usvi-on-line
Okay...just gotta ask
I think that the public health/education approach to addiction/substance abuse is the one that has a chance of working. The recent bans on cigaret smoking have only been possible to enact because of decades of education and changing attitudes. And it took decades and generations for people to look at smoking differently and become intolerant of it. A similar process is going on with alcohol and it also is happening over decades. Drunk driving, drunkeness, young people drinking are all viewed very differently than they had been. Alcohol control and liability laws are toughening and most folks are pretty happy with the changes. People are ready for it. Alcohol prohibition was enacted, then repealed. Laws were enforcing what people didn't want. But smoking laws and bans won't be repealed, they'll become stricter, more encompassing. People are ready for this and lawmakers are ready to codify it.
The laws followed the changes in attitude. Change how people view things like smoking and drinking and they'll be much more accepting of increased restrictions. Current smoking laws and stricter alcohol-related laws wouldn't have stood a chance 40-50 years ago. Today most people are pretty happy with them, many would like them to be stricter. Based on what we know, there was grounds to outlaw cigarets years ago, but the public health/education approach has been working well---to the point that more and more people are ready to agree to bans. It's clearly an idea whose time has come.
A similar strategy has a better chance of working with other substances of abuse than a war does. With alcohol and tobacco nobody went after the suppliers. In fact the suppliers have vast resources but truth seems to be winning over advertising and lawyers. Nobody burned tobacco fields or blew up breweries. They kept bringing the info to the consumers.
There's no heroin or crystal meth or cocaine lobby, so the public health/education approach has fewer obstacles than it did with tobacco/alcohol. Nobody's speaking up for Big Heroin. By the way, most heroin reaching the U.S. is produced in Mexico or South America, so spraying Afghanistan isn't going to have any impact on the trade to here. Cocaine also reaches the U.S. from Mexico or South America, but crystal meth is cooked up right within our borders by our citizens from materials bought right in our stores .
The focus on increasing treatment facilities (they've been decreasing rather than increasing for lack of funds) and dealing addiction as a public health crisis, rather than as a criminal matter would have a chance of being more effective. It'll take time, but there will be progress. As it is there is no progress regarding illegal drugs. It took decades for the public perception of smoking to get where it is now. It was slow, systematic, relentless. Addicts need treatment not incarceration. The society needs education and change of attitude, not a war.
People used to be able smoke in hospitals, now they're not permitted to smoke in bars. It's become harder and more expensive to be a smoker. It used to be seen as sophisticated. Now smokers are seen as a notch or two above lepers (not many of them left).The attitude changed before the law. Had the law come first, it wouldn't have changed the attitude, as it hasn't with marijuana laws.
Harsh drug laws without providing access to treatment just criminalize sick people. Our most abused drug--alcohol--is vastly more damaging than marijuana ever could be. Tobacco is horribly more damaging. Marijuana definitely seems to have benefit beyond euphoric effect. People are adopting a much more realistic perspective on it. It should be made available. Possession of small amounts has be de-crimininalized here. But it does have some abuse potential and many serious, long time pot heads have turned into mushwits. Asserting that pot is a gateway drug leading to harder drug use just doesn't stand up to the reality of people's experience, so has no credibility. Most heroin addicts drank milk as children, so.....
A whole lot more people died from overdoses last year than died from H1N1. If there were a greater sense of addiction as a public health crisis, there might be a stronger response with treatment availability and education. Heroin, cocaine and crystal meth have no redeeming value. A lot of prescription medications--particularly benzos and opiates--are being abused or used illicitly. A lot of people really don't know what they're getting themselves into when they start fooling around with a particular drug.
If a long term educational campaign has been able to dramatically change how we see cigarets and smoking, it is possible to completely change how drugs are viewed and how alcohol abuse is seen.
A transformation has already occurred in how drugs are seen here. I'm so old now that I lived when drugs were generally seen as bad. I saw them switch to being dangerously intriguing, then to being the greatest thing that had ever been hidden from me. Then I began to see the damage they were starting to do. The perception and attitude can be changed again. Most people who are addicted don't want to be (or eventually won"t), they just haven't been able to stop. Treatment helps them. The education can help people to keep from becoming addicted in the first place.
The laws followed the changes in attitude. Change how people view things like smoking and drinking and they'll be much more accepting of increased restrictions. Current smoking laws and stricter alcohol-related laws wouldn't have stood a chance 40-50 years ago. Today most people are pretty happy with them, many would like them to be stricter. Based on what we know, there was grounds to outlaw cigarets years ago, but the public health/education approach has been working well---to the point that more and more people are ready to agree to bans. It's clearly an idea whose time has come.
