Why We Need to Stop the War on Drugs, NOW!

Why the War on Drugs Needs to End Now
Why the War on Drugs Needs to End Now
The war on drugs is the most senseless action ever taken by modern government that has created more problems than accomplishing anything useful. In some way, every individual living in the U.S. is today impacted by the drug war. What the war on drugs has done is to blindly undermine the healthcare system, foster discrimination, generate a foundation for corruption, create an industry with a revolving door and no solutions. Drugs don't destroy dreams, careers, and lives; the war on drugs does. In the ElectroChemical Age. the war on drugs is like a war against food, air, or water for those with chronic disorders that depend on these drugs to live! The war on drugs does nothing to prevent drug abuse as it is there to cultivate it. It waits until your kids are floundering at the deep end of a swimming pool and then it teaches them how to drown, then tells them not to do that... but it never teaches them how to swim. Why? Obviously because our most eminent medical research teams don't have a clue how to swim either! The only group who seem to know are the drug dealers and experienced users. That's very sad. It's disgusting. I guarantee you that you will be very upset if you ask your doctor for a controlled substance and pretend he or she is your swimming coach who you've just asked how to swim. I guarantee that exercise will shock the living daylights out of you and you will probably never trust that physician again. It has happened to me 39 times in the last five years, and frankly I am very annoyed that the response is always the same. They will not look directly at you. They will shake and tremble and they will look at you like you are someone who is about to stab them in the heart. But it is you who will feel stabbed... over and over and over again. It will be difficult to go back... Who wants to learn how to swim from someone who is afraid of the water? Not I! The first question we need to ask ourselves is why people are so drawn to drugs. The answer is very simple: We aren't drawn to drugs overnight; they have been thrust upon us, generation after generation from before we were even born to the day we were born and throughout our childhood. These chemical substances fill our world. We cannot avoid them even if we moved to a remote corner of the earth, some trace of chemical substance will be there. Face it! We are a chemical culture among chemical cultures. Using drugs is not always just a matter of choice. They are prescribed for us, and our bodies have adjusted to them. When we support a war against drugs, we are supporting a war against our very existence.
Here are 28 of the many reasons why the drug war should end. I can't think of one reason why we should let it continue. I challenge you to write me with one good reason why the war on drugs should continue. Send me an email and I will print it here. richard@gicomeng.com The primary reason why drug abuse exists today is because the war on drugs is a deterrent to drug use education that is required to know what drugs do, what drugs to take, at what dosage, how often, and why, in addition to knowing why they should not be used. Additionally, more than 60% of the population suffers from anti-drug disorder which is a sociological phenomenon. Costing taxpayers $70 billion dollars a year, the drug war does nothing to strengthen our nation and everything to weaken it. The productivity of our corporations has been so badly compromised by accepting B and C level candidates because A and often B level candidates fail drug screens that corporations have had to hire back drug users and embarrassingly offer them rehabilitation programs they didn’t need. The price tag for this operation costs consumers $190 billion dollars a year in products and services. Compare that to the $50 million that insurance falsely state that drugs users cost them. The truth is, self medicators are actually saving insurance companies money since drug dealers don’t get insurance. What drug dealers get comes out of employees pockets. Non-violent drug offenders comprise 30% of our prison population while corporations responsible for polluting the environment and causing widespread harm are rarely even fined! The mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guideline result in some of the longest prison sentences for low-level drug offenders with as much as life in prison without parole for a first time offense. Today there are 2.6 million prisoners in US prisons. We lead the world with the most incarcerations at the present time and throughout history and our solution is to build more prisons because our politicians are too pre-occupied noticing what's happening with this country as they all waste our valuable time figuring out how to end a war in Iraq where we should have never been. The drug war has created a lucrative black market that has resulted recently in kidnapping and high ransoms that don't always get reported. Our cities and even suburbs have become battle zones where youth are lured into lives of crime that start in the classroom where how to abuse drugs is now taught. Whoever heard of someone teaching a child the wrong way to do something and then say: "See that? Don't do that!" Despite the sugar-coated NIDA statistics, drug overdoses are at an all-time high, principally because more kids are using drugs and when overdoses are reported, they are purposely not linked to the drug war so that we can continue murdering our youth by failing to provide them with an education that will allow them to survive. For every death in Iraq, there are 15 deaths in the US. The majority of them range from age 