If You Like Your Drug Policy, You Can Keep That Too!

By Alexandra D. Datig

Remember how the President promised if Americans like his or her health insurance plan, they can keep it under Obamacare?  Then it turned out millions of Americans were denied coverage from their own plan providers?  Only months after the President’s statement turned out to be false he does it again with a statement so shockingly against his own policy, it can only lead us to conclude that if Americans like his and her drug policy, they can keep that too! 

Make no mistake, President Obama’s recent statement in the New Yorker regarding drug legalization was a calculated attempt at persuading Americans to favor legalizing of drugs without coming right out and saying it, in conflict with his own policies as well as the Controlled Substances Act.   That is why he took the closet-legalizer approach by being careful to say to the New Yorker “if someone says” this or that, meaning he didn’t say it, yet he encourages drug legalization advocates to go-ahead and say it,… you know, wink-wink, sort of… LOL.    

Take for example his comments “if we can come up with a negotiated dose of cocaine.”  I am sober more than 15 years thank God, and just like the President who admitted to cocaine use in his book “Dreams From My Father” (1995), I too have used cocaine.  Knowing this, the President also knows that any cocaine user is aware, there is no such thing as a “negotiated dose of cocaine,” because to even a first-time user cocaine creates a fiendish craving for more.  A lot more.  Therefore, to suggest there is an acceptable dose of cocaine to a cocaine user is like saying there is an acceptable amount of gas to drive 1500 miles even though your gas tank that only holds 18 gallons.   It has also been scientifically documented that cocaine can create permanent unhealthy changes in the brain, even for first-time users.  The same goes for marijuana and many other drugs.  

Here’s where the calculation starts.  After making these remarks Americans should theoretically be thinking cocaine may be harmful, but wouldn’t it be safer if it were legal?  Would that make it “better” for cocaine addicts?  No one is talking about how we should curb use except drug prevention organizations who are seemingly falling on deaf ears.  To the President, however, that is not the point.  After all, Americans have a right to do what they want with his or her body, wink-wink... LOL.  Caveats of cocaine addiction and death should not be mentioned by the President of the United States?  Really folks, this is what it has come to.

The President also said, “if marijuana is fully legalized.”  With that statement he showed zero confidence in his own drug control strategy that speaks against the legalization of marijuana by which he is expected to lead the country!  What Americans should be asking is, if President Obama is no longer president, will marijuana be given the same nonchalant and casual leeway?  My immediate guess is, no, it will not, regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat is occupying the White House.      

To his comments about marijuana not being as bad as alcohol?  Bad?  Is that the best he can do?  For a Harvard Law School graduate to use the word 'not as “bad”' seems plebian.   How about marijuana is not as impairing and intoxicating as alcohol, though it does impair the user’s ability to reason at times.   As a former member of the Choom Gang, the President also knows what it means to be an experienced marijuana user.  He likely knows how to self-dose and drive stoned.  He probably knows the difference between Indica and Sativa and likely has had his fair share of Maui-wowie when he lived in Hawaii.  Does that make his closer-legalizer approach more persuasive?

Sadly, the entire recreational marijuana movement is built on the premise of alcohol prohibition.  Instead of making a reasonable consumer-based argument, drug legalization advocates have taken a model of radicalized rebellion and personal right because, to quote the President, “marijuana is not as bad as alcohol.”  Like alcohol, marijuana is slowly being made legal by dividing communities with radicalized pro-drug propaganda and with his recent statements President Obama has shown he is in lock-step with the hoodwinking pro-drug lobby.

If there ever is a negotiated amount of legal meth as the President suggests in his interview with the New Yorker, he should be the first to try some right before he gives a State of the Union Address.  Maybe then Americans can decide if they think it is bad or "ok" or  not.  At the end of the day, we do need to figure out how to take the black market away from ruthless drug cartels.  By dividing Americans with conflicting drug laws and an outdated radicalized alcohol prohibition model to aim at legalization, the President is only doing what he knows how to do best.  Divide America by sounding like a crackpot.

Reflection

Russell Simmons Offers "Pie in the Sky" Ideology to End the War on Drugs

By Alexandra D. Datig

Yesterday, Russell Simmons had an opinion piece featured in the Huffington Post (which made false claims on the number of prison inmates behind bars.  Simmons number 2.3 million.  Reality, 1.610 million)  calling for the end of the drug war.  This may be a popular thing to say, but reality on what ending the war on drugs would look like is another story.  Surely, in a perfect world, like the one Russell Simmons lives in, this would be a wonderful idea.  The world however, is not perfect and ending the war on drugs today would mean losing the war on drugs tomorrow.

Quite frankly, the world would be better served if Mr. Simmons made some substantial financial contributions to prison re-entry and recovery programs.   Simmons should stick to his craft and help clean up the lyrics in rap music, which has fueled the mindset of black on black crime, violent felons, drug abuse and degradation and violence against women.   

The war on drugs will never stop.  Not as long as we have drug cartels infiltrating our nation and domestic criminal networks looking to make a buck off those who are gullible enough to believe in a “two wrongs make a right” argument such as; drugs like marijuana are safer than alcohol.