A similar strategy has a better chance of working with other substances of abuse than a war does. With alcohol and tobacco nobody went after the suppliers. In fact the suppliers have vast resources but truth seems to be winning over advertising and lawyers. Nobody burned tobacco fields or blew up breweries. They kept bringing the info to the consumers.
There's no heroin or crystal meth or cocaine lobby, so the public health/education approach has fewer obstacles than it did with tobacco/alcohol. Nobody's speaking up for Big Heroin. By the way, most heroin reaching the U.S. is produced in Mexico or South America, so spraying Afghanistan isn't going to have any impact on the trade to here. Cocaine also reaches the U.S. from Mexico or South America, but crystal meth is cooked up right within our borders by our citizens from materials bought right in our stores .
The focus on increasing treatment facilities (they've been decreasing rather than increasing for lack of funds) and dealing addiction as a public health crisis, rather than as a criminal matter would have a chance of being more effective. It'll take time, but there will be progress. As it is there is no progress regarding illegal drugs. It took decades for the public perception of smoking to get where it is now. It was slow, systematic, relentless. Addicts need treatment not incarceration. The society needs education and change of attitude, not a war.
People used to be able smoke in hospitals, now they're not permitted to smoke in bars. It's become harder and more expensive to be a smoker. It used to be seen as sophisticated. Now smokers are seen as a notch or two above lepers (not many of them left).The attitude changed before the law. Had the law come first, it wouldn't have changed the attitude, as it hasn't with marijuana laws.
Harsh drug laws without providing access to treatment just criminalize sick people. Our most abused drug--alcohol--is vastly more damaging than marijuana ever could be. Tobacco is horribly more damaging. Marijuana definitely seems to have benefit beyond euphoric effect. People are adopting a much more realistic perspective on it. It should be made available. Possession of small amounts has be de-crimininalized here. But it does have some abuse potential and many serious, long time pot heads have turned into mushwits. Asserting that pot is a gateway drug leading to harder drug use just doesn't stand up to the reality of people's experience, so has no credibility. Most heroin addicts drank milk as children, so.....
A whole lot more people died from overdoses last year than died from H1N1. If there were a greater sense of addiction as a public health crisis, there might be a stronger response with treatment availability and education. Heroin, cocaine and crystal meth have no redeeming value. A lot of prescription medications--particularly benzos and opiates--are being abused or used illicitly. A lot of people really don't know what they're getting themselves into when they start fooling around with a particular drug.
If a long term educational campaign has been able to dramatically change how we see cigarets and smoking, it is possible to completely change how drugs are viewed and how alcohol abuse is seen.
A transformation has already occurred in how drugs are seen here. I'm so old now that I lived when drugs were generally seen as bad. I saw them switch to being dangerously intriguing, then to being the greatest thing that had ever been hidden from me. Then I began to see the damage they were starting to do. The perception and attitude can be changed again. Most people who are addicted don't want to be (or eventually won"t), they just haven't been able to stop. Treatment helps them. The education can help people to keep from becoming addicted in the first place.
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Pete (Mr. Marcia)
- Posts: 1471
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 4:48 pm
- Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Oh gosh, where to start....
Cid, I don't sell bullshit. In terms of violence "policies" that I help my clients develop, it is not that much different from sexual harassment policies. The intent is to encourage employees to come forward with information of potential violence and to let all employees know that such activity in the work place will not be tolerated. To be blunt...that covers my clients asses...legally. I don't "sell" these policies, I am their lawyer. My job is to advise them and to ensure that they do what they can to protect their employees and to protect themselves from getting sued.
Sox, I think we missed each other. Of course the government regulates nuclear facilities. But, in terms of the argument, should they? Why not leave such facilities unregulated and simply put out warnings to the public to that effect? (I'm trying to take your non-regulation argument to an absurd place.)
Finally, I think that we all would benefit from a huge bong hit...gentle on the carb, no coughing.
Cid, I don't sell bullshit. In terms of violence "policies" that I help my clients develop, it is not that much different from sexual harassment policies. The intent is to encourage employees to come forward with information of potential violence and to let all employees know that such activity in the work place will not be tolerated. To be blunt...that covers my clients asses...legally. I don't "sell" these policies, I am their lawyer. My job is to advise them and to ensure that they do what they can to protect their employees and to protect themselves from getting sued.
Sox, I think we missed each other. Of course the government regulates nuclear facilities. But, in terms of the argument, should they? Why not leave such facilities unregulated and simply put out warnings to the public to that effect? (I'm trying to take your non-regulation argument to an absurd place.)
