Posted on 01/28/2015 10:52:45 AM PST by balch3
President Barack Obama continues to speak out against mass incarceration, the devastating impact of our drug policies on communities of color and his expectation that marijuana legalization will continue to spread.
Obama's comments came today during his YouTube interviews with YouTube bloggers, Bethany Mota, GloZell Green and Hank Green.
Some Obama nuggets from today's interview include this on marijuana:
"What you're seeing now is Colorado, Washington through state referenda, they're experimenting with legal marijuana," the president said in response to a question from host Hank Green.
"The position of my administration has been that we still have federal laws that classify marijuana as an illegal substance, but we're not going to spend a lot of resources trying to turn back decisions that have been made at the state level on this issue. My suspicion is that you're gonna see other states start looking at this."
Obama also addressed how we should treat people who are not violent drug offenders.
"What I am doing at the federal level," Obama responded, "is asking my Department of Justice just to examine generally how we are treating nonviolent drug offenders, because I think you're right."
"What we have done is instead of focusing on treatment -- the same way we focused, say, with tobacco or drunk driving or other problems where we treat it as public health problem -- we've treated this exclusively as a criminal problem," the president said. "I think that it's been counterproductive, and it's been devastating in a lot of minority communities. It presents the possibility at least of unequal application of the law, and that has to be changed."
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...
I never said nor implied otherwise - of course they are, as are alcohol and tobacco.
The 400,000 addict number comes from perscriptions written by Union and Confederate doctors regarding the dispensation of painkillers. This addiction later became known as "the soldier's disease."
You don't have any good numbers, but you have to be a special class of fool to believe that cocaine laced carbonated beverages (Coca-Cola) would not cause deep and widespread addiction.
Because the spreading of dangerous lies needs to be countered by confrontation with the truth. I would rather be doing something else, but sometimes you have to do the right thing even when you don't want to.
It is exactly your intent. You potheads appear to be working off the same sheet of music because all the other usual suspects pushing drug legalization are also making the same point.
And the fact that alcohol and tobacco are legal has no bearing on whether other even more dangerous and deleterious drugs should be legal. We have no obligation to be "fair" to other drugs. Alcohol and Tobacco do quite enough damage already. Anyone wanting more drugs to add to the death toll is just evil.
So you keep claiming although the only available numbers say the opposite.
The 400,000 addict number
One number can't establish a rise. And your one number agrees with the DEA numbers I've been citing.
You don't have any good numbers
As you've said, "Till someone presents an argument that there are better figures, I will have no choice but to use what is available." What's available, from the DEA, says that addiction was low and declining in post-Civil War America: "In 1880 [...] there were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. [...] By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict." (http://web.archive.org/web/20110529221013/http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm) 400,000 in a population of 50M is one in 125 - ergo, between 1880 and 1900 addiction declined.
What about less dangerous and deleterious drugs like marijuana?
Drugabuse.gov is another source that contradicts your claim =>
The Institute of Medicine estimated that by 1900, perhaps 300,000 Americans were addicted to opiates.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/international/question-2-what-history-opioid-addiction-in-united-states
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The population of the US in 1900 was 76M, which works out to an addiction rate of 0.4%. That is less than the 400,000 estimated addicts in a population of 50M in 1880. That's an addiction rate of 0.8%.
300,000 is < 400,000, and 0.4% is < 0.8%. So addiction WAS declining between 1880 and 1900.
You can keep quoting me out of context all you want, but you still don't have any good numbers. *MY* numbers are good because they have provenance . We know where they came from and how and why they got recorded.
Sorry, I don’t troll posters, so if you claimed as much, ok. I missed it.
Alcohol and tobacco are regulated to the point of exagerration...those aren’t my windmills.
So essentially, if I understand your argument, any and all drugs should be legalized regardless of their effects?
That these drugs should once again be permitted to be used for “medicinal purposes” or any other use, up to and including “recreational”?
See, years ago, I had a pretty brutal mountain bike crash. I had the option of choosing between an opiate based pain killer or an alternate. One was “non-habit forming”, the other was described to me as not. The wonders of modern medicine. I wonder why pharmaceutical companies would create “non-habit forming” pharmaceuticals?
The following paragraph is hypothetical question/situation even though there is currently research being done towards non-habit forming drugs.
If we return to not having options as a result of costs and the market and the only options I then have are the opiate based or none at all...what then? [Besides not crashing on my bike.]
See the last paragraph. Does the Dr’s. statement make him a nanny stater?
http://prescription-drug-abuse.com/drug-abuse-articles/non-habit-forming-painkiller-hit-the-market/
There is now a three drug cocktail to break heroin addiction, but it has some risk involved, so has only been used in Europe. However, the key to this risk are junkies who are already in very poor health may not be able to stand the process.
And because of the irony that the new breed of junkies are middle and upper middle class, and in overall much better health, makes it far more practical.
The first drug induces a four day coma, so they are unconscious while undergoing withdrawal. The second drug strips the heroin from their system so it is eliminated. And the third drug blocks heroin from working, so if they uptake more, they will get no effect from heroin.
After the four day period, they are physically clean, and because they did not use heroin as a “recreational drug”, but to alleviate physical pain that is likely long gone, they have far less motivation to start it again.
But they still need extensive monitoring and support to get back on track, along with repeated doses of the drug that neutralizes the effect of heroin. As long as they get that drug, they cannot get back on heroin.
Relatively speaking heroin is surprisingly easier to quit than tobacco, and definitely easier than alcohol.
seriously? Heroin is very easy to manage during withdrawal. No need to put anyone in a coma. Waste of time.
The physical addiction is easy, the psychological addiction is the tough part.
"Estimated" is not a real number. It's a number pulled out of your @$$.
So addiction WAS declining between 1880 and 1900.
Extrapolating with an absence of real data. Civil war soldiers (those 400,000 addicts who created the initial market) died off. A 20 year old in 1861 would be ~60 by 1900. With war injuries I suspect the attrition rate would be higher than the normal population, especially if they managed to feed their habit.
Anyone who seriously argues that adding numerous cocainoids and opiates to the market is going to result in a decrease in addiction is a person not to be taken seriously. Narcotic laced Patent medicines exploded during this period, and only an idiot would believe this was resulting in lower usage.
You don't have any real numbers.
"Estimated" is not a real number. It's a number pulled out of your @$$.
No, it's a number cited by the people charged with combating drug addiction. And it puts lie to your claim.
....And WHY is it a problem of YOURS?
As long as you aren’t doing it, just leave other people alone, and don’t use politicians to force your will upon others at gunpoint. I don’t.
I don’t concern myself with what other people do with their personal lives, as long as it doesn’t affect me or my family. Sure people do things I don’t like, but I don’t care.
No it doesn't, despite your assertions to the contrary. Your two data point extrapolation with one number made up is childish. That you expect it to be accepted and "prove" something is even more childish.
Ad hominems are childish (is that redundant)
Not genetic crap shoot... spiritually determined.
A murder in Alaska isn't likely to affect you or your family, but you probably don't want to legalize murder there.
I support drug decriminalization because I believe that it will result in less vice in society, overall.
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