for new worlds to conquer, politicians who have no interest in examining dispassionately the chaos they cause, and who will never face a single personal consequence for the lives they have ruined. did not come into the mainstream until the 1960s and 1970s. Although President Richard Nixon introduced the war on drug abuse in 1971, it wasn't until 1972 that the war on drugs (WOD) became the actual platform for prohibition. During the 1970s, drug addiction was considered a disease. In released efore psychoactive substances became a serious crime and members of the public were prison sentences that not even those convicted of first degree murder received, the same substances were associated with disease. Since the 1990s, Americans have been inching back towards a resurgence of the disease model. But before psychoactive substances were associated with disease the first time, they were used by the public for "recreational" and medical purposes. While the use of drugs has never really changed, the numbers of those using drugs remains in question with reformists and anti-drug crusaders wary about the progress. The time has come for the war games to end and a sensible drug policy be put into place. In the real world psychoactive substances serve different purposes for different people. The attitude towards drugs is becoming more subdued by single adults with no children First, there are those who use drugs and commit criminal acts as the result of the drugs. The drug abuser must be rehabilitated and must pay for the offenses against someone else or society. Second, there are those who are abusing drugs as they number one problem in the world today is so common that we instantly recognize it, and yet, so common that we fail to recognize it as a problem. It has led us to the brink of war with other nations; it has literally brought us into an ongoing war with the people of our own nation. The superficial aspect of the problem in one word is Catachresis. A better description of the the problem is the manipulation of language by scholars, statesmen, and diplomats to mean what they want you to think that is different from what they are actually saying. The war on drugs is the prohibition of drugs. The war is directed at the people who use drugs. Not the people who use drugs for "recreational" purposes, but those who have a medical need for a drug that they are unable to obtain from health care providers. Health care insurance reform cannot resolve it; health care reform that recognizes drug policy reform is the necessary foundation, can. You may not be familiar with the word catachresis, but you are intimately familiar with what it does. Most often, the words are simple. One of the more dramatic examples in recent history occurred when U.S. president, William Jefferson Clinton argued the definition of the word "is". When you see someone debating the definition of a word, you are witnessing someone in the midst of confronting corruption. What lies behind a redefinition generally never has positive value. Redefining words is at the heart of politics. Politicians try to manipulate you into thinking the way that they think by deviating from the standard definition of a word to mean something else. In other words: the abuse of language for political impact. The words "use" and "abuse", we know, are antonymous. That is the definition of one of those words is is the direct opposite of the other. Just as we have in the words "normal" and "abnormal", the prefix ab means "away from" as in the word absent. Thus, "away from" normal is abnormal and "away from" use is abuse. If we want to mathematically express normal, we pick a point on an x, y, z graph and call that "normal". Let us say that normal is at 0, 0, 0. Then, every positive and negative integer and fraction in all directions expresses an abnormal condition because it is "away from" or "deviates from" the norm. Thus, 1, 0, 0, is abnormal and so is 0, -1, 9. The correct administration of a drug is expressed as "drug use". Drug use is measured in dose, x, (milligrams) per unit of time, y, (hours) for no more than a macro-unit of unit of time (days, weeks, months). Therefore, if a 50mg dose of some medication is required or allowed every 4 hours for a maximum of 5 days, then the coordinates that describe the "use" of a drug 50mg, 4hours, 5days (or 120 hours) might be 50, 4, 120. Then, abuse would be any deviation away from 50, 4, 120. Thus, increasing as well as decreasing the dosage would be abuse, just as shortening or lengthening the frequency and duration. However, abuse in the medical context of drug abuse, just as it is with any type of abuse, typically means excessive. If too little of the drug is taken, it might not be effective , but we do not call that drug abuse, still, it is a deviation from the norm. Consider the words "recreational" and medical. The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has contested the possibility that an illicit drug can be used medically. Meanwhile, millions of American use drugs for medical purposes on a daily basis. In fact, in my two studies at Stanford (2003-04) and UCLA (2005-06), I have shown how the routine use of a drug immediately following experimentation is an indication of a pre-existing medical disorder that has been undiagnosed or untreated. Similarly, just about anyone who routinely administers a drug is doing so for medical reasons. The government asserts that this is merely "recreational" use. So which is it? To test this, consider the mathematical representations of the terminology. Essentially, "recreational" drug use is the extraneous use of a drug that offers no medical value but taken for the purpose of producing pleasure. Thus, 0 + d = D; where, 0 is the normal state of an individual, d is the drug or psychoactive substance administered, and D is the experience derived by the drug. On the other hand, medical use of a drug resolves a physical, mental, or emotional disorder. Thus, we have -d + d = 0. Here, the drug reverses the disorder to produce an individual at the 0 or normal state. Modern medical science and pharmacology