DailyKos
Is it time to end the drug war once and for all?
Is it time America takes a more educated approach to the issue?
Young Adults are dying in our country, while Europe takes a more logical approach to fighting the problem of drug abuse.
The War on Drug's have not produced the outcomes Reagen promised in the 80s, yet we still are basing our nations policy on the issue on his initial plan.
After the jump, I discuss two articles published in the past week about Heroin use in Switzerland and Virginia, and their vastly different results.
I read an article this week how Switzerland has addressed the Heroin epidemic in their nation. While once they had hundreds of Heroin addicts shooting up in their parks, overdosing, and creating an unsafe environment, they now have ended the problem. Today, an addict can go to a doctor’s office and shoot-up in a safe environment, with a doctors approved dosage. Not only does this result in a safe environment, it takes the crime aspect of acquiring the drug out of the equation, and gets these addicts into a safe environment to try and address the issues they face, why they use drugs to begin with. The Swiss, as do most industrialized, modern nations, have national health care, where the government will pay for health insurance if the individual cannot afford it. So with the government’s money, they are actually addressing the issue of drug abuse, instead of fighting it as an invisible enemy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Contrary, in our nation, the Washington Post published a story last week about how Heroin has become an epidemic in Virginia’s Suburban High Schools. Ignoring the probably CIA connections to the location and demographic, there is no disputing the "drug war" has failed. Alicia Lannes, 19, overdosed for the 4th time, and died, in March. Her friends didn’t call the police at first, but called friends to try and help her, afraid of getting in trouble themselves. Eventually they placed an anonymous call to report her unconscious state. She was dead when the paramedics arrived. This is far from an isolated situation.
"Alicia Lannes's death was one of 18 related to heroin in Fairfax County this year, many involving people between 18 and 24 years old, and it prompted a joint police and FBI investigation into how the hard-core drug has permeated the wealthy suburb and killed young users."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
If Barack Obama brings one sweeping change to our nation, it should be a reworking of our nations Drug Policy. The racist and deadly drug policy America has been using for the past 30 years needs a radical change. With our economy already in turmoil, the majority of the world wanting to liberalize restrictions on Marijuana, the Pharmaceutical Companies rampant hypocrisy and deceptive marketing of their drugs, the time is ripe for a real change.
The truth about the world’s Drug Trade is far to complicated and convoluted for the average American to understand or believe, but the real life stories of how this effects the average American family is what is needed to educate the population how a real Change needs to occur.
If after Alicia’s first overdose, she were able to go to a doctor’s office and address her addiction, be given safe Opium/Heroin, speak with doctors about it, and address her issue, she would be alive today. Instead due to our illogical, profit driven, embarrassing drug policy, this 19-year-old is DEAD, along with millions of others who have died or who are in jail for crimes that only affected their own life. Lets hope the Obama Administration addresses this issue as urgently as we address the economic crisis and the wars, because in the end, they are all the same problem.
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