The new drug war.

  I remember when America was brutally tough on people who use drugs, and we were passing all types of tough draconian laws to stem the flow of drugs into our inner city neighborhoods.

That was when crack was the drug of choice for minorities in inner city neighborhoods. White America did not consider treatment for those people, the only cure was to lock them up and throw away the key.

What a difference a couple of decades make.

Now that the opioid epidemic is sweeping white America in places that we never expected , America is now serious about tackling the drug problem with treatment and prevention instead of incarceration and punishment.

Heroin abuse is now devastating suburban and rural America, and white families are now
experiencing the trauma and pain that many black families suffered in the eighties. Unlike
the black families, tough, their loved ones who are suffering from drug addiction will get
help, and they will not have to worry about being sentenced to lengthy jail time
if they are caught with even a small portion of  heroin.

The president is seeking to appoint a drug czar to combat the problem, but as is always the
case with Mr. trump, there is a problem. It seems that the man he wants to appoint to that position
allegedly took money from drug companies to push legislation that would make it easier for drug
addicts to get drugs.

"Tom Marino is a four-term Republican member of the House who represents a district in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been hard-hit by the opioid crisis. Yet Marino also has been a friend on Capitol Hill of the giant drug companies that distribute the pain pills that have wreaked so much devastation around the nation.

Marino was the chief advocate of the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which requires the government to meet a higher bar before taking certain enforcement actions.
The Drug Enforcement Administration fought against the bill for years, but finally relented last year after a leadership change at the agency. Marino is now President Trump’s nominee to become the nation’s next drug czar." [Source]

And here I thought that Mr. trump was "draining the swamp."

Ironically, most of the people who are suffering from this particular type of addiction are trump supporters. It just goes to show you that you should never trust a politician, especially one who has spent a lifetime lying to people.


*Pic from wikipedia.org.



 



     

A kinder, gentler war on drugs.

Good for President Obama to declare war on drug addiction. It's a war that we must fight, and one that we cannot afford to lose.

America is in the middle of a serious drug epidemic, and it is taking the lives of countless American children in places that we never expected to see drug addiction and dependency becoming a problem.

The sate of Vermont, for instance, has a serious heroin epidemic on its hands, and not even Bernie can stop it. It has gotten so bad in that state that the poor governor dedicated his entire State of the State address to the problem. And of course we all know that Vermont is not alone.

Contrast how president Obama is dealing with America's latest drug problem to how our government dealt with a similar problem having to do with drugs over 25 years ago. In fact, some would argue, the government actually created the problem for certain communities.

Back then it was incarceration and punishment. Now it's treatment and counseling. President Obama's war on drugs is gentler than previous ones, and I suspect that I know why.

Today's drug crises is being driven by heroin, and guess which demographic uses more heroin than everyone else? If you said young white kids, move to the head of the class. 

The following is from the New York Times:

"When the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But today’s heroin crisis is different. While heroin use has climbed among all demographic groups, it has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white.

And the growing army of families of those lost to heroin — many of them in the suburbs and small towns — are now using their influence, anger and grief to cushion the country’s approach to drugs, from altering the language around addiction to prodding government to treat it not as a crime, but as a disease." [Source] 

Of course it's not a "crime". Crime would mean that something wrong is being done. Remember, as is damn near everything else in America, not all drug addictions are created equal.  

So now we are collectively shocked that we have such a problem with drugs in our country. Now that drugs are in our children's bedrooms, and hidden in the back of the family mini vans, we are finally realizing that we have a problem. And we realize that it is a problem that can have a negative long lasting effect on society. You know, kind of like crack cocaine did with certain segments of the black population back in the day. 

Of course their families will never recover, because their family members are serving long jail times for possessing small amounts of drugs, and there was no treatment offered to those who got hooked and couldn't get off until they were dead. The remedy for the drug epidemic facing black America  then , was draconian punishment brought on by strict sentencing guidelines, and "tougher" law enforcement. 

Quite a few politicians bolstered their careers by telling white America that they would keep them safe from the drugs those blacks were using and the type of people peddling them. (I see you Bill and Hillary) Now, I suspect. politicians will use the opposite tact to gain brownie points with voters as well. (I see you President Obama)

"At Courtney’s funeral, they decided to acknowledge the reality that redefined their lives: Their bright, beautiful daughter, just 20, who played the French horn in high school and dreamed of living in Hawaii, had been kicked out of the Marines for drugs. Eventually, she overdosed at her boyfriend’s grandmother’s house, where she died alone."

There are a lot of sad and tragic stories like Courtney's out there. Hopefully we will be smarter with the new war on drugs than we were the old one.

*Pic from youtube.com