are far from perfect. It is still contentious whether a health care provider administers psychoactive medication in which a normal state is produced. In some cases, the medical purpose of the medication is to mask the disorder. Such that, the disorder is not corrected, but rather subsides as the result of the medication. In such cases, -c + d = -CD which does not equal 0 but comes closer to or above it. If we are to consider this using numbers, -3 + 4 = 1 In this case, the "drugged" state is closer to 0 or the normal state than the disorder. For a member of the public, often the disorder is nominal enough for a provider to neglect it , seeing that the "drugged" state may take the individual further away from the normal state. This can be expressed as -a + d = -AD or numerically, as -1 + 4 = 3. Here, the disorder at -1, is closer to the normal state than the "drugged" state, but it presents a positive experience mathematically and for the member of the public who cannot obtain treatment for the disorder from a qualified health care provider. If the disorder is treatable, there is no reason why the provider should hesitate to treat it. If, on the other hand d, the drug used to treat the disorder, is a Schedule II or III drug, and the patient is a member of a group typically associated with with "high risk", then the provider may think otherwise, considering that providers today are likely to sacrifice their own safety for a patient associated with a demographic group that society declares untrustworthy. While it is against the law to discriminate against a person because they are African-American, it is not unlawful to show prejudice where there is an African-American youth with an attitude of a gang member. Similarly, a white person whose sexual orientation is unknown is very different from a gay white male with HIV/AIDS. When a gay man with HIV/AIDS reveals a history of a disorder such as narcolepsy or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that typically requires a stimulant drug to correct the problem, there are few providers today who will treat the problem. Thus, the likelihood that the patient will use an illicit drug is far greater had the patient been treated for the disorder. The thinking of the U.S. Government is that if the physician does not treat the disorder, the chances are that the patient will never even consider the illicit drug. Unfortunately, the goal of the U.S. Government is simply to reduce the number of drug users. ATTITUDES Whether the people in society like it or not, younger generations have learned from medical marijuana that the U.S. Government is not always a reliable source of information. This is mainly because the drugs themselves have not evolved. Marijuana, heroin, and cocaine have been in the mainstream since the 1960s. As a result, the parents, grand-parents, and even great-grandparents of today's youth are likely to have some experience with these drugs. With experience comes knowledge, thus as ignorance fades, so does fear. As fear diminishes, parents today are less likely to share the same concerns that existed during their youth.. However, just the opposite can occur among families in which parents never used these drugs, or their experience with them was negative. That does not mean the children of these parents will take on the same attitudes. Because teenagers tend to look beyond their parents, often rebelling, they might cultivate an opposing perspective. As long as the same drugs are in the mainstream, eventually they will become acceptable to younger generations. When drugs change, for example, the recent increasing popularity of methamphetamine, the government capitalizes on the ignorance to thrust upon society greater fear. Rationally, parents will be more concerned about meth if they have no experience with the drug; their children will also have a negative perspective until they discover that the propaganda has not been forthright. When a peer comes along and introduces the drug, there could very well be a domino effect of experimentation. Those who immediately begin to use the drug routinely are those who are most likely to be benefitting from the drug or When the government heightens the adversity associated with the newly popular drug, adolescents and teenagers will be less tempted to try it and their attitudes will remain negative. While this has kept the younger generation from using methamphetamine, it only takes one peer to In fact, because the drugs themselves are stagnant -- the illicit drugs majority of U.S. citizens will not deny anyone from obtaining medication with a controlled substance as long as that substance, of course, is not endangering the lives of others or placing the public at greater risk. However, as the outcome of California's Proposition 19 has shown us, the public does not agree with the legalization of an illegal drug for "recreational" purposes. The reasons are clear, as a majority of the public fears that legalization of a drug will encourage advertisers and marketers to develop their campaigns to entice users. As the public becomes more familiar with illicit drugs, their opinions depend on their experience. That experience may be formed by personal use of the drug or by witnessing someone else they know who uses the drug. There are many "recreational" drug users who are not interested in legalization. The outcome of drug user case histories (Stanford 2003-04; UCLA 2005-06) show that part of the "thrill" that "recreational" drug users experience is the idea that they are doing something illegal. For them, it is a walk on the "wild" side. Then there are those who use an illicit drug for medical reasons and the majority from this population would rather the drug be legalized. What the majority of the public seems to share is an attitude about underage drug use. The solicitation of a drug to a minor is considered by most people something that should not be tolerated. There are still some -- however few -- who feel that minors (under the age of 18) should not be barred from using drugs. As the age decreases, the number of population