Fault Tolerance - Gicomeng


Severity in sentencing does not deter crime; it only creates more crime & generates more prison time!

	What's Wrong With Zero Tolerance & the War on Drugs? Federal drug policy of the 1980's advocated *zero tolerance* as a form of harsh discipline which was originally intended as a method of sending a message that certain behaviors will not be tolerated, by punishing both major and minor offenses severely. There are four major problems with zero tolerance: 1) There is no evidence that harsh punishment for drug crimes stops or curtails them from occurring; 2) zero tolerance is a basis for discrimination since it permits longer sentencing for minorities; 3) zero tolerance generates crime and creates criminals; 4) zero tolerance increases taxpayer dollars spent on court, prison, and other costs. The US is the only nation which considers it's strongest leaders to be those associated with violence and the weakest, those with intellectual skill and diplomacy. It is this thinking that will soon douse the eternal flames of hope and freedom as we propel aimlessly through the 21st century where the world is advancing beyond the war between pride and prejudice that desecrates the rock dividing the oceans as it divides its people masquerading as Christians when they are hardly worthy to bear the name. If you have to ask what Americans are afraid of, you obviously have not lived in or visited many other countries. To many who come here, the US can seem like the children running the house while the parents are away. That's not always a good thing because those children can be bullies you wouldn't want to deal with. For many Americans, this is the current climate under George W. Bush. In terms of drug abuse, the US takes the top position in the world for only one reason: Americans have never sat down and rationally determined how to stop drug abuse. The originators of the war on drugs were ignorant reactionaries applying the only logical solution their brains would allow to a problem that is far beyond their scope of experience. Today, the majority of the American public cannot begin to understand that a war on drugs only fuels drug abuse which leads to drug dependency. The question is: What differences are there between drug use, drug misuse, drug abuse, and drug dependency? In 1971 and still in 2007, the US Department of Health and Human Services fails to make any distinction. In fact, in their DAWN reports, they categorize misuse and abuse together and divide this into three groups: Those who overdoes; those who are maliciously poisoned; and, "other". The terminology exists however, not to present a series of synonyms that describe the same condition, but to make distinctions that the war on drugs has quickly erased leaving use to mean abuse to mean misuse to mean dependency. In medical terminology this can be equated to an appendectomy of the brain, a hysterectomy of the brain, and a hernia of the brain. One cannot remove an appendix from a place where it doesn't exist; similarly, one cannot define and treat drug use the same way drug abuse is defined and treated. But everyday in America, patients with very different needs for a controlled substance are turned away for the same reason. Isn't it a pity that the war on drugs has maligned the public to be as stupid as politicians which proposed such a disgraceful event? Now we can see where two four letter words of the English language, each beginning with the letter "f" can be used to respond to the question: "What's wrong with the war on drugs?" That is to say it was conceived out of fear and it was destined to fail. And fail it has, just as the Salem witch trials of 1692 were conceived out of fear and were destined to fail. Only now it has taken 36 as millions of lives have been impacted and rather than viewing slightest bit of progress towards a solution, the lazy politicians continue to regurgitate solutions that are detrimental to the people of the US and to other nations around the world as these solutions merely strengthen the underground movement making it impossible for our healthcare system ever to recover from the political insanity that would have appalled even Thomas Brattle. Can the politicians of the US not understand that one cannot live in a world of chemical substances, there is no merit to incarcerate unless the politicians incarcerate themselves an be brought together to spell the distinctions that can be made between them. The classic distinctions between misuse and abuse is a effect of frequency. For example, "misuse" would be a step back from abuse. It is usually categorized as a casual episode of drug abuse, where drug abuse is the constant, cyclical routine of misusing a drug. But again, there is no cohesive definition to define these terms. To make it easier for themselves, politicians decided early on that they were not even going to deal in the semantics of drugs. They were not about to becomes chemists and the American population would have to suffer because of their expectations that drugs would simply just go away if they poured in dollars, and slapped down a law of zero tolerance. ZERO means nothing. Zero tolerance means that for no reason at all will anything be tolerated in the least. In contemporary society in relation to drugs, it is like an ostrich sticking it's head in the sand on a battlefield.	