Finally, I think that we all would benefit from a huge bong hit...gentle on the carb, no coughing.
Wisconsin, smell the dairy air
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hawksnestbay
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- Posts: 123
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:22 pm
- Location: America's Hometown
Sox, get me your address and as soon as the oven preheats, I will express a plateful of chocolate goodness to the Connecticut Countryside.
From that time onward, you won't be able to see a Fed Ex Truck without a getting a hunger pang, and your posts will not have any quotes in them, and you will just make stuff up instead.
From that time onward, you won't be able to see a Fed Ex Truck without a getting a hunger pang, and your posts will not have any quotes in them, and you will just make stuff up instead.
Hawks...I generally make stuff up as I go as it is! Everybody here knows this...hawksnestbay wrote:
From that time onward, you won't be able to see a Fed Ex Truck without a getting a hunger pang, and your posts will not have any quotes in them, and you will just make stuff up instead.
JT - I know, the fact that I have never inhaled (like slick willy) is the reason that I am an uptight conservative. In fact, if I would only get high, I would see the world in it's proper light.
You guys are funny!
Toke on...
July 2003 - Honeymoon at The Westin
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
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July 2003 - Honeymoon at The Westin
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
SJ, Lex, Pete, JT...Here's the opinion of Milton Friedman on the failure of the War on Drugs. It will take a minute to read, but he makes interesting points. As a self-proclaimed liberal, Friedman make the case that we have gone about this "War" in a completely bassackwards (my term, not his) manner.SJfromNJ wrote:Lex - When alcohol was illegal, the Federal Government busted many illegal bootleggers. Tobacco has never been illegal so I do not understand your point. Education does work, but it takes a long time and has not really been effective against hard drugs such as heroine, coke, and meth. I am suggesting a new approach to disrupt the supply and slow the flow of money to known terrorist organizations. I think it is worth a try. We have been doing the same thing for many years with no real progress. I think it is time to try something different. The consumers of heroine don't want to hear how bad their habit is they are just looking for their next fix.
From the piece (actually a speech given by Friedman in 1991):
Such reformers believe that if they could write the law, the law would be enforced the way they wrote it. That is an illusion. What happens to a law has little relation, in general, to the intentions of the people who wrote it. The people who wrote the law on drugs did not intend to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the process. They did not intend to have a system under which prisons and prisoners would grow like Topsy. In general, the actual effects of any law are often, if not usually, the opposite of the intentions of the people who wrote it, a phenomenon that Congressman Richard Anncy [R-Texas], in an earlier guise when he was a simple professor, termed the "invisible foot of government.'
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... 9RedyJ6SxQ
July 2003 - Honeymoon at The Westin
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
soxfan22 wrote:[
SJ, Lex, Pete, JT...Here's the opinion of Milton Friedman on the failure of the War on Drugs. It will take a minute to read, but he makes interesting points. As a self-proclaimed liberal, Friedman make the case that we have gone about this "War" in a completely bassackwards (my term, not his) manner.
From the piece (actually a speech given by Friedman in 1991):
Such reformers believe that if they could write the law, the law would be enforced the way they wrote it. That is an illusion. What happens to a law has little relation, in general, to the intentions of the people who wrote it. The people who wrote the law on drugs did not intend to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the process. They did not intend to have a system under which prisons and prisoners would grow like Topsy. In general, the actual effects of any law are often, if not usually, the opposite of the intentions of the people who wrote it, a phenomenon that Congressman Richard Anncy [R-Texas], in an earlier guise when he was a simple professor, termed the "invisible foot of government.'
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... 9RedyJ6SxQ
"Four feet good, Two feet bad" [George Orwell/Animal Farm] is actually a pretty classic representation of what Sox/Friedman is saying.
When you find yourself in a hole.... quit digging.
I get the general premise, JT...But how does it apply to what Friedman espouses (specifically, his thoughts on drugs, school choice, healthcare, and poverty)? Please elaborate.JT wrote:soxfan22 wrote:[
SJ, Lex, Pete, JT...Here's the opinion of Milton Friedman on the failure of the War on Drugs. It will take a minute to read, but he makes interesting points. As a self-proclaimed liberal, Friedman make the case that we have gone about this "War" in a completely bassackwards (my term, not his) manner.