against drug use increases. For example, of 2,569 participants in the study, only 13 felt that drugs should be legal for individuals from birth to 12 years of age. However, 210 felt that drugs should be legalized for those between the ages of 12 and 14. An additional 315 felt that drugs should be legal for those between the age of 14 and 18. Bear in mind that all 2,569 case histories were taken from drug users or former drug users ages 18 to 55. What most Americans don't realize is that the majority of illicit drugs used routinely are by those with legitimate medical disorders. While this has been known for some time, it is just beginning to make its way into the political arena. Unfortunately, what politicians understand by this is that using an illicit drug in an of itself is a disorder. This would mean that the "recreational" use of alcohol or tobacco or even caffeine is a disorder. Until a substance is abused, it is not a disorder. By abuse we mean "excessive" to the point that it imposes a problem. We use food every day. It is normal human behavior. If we did not use food, we would die. We use air, every day; if not, we would die. But it is rather the abuse that causes harm. Thus, the attitude that needs to change is making the distinction between "use" and "abuse". THE ROOTS OF DUE PROCESS To understand Drug Use Education, consider first, the history of the automobile. When the first working steam-powered vehicle was designed in 1672, no one was thinking the invention would replace a horse and carriage. With all the efforts to develop an automobile during the 18th and 19th century, at the dawn of the 20th century, no one in society still visualized that the automobile was nothing more than a novelty. Karl Benz, the father of the modern automobile was a bit "eccentric". During the 1890s through the turn of the century, the automobile was slow in gaining popularity. It was "dangerous" to drive an automobile. It was illegal to drive one on city streets. By 1910, the automobile becoming increasingly popular, but it wasn't affordable until a decade later when Henry Ford invented the cost-effective Model T. By 1930, the automobile had replaced the horse. The problem was the number of traffic accidents. Although WWII The core foundation of DUE requires an attitude transformation about drugs that strips away fear and ignorance spawned by the WOD and promotes safety and knowlege with the understanding that the appropriate drugs taken correctly with regard to dosage and time can be a powerful healing remedy, while excessive doses of the same drug can produce harmful and even fatal results. In addressing proper drug administration, DUE demands a study of neurology and how psychoactive substances work, conveying the variations of human genetic types, physiology, and how one drug can produce different reactions among various users. Although DUE should not be limited to the subject of recreational drugs and mandate that every student graduates with at least an LVN degree while offering those who wish, the benefits of obtaining an RN degree, the intent of DUE is to prepare students as young as 5 years old with a realization that every substance they consume will effect them in some way; discipline is the only approach that guarantees committment from being absorbed by mental urges which result in relapse. DUE explores the possibility that recreational drugs may have medical benefits which draw users to repeat the practice more than addictive behavior. HOW WOD HAS HAMPERED U.S. RESEARCH EFFORTS The U.S. approach to research of psychoactive substances has been far more perplexing than the recidivism rates of those incarcerated for drug possession and trafficking. Pre-WWII research almost always involved patients committed for life to a sanitarium. These helpless victims, locked away by family and government to protect the safety of community members, were used to test new drugs and surgical procedures that typically resulted in behavioral modification, rendering the victims helpless or useless and often in discomfort such that their lives were often terminated. During WWII both the Japanese and German Nazis government bodies authorized some of the most inhumane and gruesome experiments on American and European POWs that sparked the emergence of international regulations at the Geneva convetions which enforced strict limitations on scientific experimentation of humans that has been adopted in the U.S. to include guidelines in the use and treatment of laboratory animals as well. Following WWII, U.S. veterans were often treated with psychoactive substances, including hallucinagenics that lasted well into the 1970s. Unauthorized studies ended during the early years of the WOD after which a moratorium was placed on research of controlled substances as it pertained to the benefits derived from non-medical use of a specific substance. This was a positive step for many veterans who were administered often excessive quantities of mind-altering substances which curtailed their ability to function normally. However, the cap on controlled substance experimenation has been detrimental to important research. Because so much about psychoactive substances remains unknown, the lack of pharmacological research that presents honest information has been left to other nations, many of which are enemies to the U.S. During the past decade, there has been an overwhelming amount of international scientific data regarding substances that are labled "controlled" in the U.S. and their benefits in the treatment of disorders. The U.S. has forbidden such research, allowing a serious regression that has impacted scientific research because the WOD does not permit any study which might favor restoration of a drug that has been considered "off limits" to the U.S. public. Thus, U.S. drug policy does not recognize any health benefits that might exist for Schedule I drugs, curbing research on medical marijuana, for example. Throughout the past three decades, other nations have pursued such investigations while the U.S. has blocked such research by withholding grants to those U.S.