In his fairytale-like rant in the HuffPost, Simmons uses buzz word after buzz word, churning the same rhetoric we have been hearing from drug legalization enthusiasts.  Most importantly however, Simmons wants to change the ratio of blacks that have been incarcerated on drug charges, that have little opportunity to get out of the life of crime once he or she gets out of prison.  Surely, the situation Simmons describes is dire and has been public knowledge for some time, but Simmons should also know that the solution is not simple.

A few days ago, the Department of Justice released a speech by United States Attorney General Eric Holder on the problems of incarceration and re-entry into society.  Re-entry is an enormous challenge because while the idea of releasing prisoners early seems like a novel concept for some people, the reality is they have limited or no skills to survive once he or she re-enters society.  

Prisoners are used to being taken care of.  Housing prisoners can cost between $24,000 to $55,000 per year.  Prisoners who re-enter societies have little means to find work which supports this level of income.  Therefore, he or she often reverts back to a life of crime leading back to incarceration.  A tragedy of circumstance, yes.  A reason to end the war on drugs?  No. 

If we are gong to help people and rehabilitate them successfully, prisons need to be reformed from within.  Mr. Simmons should know that.  Mr. Simmons should also know while his pie in the sky ideas of legalizing drugs sound like music to him and his ilk, reality of rehabilitating those who become drug dependent is a challenge we have yet to fully realize.  

The United States has more than 7 million addicts and no effective way to treat them (35 million drug dependent Americans qualify for Obamacare, (R. L. Kirkish, 2013).  Ending the war on drugs with no solution on how to handle drug cartels that are now producing more methamphetamine due to the suppression of the marijuana market, remains to be the inconvenient consequence of legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana.  Legitimizing illegal drugs has not and will not bring about real solutions on how to combat the problem of making drugs more available to addicts or to get rid of drug cartels.  Yet Mr. Simmons wants to end the war on drugs and legalize them.  So far, the forecast proves to be catastrophic.    

Faces of Meth:

KTLA 5 News: Toddler Critical After Drinking Drano From Sippy Cup at Meth Lab

MILTON, Fla. — A 3-year-old boy is in critical condition after drinking what is believed to be Drano that was being stored in a sippy cup at an apartment where meth was being cooked, reports the Pensacola News Journal.

The boy’s mother Victoria Lauren Cain, 27, her boyfriend, Jonathan Wayne Glass, 36, and five others were in the apartment at the time cooking meth, according to the report.

Glass is charged with one count of cruelty towards a child/abuse that causes great bodily harm or disability, three counts of possession of a harmful drug without a prescription, four counts of drug possession without a prescription, one count of opium or derivative trafficking and one count of possessing or using drug equipment.

Cain is also facing charges related to this investigation.  It is her fourth arrest in Santa Rosa County, records show.  The unidentified boy is showing signs of improvement and is expected to survive.  However, Assistant State Attorney James Parker says the toddler has likely suffered permanent injuries.

“He’s a long way from being released from the hospital,” he said.

Source:  www.ktla.com

Smoking Kills (The Bryan Curtis story)

Children being raised by Meth Addicts

Maggie Jean Wortman, a 27-year old Eureka woman plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, yes, voluntary, for killing her five-week old infant with methamphetamine tainted breast milk. The Times-Standard reports that the infant, whose name was Michael, had an autopsy performed and that test results came back with “methamphetamine toxicity” as the cause of death.

A parent’s addiction is the greatest destroyer of a child. Whether parents are alcoholics or drug addicts, if there are children in the home, there are sure to be many sad moments and many tears in the life of that child. Parents who are addicts lose all sense of full responsibility toward their children when intoxicated and behave toward children in a way that does not only harm them, but also breeds anger and behavior for the child to become an addict.

According to Mother Nature Network, "6.7% of people seeking treatment for meth addiction are pregnant women." The most horrible and reprehensible stories I have heard about drug and alcohol abuse however, are those of parents who are meth addicts. They exhibit the kind of anger, rage and homicidal behavior towards their children that is extremely troubling. I have heard of a meth-addicted mother dropping her baby on the floor, deliberately on its head, twice, and being upset about the fact that the baby did not die. I have heard of sodomy of a baby until it’s death by a meth-addicted father and I have heard stories beyond that.

Meth will make a monster out of anyone, some more than others, perhaps. The question is; how much of a monster does it take for us to get people to understand that meth is the end of all things sane, compassionate and normal? Meth devastates everything it touches and If I had to describe the effects of meth, I would call it “schizophrenia in a bottle.”

Meth use Causes Irreversible Damage

Some of the most common ingredients in meth are Benzene, Freon, Acetone, battery acid, Pheynl-2-Propane, drain cleaner, Either and Red Devil Lye.

In your average household or car repair shop these ingredients are considered environmentally unfriendly and require special methods of disposal. Yet, meth users don’t really understand just how badly they damage his or her body with meth usage.

The effects of these toxic chemicals causes loss of proper organ function and bone loss, such as the slow collapse of the jawbone. Few are actually aware that daily meth users have a life expectancy of five years, depending on usage and what physical condition a person who uses meth is in. Some drug legalizers are even crazy enough to argue drugs like meth should be widely available and legal, even though users have no concept of what they are using and if there is damage, what to do about it.

The latest new booking photos called “the faces of meth” tell a frightening story and show the true hopelessness and serious irreversible damage meth can do.