The War on Drugs is terrorism that has touched the lives of every American citizen in a negative way by altering the course of pharmacology and regulating healthcare practices; diverting patients from useful drugs to anti-depressants that require a user to continue taking them throughout their lives without stopping. It has changed the the course of medical malpractice, making it more difficult to impossible for patients to bring lawsuits against their provider if the patient is using any medication -- even OTC medications -- without a physician's consent. Thus, our healthcare system has become careless and the voice of American citizens has been silenced. The philosophy behind the war on drugs is to keep the public stupid about drugs as a deterrent to drug use. By keeping the public “stupid” it may have reduced the number of drug users, but only by turning them into drug abusers who wind up as pawns to drug dealers who are by design, typically more interested in selling their product than in the health of their customers. Thus, the war on drugs has exacerbated a problem rather than controlled it. The war on drugs has perpetuated an outlet for adolescent rebellion. Thus, drug dealers are the first to provide a drug abuse education and there is no drug use education. The war on drugs embraces a zero tolerance policy which treats self-medicators as harsh criminals and has implicated the health of Americans suffering from chronic disorders, cancer, AIDS, and just about any health problem. Zero tolerance has erased the line between drug use and abuse, sending patients who self-medicate into rehabilitation programs when they need medical care. Ironically, the war on drugs is positioned to destroy healthcare and the lives of those who need access to it. The war on drugs is a crime unto itself that has created corruption in federal, state, and local government, in hospitals and treatment centers by authority who often use the drugs themselves or resell them to make a profit. Such incidents have become prevalent and are rarely investigated by administrator who condone it. For example, a provider in a Stanford clinic reportedly engaged in the sale of illicit street drugs during 2004 that the institution failed to investigate due to the prestige of the physician. The war on drugs is legalized discrimination. In the past it has targeted the African-American, Latino, and other communities. Since 2002 gay men and lesbians, regardless of race or national origin, have become the primary targets of drug busts in the US. The one group that remains mostly unaffected are heterosexual white middle and upper middle class Americans and the wealthy. About 85% of all African American males visible in the gay and bisexual community are typically sentenced to a prison term for drug possession as compared to under 4% of white heterosexual females who make it into our courtrooms for the same offense. Treatment programs offered under the war on drugs are ineffective and are designed for repeat offenses that can generate lengthy prison terms under zero tolerance policy. The 12-step programs are psychologically damaging, by enabling victims of drug abuse to berate and condemn themselves. The 12-step programs fail to focus on the underlying problems of drug abuse. Their only benefit is by allowing victims of drug abuse to interact socially. The beginner programs are visited frequently by drug dealers who sell their wares to attendees. In many neighborhoods, drug dealing goes unnoticed since the police are paid by drug dealers in exchange for protection. The widespread nature of this continues to grow as information about drugs makes users realize, these drugs aren't bad for society, they are just bad news for the people who want to CONTROL society. (So that's what they mean! Why didn't they just say that in the first place?) Over 25% of those in prison today are serving time for non-violent drug crimes that the leader of our nation had admitted to in his past. Thus, the only reason for a war on drugs is that it is a legal form of discrimination. To be fair, the war on drugs has averted drug use. Over 19 million Americans who have chronic disorders requiring treatment with a controlled substance are unable to be treated by physicians who won't take the risk to prescribe a controlled substance. These 19 million American citizens must persevere with a war that has turned their lives upside down. Many have become disabled and are unable to find jobs as a result. Some of them have been lead to the streets by Health Educators; others have found out themselves that illicit street drugs can be used in place of prescription medication. (BUT THOSE OF US WITH CHONIC DISORDERS WILL BE THE FIRST LINE TO OPENLY ATTACK THE US AS WE KNOW THE TRUTH MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE! ) In an effort to "help", physicians refer patients from this group of 19 million patients to Health Educators. It has become the role of the Health Educator to lead these patients to drug dealers which sell the patient illicit street drugs in place of prescription controlled substances. The mortality rate due to the war on drugs is high. There is no mortality rate known that is caused by the drugs themselves because there is no "use" in our society. Because of the war on drugs we have generated an underground industry comprised of drug dealers. Although a decent percentage tend to be focused on the best interest of their clients, the majority are there just to sell a product and provide false information, teaching youth how to do drugs that will result in addiction and to spend more money on return visits. The war on drugs has made our physicians "dumber" and has bought disgrace to our healthcare system by creating a panic reminiscent to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. "A" type candidates testing positive for drug use are denied employment. This has led to poor performance among American industries where "B" and "C" candidates become hired for jobs. Many of these "B" and "C" candidates are more savvy drug users who know how to beat a drug test.