10 to 25 years of age.Laws criminalizing syringe possession, and the overall milieu of underground drug use and sales, encourage needle sharing and increase the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C. Thousands of Americans die from drug overdoses or poisonings by adulterants every year, most of their deaths preventable through the quality-controlled market that would exist if drugs were legal. The mortality rate has risen substantial for females between the age of 15 and 25 who misuse/abuse prescription medication. These "accidental" drug overdoses have been pulled from the NIDA statistics to lower the numbers of the drug war mortality. People who require any controlled substance and the people who provide it for them, live in fear of arrest and prosecution. Physicians fear that by writing a prescription for a controlled substance -- particularly someone who is a member of a minority -- it will put them on the radar screen of law enforcement and so they refuse to provide medication, causing potentially 19 million Americans to go untreated, often becoming disabled as a result. As a result, our healthcare system has been irrevocably damaged with most physicians knowing very little about the illicit drugs and controlled substances. We now have become dependent on drug dealers and suppliers for answers that medical care should have provided but don't. Clinical research has been set back 36 years. During the last 25 years grants are not given to those who have a positive slant on illicit drugs. Thus, the field of medicine in America is today an unreliable source of data. Ethics in our criminal justice system are virtually the exception rather than the rule, with perjury, violations of constitutional rights, corruption and general misconduct endemic and largely tolerated -- all of it driven by the drug war. Frustration over the failure of the drug war, together with the lack of dialogue on prohibition, distorts the policymaking process, leading to ever more intrusive governmental interventions and ever greater dilution of the core American values of freedom, privacy and fairness. From drug testing in our schools, to SWAT teams invading our homes, privacy has been gutted. Profiling assaults the dignity of members of our minority groups, and of the poor, denying them equal justice. The war on drugs has dramatically eroded the physician-patient partnership and has destroyed the confidence of the public in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. But even more important, the war on drugs drives successive generations down a dangerous path as humanity becomes more dependent on the cradle-to-grave electronic medical records (EMR) that follow a patient throughout life across a national and international healthcare network. One blemish that includes the use of an illicit street drug could irrevocably limit and even destroy the career of someone who has already achieved… who is in an important field… who is on the ladder towards a goal.. or – most tragic of all – the war on drugs could destroy the dreams of the youth in our society. As a result of the war on drugs, our children are using chemical substances at a younger age, yielding a higher morbidity and mortality rate that the federal government has manipulated statistically by altering guidelines to show the cause of some fatalities to be unrelated to drug abuse, in order to show parents just how effective the drug war is when it isn’t. All people (including healthcare professionals) are much less knowledgable about chemical substances today than they were during previous decades, as they focus on artificial negative aspects of drugs in the black market rather than the benefits of FDA-approved drugs. For example, Desoxyn is methamphetamine hydrochloride, a prescription drug that is safe to use for children age 6 and older. The same drug in the black market, crystal methamphetamine, is described as a lethal chemical that should not be used by anyone, even though the chemical composition of both drugs is the same. The drug war denies the public access to controlled substances. That is, physicians will not jeopardize their professional careers to write prescriptions, and it is illegal for these substances to be manufactured, procured, transported, or possessed by any citizen without authorization that no one has. Thus, potentially 19 million Americans who suffer from chronic disorders that require a substance controlled medication as treatment, might be unable to work. A number of them are already a burden to the government, and yet many of these people want nothing more than to be productive. The war on drugs has resulted in a legal discrimination in our courts, in employment, in schools, and in every aspect of human living. Those targeted are minority groups, especially Aftrican- Americans, GLBTs and MSMs, Hispanics, and other minorities who use drugs. It should be noted that there are more white heterosexual drug users in America than any other group yet there is no dispute that this group has easier access to drugs and only 1 out of every 25 cases results in detainment, whereas an African American males will be detained in 7 out of every 8 cases. A white homosexual male will be detained in 3 out of every 4 cases. Corporations which claim to embrace diversity provide drug screens that they use as the basis for discrimination. The war on drugs is government induced terrorism against the public, leading the general population to believe that it is a threat of significant danger when associated with one drug but not another, For example, cigarettes do not carry the stigma that heroin or methamphetamine does, and yet cigarettes have no medicinal value and present a health hazard