Posted on 06/06/2005 8:17:01 PM PDT by CHARLITE
See the symbiotic relationship here? Now, go find a meth lab in some redneck's single-wide. Seems that it's about the only thing you impotent bull pizzles can wrassle with, without either hurting someone, violating someone's civil rights, or making complete federal embarassments out of yourselves.
'War on drugs.' Who is kidding whom?
But don't you feel safer now?
"140 years ago there were no drug laws, and there were no meaningful drug problems"
Wrong!
Long History of Drug Use in Human Societies
* ETOH: 10,000 years
* Coca: Thousand's of years
* Marijuana: over 10,000 years
* Peyote: Pre-Columbian
Who ever said that marijuana wasn't addictive? other than potheads or enabling fools? Not everyone that smokes it is an addict but many addicts smoke it and depend on it for their next high. Reality what a concept. The shame about smoking pot is that so many people are more scared about living life on life's terms rather than self medicating themselves into oblivion. Pot is an hallucinogen in origin. Smoking pot isn't cool. Its a cult of stupidity
"Drug use" and "drug problems" are distinct things. Every society has widespread drug use and fringe drug problems. We humans love our intoxicants, and no war on some drugs is going to stop that.
I said there were no MEANINGFUL drug problems 140 years ago, and that's a fact. There were no drug problems so gigantic that there wasn't room in our prisons for ordinary criminals because of all the people in on bullshit drug charges for instance.
That would be about 1865 ... did you ever hear of the WCTU? Or how about the laudanum problems, or the patent medicines that had high levels of morphine?
There were drug & alcohol problems, which led unfortunately to the over reaction of prohibition.
Drugs and alcohol were part of the problem that the Methodist revival in Engalnd was addressing. Why do you think the Methodists are so keen against alcohol? They weren't in the habit of inventing things to have movements against back then.
"In America 140 years ago there were no drug laws, and there were no meaningful drug problems"
Of course, drunkenness was rampant - no need for expensive imported products when "john Barleycorn" would do.
This amounts to an invasion of personal medical records and Dr-Patient confidentiality. This places bureaucratic review and oversight of Doctors decisions to treat pain with anything stronger than tylenol.
The Temperence Movement grew out of the problems that the urban classes had with alcohol ...
"Why do you think the Methodists are so keen against alcohol? They weren't in the habit of inventing things to have movements against back then."
And so it goes.
Full jails might not have been a problem here, as we had the West, but England was busy shipping folks away for minor theft. The Fatal Shore: "For 80 years between 1788 and 1868 England transported its convicts to Australia." They were too busy to do more than let the drunks lie in the gutter.
Here, we had other problems, like cholera and typhoid epidemics in the cities. We also let the drunks fall by the wayside. That's why the WCTU got started, as a Progressive movement to save the children. The cheapest way was to just sober up the parents, one way or the other. Either knock them sober, or knock a hole in their kegs.
There's a book, called something like "The good old days weren't so good". It covers some of the gritty details your history books apparently did not.
I'm afraid I don't understand your comment.
The major issue as I see it is that, frankly, lots of doctors DO over-prescribe narcotic pain meds. I can't say how many people I know who have been prescribed Vicodin or other similar narcotics for things that just weren't painful enough to necessitate it (pulled teeth, sprained ankles, that kind of thing).
In the end, they take one or two and then have a full bottle sitting around for weeks, months, or years. A lot of that ends up being stolen by or passed on to other people.
Then those of us who suffer from severe chronic pain end up with doctors who won't prescribe effective painkillers for those slightly more nebulous conditions (fibromyalgia, endometriosis, chronic back injury, nerve damage etc.) that tend to cause severe chronic pain. The government is breathing down their necks and when you write a scrip like that and can't point to a bump on someone's head as the reason for it, you get monitored as a possible drug dealer.
The same general type of thing has happened with antibiotics. People are so slap-happy about throwing antibiotics at a problem that doesn't need them that now they're becoming ineffective. For what? So a doctor didn't have to spend the time explaining that Pencillin doesn't make colds go away?
Drug use does not always constitute a drug problem. The drug problem is the problem the regulators have. The drug problem is a REVENUE figure for police, and a REVENUE figure for taxes that could be collected except that illegal use or manufacture bypasses the tax collection grids that fuel the regulators.
Drugs, as in any substance use or behavior pattern do not always have a predictable outcome, but for the most part, societies that have condoned drug use have had excellent reasons why the drug should be made available to "responsible" usage.
That IS the reality of this whole issue. Anyone who has EVER suffered from chronic pain understands the importance of having safe, appropriate and effective relief. Talk about "rights!" If modern pharmaceutical research has developed these medications, then what are they for? Doesn't the citizenry have a right to pain relief, if the products are available?
Thanks for your contribution to this very critical subject.
Char
It's all over the net from different sources and studies.
Here's just one link with references I found in a second from google.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7804
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