-based organizations which published research papers that contradicted the U.S. political position. Today, the U.S. Government is beginning to realize that by hindering pro-positive drug research, it has failed to uncover information that would have enabled the U.S. to be a competitve player with other nations that have advanced beyond ours. Because DUE demands a pro-positive approach to drugs, it is impossible for DUE and the WOD to co-exist. There can be only one directive from the federal government. If the U.S. wants to proliferate the drug abuse problem and harness scare tactics that will keep drug use underground, no action needs to be taken because the WOD produces drug abusers every day. However, if the goal of the U.S. Government is to dramatically reduce the occurance of drug abuse in our society, then serious action must be taken to overhaul current drug policy. THE WOD IS A BARRIER TO HUMAN HEALTH & DUE The time has come to identify the pitfalls associated with the extreme measures taken by government to allow and curtail drug use and research. While we cannot expect to return to the days before there were controlled substances, the U.S. government must recognize the rights to human freedom which include the right of the individual to make educated decisions about the drugs they consume without unecessary restrictions imposed by government law and most definately without criminal punishment for a human behavior that is normal. The WOD has prooven to be seriously defective since debilitating drugs are still administered to patients in VA hospitals, private practices, hospitals, and clinics that impact the CNS, producing the unwanted effects much the same way as the psychoactive substances that were administered to WWII veterans after the war. DUE is a vehicle that allows an individual to participate in decisions about the consumption of medications and substances that are today in the hands of the U.S. Government that admitted as recently as January 2006 that "too little is known about drug abuse, especially the causes and ways to treat and prevent drug abuse." While the administration of drugs is speculated not to be a human rigtht but rather a privlege that comes from the appropriate education, it is the right of every human to be extended a rudimentary form of such education outside the scope of medical school which will allow individuals to have the privledge to prescribe their own medications with or without the necessity of a healthcare provider. Today, online pharmaceutical vendors assume that the patients they treat are honest about their health. Actually, it should have nothing to do with their business to understand why someone orders medication. With DUE, all they would need to do is verify the credentials that an individual has and caution patients who may be taking drugs that interact with medication they are currently taking as indicated in the patient's healthcare record, a record that each patient in good standing has the privlege to dispute. A continuation of the drug war is job assurance for everyone staffing America's second pharmaceutical system, the drug dealers. Today, there are a vast number of drug dealers solicit drugs to only a few individuals. It is impossible for many of these newbies to be aware of drug interactions and quality level of the street drugs they peddle. It is equally impossible for the U.S. Government to produce meaningful statistics about drug users when a majority of drug users are out their practicing the advice from Nancy Reagan to "Just Say 'NO'". ATTITUDE TRANSFORMATION: HOW LONG WILL THS TAKE A societal attitude transformation about drugs in which many will argue could take not only years or decades, but generations before there is public acceptance of concepts that are misunderstood and morally violating such as recreational drug use. Considering that in every culture one of the first -- if not the first -- uses of chemical substances was as a psychoactive depressant / stimulant I find it hard to believe that an attitude transformation is far beyond the grasp of the current generations. The basis for this is the proliferation of more than 1,500 drug reform organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. While a number of these organziations are small individual or community movements, there are at least 35 in the U.S. alone that are driven by large donations from philanthropists who now support the grand-daddy of these organizations, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). With a membership that has drawn over 50,000 supporters worldwide, the DPA is leagues ahead of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America whose membership has recently dwindled to about 10,000. Proponant organizations which started to disappear during the 1990s have lost momentum. Many have become temporary havens for the survivors (family & friends) of the WOD victims who died because of a fatal overdose (FOD). Once these survivors realize that the drug policy and not the drugs have caused the death of their loved one, they disengage from proponent organizations. Recent disinterest in proponent organizations has been attributed to the lack of support they have provided to make hydrocarbons, such as gasoline, a controlled substance. As these organizations continue to diminish, the surge in reformist organizations is an indicator that attitude transformation is rapidly occurring without government intervention. If the U.S. Government becomes overwhelmed by a majority of Americans who demand public policy changes, it won't be long before a political leader wielding educational solutions to end drug abuse makes a prominent mark to end the WOD, starting what may become the most inclusive era in American politics and it would be about time. I Understanding the genetics of addiction. Preventing drug abuse that leads to dependency. Distinguishing cases of abuse from use. Treating drug abuse and permitting drug use. Developing drug use protocols (dosage and detoxification) Isolating drug administration from conventional crime.
Copyright C 2008