Posted on 03/05/2012 7:15:21 PM PST by Shout Bits
Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Elvis Presley – dead. All from drugs, but not handshake black market drugs – the same prescription drugs found in many US bathroom cabinets. Upon Ms. Houston's death, singer Tony Bennett called for the legalization of all drugs. He did not explain himself very well, and he is known for some crackpot theories, so why does a death caused by prescription drugs argue for the legalization of all drugs? Ms. Houston's death proves that the government system of controlling street drugs' analogues does nothing to protect the public. The FDA and the DEA are a charade for drug users who need justification for their habits.
Nearly every street drug has a prescription analogue that if not chemically identical, is close enough for a hungry addict. Cough syrup has codeine, which on the street is called 'drank.' Oxycodone, recently repackaged to be less prone to abuse, was called 'hillbilly heroine.' Marinol has the same active ingredient as does cannabis. Adderall contains methamphetamine. The prescription world can provide the same high as the black market to those who prefer a reliable dose and a clean package. As many prescription drug tragedies demonstrate, however, the body does not care if the narcotic comes from Purdue Pharmaceuticals or the fields of Afghanistan.
The FDA and the DEA would argue that the prescription drug world is regulated; access is controlled to those in need. That may be the intent, but as with most things the government does, prescription drug control is a total failure. Anyone with moderate income can obtain multiple prescriptions as did Rush Limbaugh. Truly rich drug addicts like Mr. Jackson, Mr. Presley, or even Howard Hughes hire willing personal doctors at absurd salaries to provide whatever narcotics they desire. The government control of narcotics amounts to a class system where the well-off get their drugs from pharmacies and the poor get their drugs from the street corner.
The greater tragedy is that many patients, including Mr. Hughes, legitimately require huge doses of narcotics to tolerate their conditions. The DEA cracks down on these patients by harassing the doctors deemed to operate 'pill-mills.' As with any bureaucracy, the DEA is incapable of differentiating a compassionate doctor who rightly prescribes near-lethal doses of narcotics from a profiteering 'Dr. Robert.' The DEA keeps drugs from those who need them and fails to keep drugs from those who do not.
The FDA and DEA's failures are one example of the government's general intrusiveness. Once the government is tasked with knowing what is best for people, it knows no limits. Too much sugar, fat or salt in food, and the government is there. The government thinks pictures of cadavers on buses are appropriate to curb smoking. The government coerces people to drive its preferred style of automobile. Obamacare dictates both the lower and upper limits of health care consumption. Once bureaucrats become their brothers' keepers, there are no boundaries.
Before the FDA and DEA, heroin, cocaine, and many other drugs were sold in retail packages. If Mr. Bennett had his way, this would return, taking such drugs off the street corners and into pharmacies. They would still be dangerous and people would still hurt themselves through abuse, but allowing people to make their own choices has always proven to be better than putting an uncaring government in charge. If the only practical value of regulating drugs through prescriptions is to sanitize the stigma of either appropriate or harmful drug use, the price of these programs is far too high.
What is the part about tony Bennett?
he;s pimping another useless blog...skip
Presciption drugs are completely out of control. Every week it sems they come up with a new one for the most ridiculous of reasons. Last week I heard an ad for one that grows eyelashes on women who have “thinning eyelashes”. Say whaaat? And of course then they listed the 10,000 side effects afterwards.
I think they gave him a heart transplant but it didn’t go too well and he had to leave it in San Francisco.
The only upside to legalization of most or all drugs is that there would be fewer Leftists.
“What is the part about tony Bennett?
The day Whitney Houston died, Tony Bennett used the news to call for drug legalization. He didn’t explain why, though, as he is not a terribly bright man.
I don't like drugs!
That guy never varies his song, he is always pushing liberalism. Now he want legal dope.
Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston would be alive if drugs were legalized?
They'd have to arrest most of our founding fathers today.
What has become of freedom when they'd put TJ and GW in prison?
Oh, the old, ‘It isn’t the hard left if you call it “libertarian” theme.
If the hard right you tell you what drugs, legal or illegal, that you may ingest on pain of criminal sanctions, the hard left can and will tell you what your child may ingest with his school lunch.
With reasoning like that, it is no wonder that the left and libertarians have driven this nation into the ground.
Without relitigating the issue reciting all of the unintended consequences, I would like to make clear that there is nothing "conservative" about invoking the federal government to control what we ingest into our bodies unless we as conservatives have departed from fidelity to the Constitution and to federalism and to the primacy of the individual as defined in the Declaration of Independence.
Uhhh . . tell me, please, which cities, which states do the libertarians have control of that they could drive the nation into the ground?
Seems to me, and most other freedom-lovers, that what has driven this country away from constitutional government and toward a police state is more laws and regulations on such things as drugs, food, toys and clothing -- exactly the opposite of the principle tenets of the libertarian philosophy, which presumes that individuals are capable of making decisions for themselves about their own well-being.
When conservatives get into bed with leftists and progressives who want to dictate every detail of everyone's life we have reason to worry.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”-Thomas Jefferson
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