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Drug addiction a disease, not a moral failing, White House says
latimes.com ^ | June 11, 2012 | Morgan Little

Posted on 06/11/2012 12:36:15 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY

Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the National Drug Control Policy, has announced a new focus on treating drug addiction as a disease, not a moral failing, and emphasizes removing the stigma placed on drug abusers.

Speaking at the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs, Calif., on Monday, Kerlikowske declared “this country hasn’t looked at recovery in a way that makes sense,” and that he intended to “use the bully pulpit of the White House in a way that brings it out into the open.”

Previous federal drug policies were a three-legged stool, Kerlikowske said, with criminalization, prevention and treatment serving as the foundation for national policies. Now, there will be a fourth leg – recovery.

Forming the administration’s new attitude toward drug problems “meant moving beyond talking in the beltway … it meant talking to real people dealing with addiction,” Kerlikowske said.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: disabilitiesact; drugs; drugwar; obamacare; obamalegacy; warondrugs; wod; wodlist; wosd
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1 posted on 06/11/2012 12:36:24 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Yeah and masturbation is a disease too...


2 posted on 06/11/2012 12:38:57 PM PDT by TSgt (The only reason I have one in the chamber at all times, is because it is impossible to have two in.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Of course, to Democrats, moral failing are things like Christianity, preparedness, etc.


3 posted on 06/11/2012 12:38:57 PM PDT by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

How about a disease caused by a moral failing?

Like a smoker with lung cancer or homosexual with AIDS.


4 posted on 06/11/2012 12:39:24 PM PDT by TigerClaws (He)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

In other words, nothing is anybody’s fault.


5 posted on 06/11/2012 12:39:24 PM PDT by kik5150
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Let me guess. This will make it easier for crackheads to claim disability for life now, which of course will please them and make them want to vote for Obama.


6 posted on 06/11/2012 12:39:51 PM PDT by Cementjungle
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To: TSgt

Along with wife-beating...


7 posted on 06/11/2012 12:39:59 PM PDT by SMARTY ("The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings. "Henri Frederic Amiel)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Misconduct, treason, theft and lying do not concern him either.


8 posted on 06/11/2012 12:40:40 PM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Why not? We already know that liberalism is a mental disease. Liberalism and drug addiction normally go hand in hand.


9 posted on 06/11/2012 12:41:15 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Free Stuff or Freedom! You Decide 2012.)
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To: SMARTY

There is a Drug Addict/Dealer living in Senior Housing next to an old lady whose son is a local cop. Whenever he goes to visit his mother the POS calls in a complaint about harassment.


10 posted on 06/11/2012 12:42:44 PM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Interesting timing, coming within a few days of NYC announcing that marijuana isn’t all that bad.


11 posted on 06/11/2012 12:42:47 PM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: Cementjungle

I was going to guess that it keeps many people from becoming convicted felons and losing their (Democrat) vote.


12 posted on 06/11/2012 12:44:05 PM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: TSgt

“Yeah and masturbation is a disease too...”

Dang. Really? Do they have shots for that or some kinda pill? It’s not fatal or serious or anything like that is it?

A friend of mine wants to know...


13 posted on 06/11/2012 12:44:30 PM PDT by saleman (!!!!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Disorder, not disease. Moral failing? Somewhat, but so are all kinds of other everyday things (not to excuse them).
14 posted on 06/11/2012 12:45:05 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature not nurture TM)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

To the Left, the only crimes are being a racist or a homophobe.


15 posted on 06/11/2012 12:45:26 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: saleman
Dang. Really? Do they have shots for that or some kinda pill?

You may need glasses.

16 posted on 06/11/2012 12:46:25 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Can’t be hatin’ on the “Choom Gang.” That’s racist. Bambam couldn’t help himself- it’s a disease he caught.


17 posted on 06/11/2012 12:46:41 PM PDT by pops88 (Standing with Breitbart for truth.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
treating drug addiction as a disease, not a moral failing,

I can just see the trial lawyers racing to file lawsuits against doctors who prescribed addictive medication to patients.

18 posted on 06/11/2012 12:47:26 PM PDT by oldbrowser (They are marxists, don't call them democrats)
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To: TSgt
Yeah and masturbation is a disease too...

Do you think masturbation is a a moral failing?

19 posted on 06/11/2012 12:47:26 PM PDT by trailhkr1 (All you need to know about Zimmerman, innocent = riots, manslaughter = riots, guilty = riots)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

this is to make drug addiction an insurance claim.

This means more dependents for Obamacare.


20 posted on 06/11/2012 12:48:45 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Yep—Destruction of Responsibility and Ethics.