From the piece (actually a speech given by Friedman in 1991):
Such reformers believe that if they could write the law, the law would be enforced the way they wrote it. That is an illusion. What happens to a law has little relation, in general, to the intentions of the people who wrote it. The people who wrote the law on drugs did not intend to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the process. They did not intend to have a system under which prisons and prisoners would grow like Topsy. In general, the actual effects of any law are often, if not usually, the opposite of the intentions of the people who wrote it, a phenomenon that Congressman Richard Anncy [R-Texas], in an earlier guise when he was a simple professor, termed the "invisible foot of government.'
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... 9RedyJ6SxQ
"Four feet good, Two feet bad" [George Orwell/Animal Farm] is actually a pretty classic representation of what Sox/Friedman is saying.
July 2003 - Honeymoon at The Westin
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
July 2004 - Glenmar, Gifft Hill
July 2005 - Arco Iris, Fish Bay
December 2007 - Dreamcatcher, GCB
July 2008 - Ellison Villa, VGE
First, I'd like to say that I think this is the exact conversation that has to be had in this country. I'm glad to see that other people feel the same way. Secondly, I'd like to commend everyone who has participated for going 6 long pages without any real nastiness. People can disagree and get along. That's refreshing. It's easy to sit home and think the world is full of assholes, but it's really not true. The world is only partially filled with assholes. The rest of us are alright.Pete (Mr. Marcia) wrote:Oh gosh, where to start....
Cid, I don't sell bullshit. In terms of violence "policies" that I help my clients develop, it is not that much different from sexual harassment policies. The intent is to encourage employees to come forward with information of potential violence and to let all employees know that such activity in the work place will not be tolerated. To be blunt...that covers my clients asses...legally. I don't "sell" these policies, I am their lawyer. My job is to advise them and to ensure that they do what they can to protect their employees and to protect themselves from getting sued.
Finally, I think that we all would benefit from a huge bong hit...gentle on the carb, no coughing.
Pete- I hope you know that I was being tongue in cheek with my post for the most part. Sorry if I offended. Take your lawyer hat off, put on your blue collar BS detector and dissect what you just wrote above into the terms an everyday Joe would understand. Here's what I read:
"In terms of violence "policies" that I help my clients develop, it is not that much different from sexual harassment policies. The intent is to encourage employees to come forward with information of potential violence and to let all employees know that such activity in the work place will not be tolerated."
That sounds great! I'm all for curbing harassment and violence in the workplace. There has been great public awareness and education concerning these issues. But, why the hell do I need you, at $350 per hour, to "advise" me of common sense practices. I can watch the news, I can read the paper. You've now advised me, and I assume billed me, twice for providing common sense.
"To be blunt...that covers my clients asses...legally." I'm sure I can find more than one attorney or prosecutor who would beg to differ. That's what you tell your client, I'm sure, but someone on the other side of the argument will say the same thing. It really depends on who's paying the bill.
"I don't "sell" these policies, I am their lawyer. My job is to advise them and to ensure that they do what they can to protect their employees and to protect themselves from getting sued."
Don't insult my intelligence here Pete. Are they paying you? Then you're selling something. You are providing as service for a fee. That is a sale no matter how you slice it. Let me ask you this. If you don't keep coming up with new and fabulous ways to "protect businesses" from all the horrible legal dangers out there, do they keep you as an advisor or do they find someone else?
I don't mean to offend you at a personal level here Pete. I really don't think lawyers get it. You guys charge outrageous fees for dumb crap like telling people to use common sense. Is there value there? Absolutely, but at $350 per hour? Think again, from an everyday Joe's view, all of this is just money being spent putting words on paper when it's money that could be coming to him in the form of better wages or benefits. Instead we get some pencil pusher that's been fed a bill of goods by some lawyer meant to minimize the "forseeable risk" for the company. Wouldn't that be money better spent on minimizing the "foreseeable risk" that I'm not going to be able to pay the rent or put food on the table. Meanwhile the lawyer and the pencil pusher are vacationing in the islands, pondering the next "foreseeable risk". Average Joe is left wondering why the hell isn't HE getting a bailout, while his boss and his bosses lawyer are sitting on the beach.
You may wonder what this all has to do with anything? I think that lawyers are the proverbial 600lb gorilla in the room. There going to sit where they want and that's usually where it is most advantageous to them. If you ever wonder how things could get so divided and splintered in this country, just look at the make up of our political system. It's dominated by who...you guessed it, attorneys. Who else could convolute things to the point that people can't even discuss and agree on simple common sense issues. Lawyers! They're laughing all the way to the bank while we all argue about ideology. The one exception of course is Pete. He arguing ideology with the rest of us. You're not double dipping are you? lol!
I think there are two solutions that would make this problem of too many attorneys die really quickly. Term limits and flat tax. I now pass the lightly carbed bong....