far beyond methamphetamine or heroin as repeatedly proven in statistics. With reference to Desoxyn, there is no significant danger in prescribing it to 6-year-old children, making the war on drugs a complete and utter farce. The drug war has cost taxpayers and corporatations more than 16 trillion dollars since its inception in 1971. It outstrips any war in terms of cost, however, it is the only war in which funding cannot be accounted for. There is far too much evidence which suggests that at least 6 trillion dollars have been siphoned off by corrupt politicians and business executives, making this war the most corrupt event in human history. The worst part about this is that even though the public will agree with this, they will take no action to end the war because they feel strongly it is doing something, regardless whether there is proof that it is only causing more harm than good! Only recently has the war on drugs been given serious consideration. And yet, not nearly enough consideration. If the war on drugs does not end soon, it is likely to topple the US budget. The war on drugs has turned a healthy population into a sick population making us wonder what right does the government have to pollute our air, our water, our bodies and that of the entire world with the same chemical substances that it controls. The war on drugs has been used to manipulate the canine species, by turning household pets into attack dogs that are also being used by drug users to identify suppliers. The drug war has created negative public hostility towards something that they don’t even understand. Many of those who exhibit this hostility are the drug users and abusers themselves. Because the government has gone so far overboard in their description of the drug problem, they have bypassed many individuals who can’t even recognize themselves among the intense fabrications that are drawn by the government and healthcare providers. Indeed, the most significant reason why the drug war has failed is because drug abusers who care about their country fail to see themselves in the distorted picture. In a sense, the government has created a problem and a solution that doesn’t fit the taxpaying patriot who uses or abuses drugs. Where is the enemy? Why does there have to be a war when there is no enemy? Human medical physiological and psychological research has been deterred for 36 years by the war on drugs. As a result, the setbacks in pharmacology have been enormous. Much of the neurological research that has been achieved during this period is obscure, and dangerously inaccurate. White papers prepared by researchers must adhere to certain guidlelines in order that they might receive grants. This has led to the demise of ambitious work. Most research that was developed throughout the 1980s and 1990s has been a complete and utter waste with the same material being rehashed over and over with no focus on the benefits of these drugs. . By 2000, it could be seen that we had created the dark ages of pharmacology in the number of studies that were launched to recycle the negative aspects of cannabis and other important drugs. Thus, recent studies have tended to produce real data couched amidst a backdrop of negative language. The real problem here is research that remains barren with no objectivity. No one can ask the important questions here: “ Why are so many humans willing to give any amount of money… their last penny… for a drug that maybe lasts 6 hours? What do these drugs do that entices one to be drawn back again and again? How do drugs like cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine… benefit the user…? What positive value can these drugs have…? Stifling researchers from asking these and other important questions is unforgivable, but not to have important answers is unforgettable as generations ahead of us will realize that the stupidity of the war on drugs can be equated to the Spanish Inquisition. It is here alone that our politicians will mark their legacy of fear among the unsung self-medicating heroes of today who will live on throughout history as the risk-taking leaders, paving the way towards tomorrow’s era of new medicine. The war on drugs is not healthy, not necessary, deadly, and inhumane. It is a war against the people of the US and of the world. It is myopic in it’s goals which are different from what it professes to do. No one can say that there is anything good about the drug war except that it is a lazy politician’s approach to achieve easy votes. The one thing to remember for the future about the war on drugs is that it will have no benefits even for the greedy and lazy, for as long as we, the people, stand our ground and grow in number, we will be a major political threat. Unless we, the people, want our children to die needlessly, and for the evolution of man to remain stagnant on this planet, then I suggest that you take a closer look at the facts about drug use and how to distinguish it from drug abuse. I suggest that you stop demanding that the current black market be legalized or decriminalized as your only option and demand that FDA-approved substances be released for the public to use responsibly. There is a way to achieve this, and drug use education (DUE) is just the beginning. We must present a pro-positive view of drugs so that the fear of them diminishes. We have a long way to go before we see a change after this war has ended. The sooner that we start, the stronger we will be.
As of 2007 September 13, not one person has responded to state why the war on drugs should continue. I have received a barrage of email supporting an end to the war on drugs. Some of those reasons have been added to the original list of 15.
Copyright C 2006