Replace religion (particularly the superior Christian Ethics) with moral relativism and psychiatry which makes everyone dependent and drugged.

HA HA. This is the Marxist camel which kills God-—to destroy Virtue. It destroys the concepts of Right and Wrong which destroys individualism and responsibility for actions. This destroys all relationships so that government has to care for everyone since the Natural Family connections will no longer exist or care. Nanny State is ruler and controller of all action and they can drug the populace into a drone, happy state where they won’t notice their own slavery.


21 posted on 06/11/2012 12:49:34 PM PDT by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature = Just Law)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
I can't decide whether drug criminalization is a disease or a moral failing. (Maybe it's both.)
22 posted on 06/11/2012 12:49:47 PM PDT by JustSayNoToNannies (A free society's default policy: it's none of government's business.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

What about all the good people who became addicted to oxycotin or are we talking about illegal drugs here such as pot or crack?


23 posted on 06/11/2012 12:52:17 PM PDT by trailhkr1 (All you need to know about Zimmerman, innocent = riots, manslaughter = riots, guilty = riots)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Obama can’t accept his moral failings. He is diseased.


24 posted on 06/11/2012 12:52:36 PM PDT by pallis
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Things like this usually have a purpose. What news might we be about to hear?


25 posted on 06/11/2012 12:52:47 PM PDT by John W (Viva Cristo Rey!)
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To: Cementjungle

Now we get to coddle alcoholics and drug addicts, in addition to taking care of every whim of the folks who prefer not to work, as well as those who capitalize on a minor disability, turning it into the equivalent of winning the lottery.

Here I sit at work, grateful to God that I have work and the health to do it. Forget retirement; I guess I’ll be right here when the hearse scoops me up on the way to the cemetery.

How many people am I supporting now?

How long before the Republic Party has the guts to call this Marxism?


26 posted on 06/11/2012 12:55:11 PM PDT by July4 (Remember the price paid for your freedom.)
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To: savagesusie
Nanny State is ruler and controller of all action

So you're opposed to the nanny-state War On Drugs?

27 posted on 06/11/2012 12:56:53 PM PDT by JustSayNoToNannies (A free society's default policy: it's none of government's business.)
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To: saleman
This will help...

28 posted on 06/11/2012 12:57:11 PM PDT by TSgt (The only reason I have one in the chamber at all times, is because it is impossible to have two in.)
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To: July4

Republic Party = Republican Party...sorry.


29 posted on 06/11/2012 12:57:14 PM PDT by July4 (Remember the price paid for your freedom.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Don't step in their either/or trap. It's neither.

30 posted on 06/11/2012 12:57:33 PM PDT by I see my hands (It's time to.. KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHER FREEPERS!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

The White House is to morals what east is to west.


31 posted on 06/11/2012 12:57:44 PM PDT by crosshairs
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To: saleman
Dang. Really? Do they have shots for that or some kinda pill? It’s not fatal or serious or anything like that is it?

Pill for it? Try new "Cialis For One". For those times when you don't have two bathtubs.


32 posted on 06/11/2012 12:58:56 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (You only have three billion heartbeats in a lifetime.How many does the government claim as its own?)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

I suggest the problem here is that we’re trying to force a complex phenomenon into one of two boxes: disease or moral failing.

Pretty obviously, to me anyway, addiction in its advanced stages becomes something resembling a disease. But most people have to work at getting the disease. And making the choice to work at it is a moral failing.

In the Lord of the Rings, the desire for the Ring was an addiction that could not be resisted once it had gained power over a person. But numerous people in the story made the choice to refuse to start the process that would lead to this addiction. Numerous others chose, as a moral failing, to walk down that road.


33 posted on 06/11/2012 12:58:59 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: John W
What news might we be about to hear?

Moochelle is planning a vacation to Jamaica?

34 posted on 06/11/2012 1:00:04 PM PDT by no-to-illegals (Please God, Protect and Bless Our Men and Women in Uniform with Victory. Amen.)
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To: dfwgator
Dang. Really? Do they have shots for that or some kinda pill?

You may need glasses.


And you may have to start using Nair as hand lotion.
35 posted on 06/11/2012 1:03:13 PM PDT by crosshairs
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To: Free ThinkerNY

It may be a disease but it can be controlled by strength of character


36 posted on 06/11/2012 1:03:49 PM PDT by uncbob
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To: Free ThinkerNY

So Obama is seriously diseased...


37 posted on 06/11/2012 1:05:55 PM PDT by beethovenfan (If Islam is the solution, the "problem" must be freedom.)
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To: trailhkr1
What about all the good people who became addicted to oxycotin or are we talking about illegal drugs here such as pot or crack?

Is addiction a moral failing if it was come by in a "bad" way, but not if it was come by in a "good" way?

38 posted on 06/11/2012 1:06:16 PM PDT by JustSayNoToNannies (A free society's default policy: it's none of government's business.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Some (not all) addiction is best characterized as a disease. The hold of the drugs is stronger than the will. Addiction can occur on a first use with some drugs, such as crack. The real problem is how to separate the true addicts from the wastrels.


39 posted on 06/11/2012 1:06:33 PM PDT by Smedley (It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

If we assume it IS a disease, it is one that a person without moral failings can avoid falling pray to, and which a person without moral failings can keep in remission.

The rest is hogwash - especially when government types want me to pay for the “treatment,” or for the drugs, or for the stupid WOD that has been a total failure due to corruption and misuse.


40 posted on 06/11/2012 1:07:05 PM PDT by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
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To: Free ThinkerNY
With the current definition of disease, yes I suppose.

It is a habit. Often a deeply engraved one. But I maintain calling it a disease is shifting the responsibility away from the person.

I can catch cold, I can't catch heroin.

41 posted on 06/11/2012 1:07:42 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: dagogo redux
the stupid WOD that has been a total failure due to corruption and misuse.

Was Prohibition's failure "due to corruption and misuse" or to the inherent flaws of that enterprise?

42 posted on 06/11/2012 1:12:02 PM PDT by JustSayNoToNannies (A free society's default policy: it's none of government's business.)
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Tomorrow = 19 yrs without a drop. Are there other diseases you can quit? How about cardiovascular disease? Let’s start a Just Say No to CVD campaign. That ought to save a lot of lives.


43 posted on 06/11/2012 1:15:34 PM PDT by Hayride
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To: Free ThinkerNY
Wrong answer, Baracky. There would never be a drug addict if they never did the drug. This is more of that, “nothing is ever your fault” thinking the liberals love. No one is ever responsible for all the bad things that can happen and the government will help you with everything. Enough!
44 posted on 06/11/2012 1:20:04 PM PDT by liberalh8ter (If Barack has a memory like a steel trap, why can't he remember what the Constitution says?)
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To: Hayride

Congrats on your sobriety milestone. Awesome!

I’m in the AA program. 260 days sober. Some of these people who say:”It may be a disease but it can be controlled by strength of character” (Post 36) are obviously not alcoholics or addicts and they have never read the Big Book of AA. where it clearly lays out the case that alcoholism is a disease.

Anyway, keep it going!

Best,

Jim


45 posted on 06/11/2012 1:25:56 PM PDT by RacerX1128 (Cornered in CA)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Drug addiction...
Falsification of documents...
Involvement in gun-running...
Selling out Israel...
Sending your fat wife out to tell corporations and private citizens what they can/can’t buy or eat...
Stealing from the U. S. Taxpayer to reward your cronies...
Supporting terrorist states against Israel...
Apologizing for the U. S. to foreign leaders...
Bowing on behalf of Americans to foreign leaders...
Cutting important military and technical programs...
Mingling with the domestic enemies of the U. S...
Running this nation off the road into a ditch...
Spending us into oblivion...
Blaming everything you do that’s bad, on someone else...
Sending your underage child to a foreign nation with a bunch of her friends and having U. S. Citizens pay for it...
And on and on it goes...

a disease, not a moral failing, White House says.


46 posted on 06/11/2012 1:28:08 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (Republicanism: Y1 Rant Y2 Rant Y3 Rant Y4, Oh nevermind, vote for him anyway. Rinse & Repeat!)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

And so if Obama is outed for his addictions, it’s just a disease—that we as him employers can’t discrimate against him for?


47 posted on 06/11/2012 1:29:47 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Wars are not wars. Terrorists are not terrorists. Patriots are no longer patriots, they are dangerous gun packing, bible clinging rightwing crazies.

Changes in weather is Global warming, or global cooling, or climate change.

The crime of treason is no longer against the law, unless you are a conservative.

Lying is no longer lying—it’s misspeak, taken out of context, a misquote and my favorite... something to be “walked back”.

Girls are no longer girls and boys are no longer boys.

Up is down, down is up...

The end is no longer near, it has arrived.


48 posted on 06/11/2012 1:30:31 PM PDT by Gator113 (***YOU GAVE it to Obama. I would have voted for NEWT.~Just livin' life, my way~)
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Ok, I see where this is going. This will be Hussein’s excuse. His drug use isn’t for fun and games but a disease.


49 posted on 06/11/2012 1:32:02 PM PDT by bgill
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To: Free ThinkerNY

Easy for the Hopium bong interceptors to say.


50 posted on 06/11/2012 1:32:13 PM PDT by Paladin2
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