Chad William Forber
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“There’s a party in my mind…And it never stops
There’s a party up there all the time…They’ll party till they drop
Other people can go home…Other people they can split
I’ll be here all the time…I can never quit.”
- “Memories Can’t Wait” by Talking Heads, written by David Byrne and Jerry Harrison
As previously discussed here at Res Ispa Loquitur, some fashion choices can be downright criminal. This time our contestant on Felony Runaway Fashions is Chad William Forber, 41, from Blue Grass, Illinois. Like our previous encounter with those who have a daring fashion sense, there is no probative legal analysis of this case and no pressing civil rights issue. Just good clean fun(ny facts). Also some not so funny (alleged) drug use. This time our designer’s drug of choice was methamphetamines. There is nothing funny about meth. Nothing at all.
On Monday, August 7th, 2012, police officers in Rock Island, Illinois, responded to the call of a naked man at 3:27 a.m. walking in the 2200 block of 3rd Avenue. When they arrived at the scene, they found Mr. Forber, walking down the street, naked, his shorts in hand. He told the responding officers that he had taken off his shorts because they were too big and would not stay on. It’s what he opted to wear instead of his shorts that is interesting enough to make even Tim Gunn pay attention. According to Rock Island Deputy Chief of Police Jeff VenHuizen, Forber had “lathered himself up in Crisco [Cooking Spray]. He was covered in grease, and was holding the can under his arm.” But wait! There’s more.
“He said he was looking for a place to party,” VenHuizen added.
His party abruptly stopped when the Rock Island P.D. took him in to custody. He was charged with possession of methamphetamine, resisting or obstructing a peace officer and possession of drug paraphernalia. His bond was set at $40,000, he’s currently residing in the Rock Island County Jail and his case is assigned to the Public Defender’s Office. In a bit of good luck for Forber, the charge of lewd exposure was dismissed.
While all of this is intrinsically funny as a situation, the methamphetamines they found in Forber’s short’s pocket are not funny in the slightest. Methamphetamine is a central nervous system stimulant drug that is classified as a Schedule II drug. Although prescribed by physicians, its uses are limited and the dosage of legitimate prescriptions are small compared to the typical dosages of abusers. It can be snorted, smoked or injected and it works by increasing dopamine levels in the brain. Much of the supply of this drug isn’t from pharmaceutical labs, but rather from home labs that are inherently dangerous and pose environmental hazards and health risks to both workers and anyone unfortunate enough to live near an illegal meth lab. Because of this “home cooking”, the drug also has the added danger of unpredictable side effects due to adulteration of the “product”. Short term use of the drug can cause increased wakefulness, increased physical activity, decreased appetite, increased respiration, rapid heart rate, irregular heartbeat, increased blood pressure, and hyperthermia. Chronic use of the drug can cause emotional and cognitive problems which can be long lasting if not permanent including psychotic features like paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and delusions. Add to this extreme weight loss, severe dental problems (“meth mouth”), anxiety, confusion, insomnia, mood disturbances, and violent behavior. It is one of the fastest growing illicit drug trades in the country today. In 1986, the DEA seized approximately 235 kilograms (518 pounds) of meth. In 2011, the DEA seized approximately 2,451 kilograms (5,404 pounds) of meth. It has become so prevalent in society that one of the most successful series on cable is “Breaking Bad”, a serio-comic drama about cancer patient Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who spirals out of control from a man reluctantly looking to provide for his family when he’s gone to full blown criminal drug lord.
On a personal note, I have one cousin who escaped meth addiction but not unscathed. He’s as mad as a hatter in addition to having numerous other health problems and is permanently disabled. I also had the disappointing news recently that two more cousins from another branch of the family have fallen under its vile thrall. It is a substance that I personally consider evil without reservation and that is a term I try to apply very narrowly. I am for the reform of our drug laws including the legalization of certain substances, but methamphetamines are not one of them. I don’t think anyone in their right minds would consider this a drug that should be legalized after seeing the effects it has on people. It is physically and psychologically addictive and does horrible ancillary damage to the body.
It’s all very entertaining as television, but the reality is even more grim, violent and deadly than “Breaking Bad” could ever portray without driving away audience.
But is it wise to treat addiction as criminal matter rather than a health matter? Can we let methamphetamine users slide? Can we let methamphetamine production and distribution slide? Should law enforcement focus time and resources on manufactures and distributors and leave the addicts to the medical profession? Decriminalize possession for addicts but increase penalties for manufacture and distribution?
What do you think?
Sources(s): Huffington Post, Quad-City Times, NIDA, DEA
~ Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Give the people the drugs they want. We’ll never stop them and telling someone they can’t have something just makes them want it more. If they want the stuff, you’ve already lost the battle. Just be around to love them and pick up the pieces. At least they won’t die from overdoes once it’s regulated and they won’t financially ruin the lives of others to pay for the street markup. The totalitarian, absolute police state control that would be required to actually keep it out of the hands of people is too much to force on the populace. Education is the only thing that works. Find me one person who would start using meth if only it were legal.
Alexander,
Note the distinction between legalized and decriminalized. In the case of meth, because of the extremely high associative damage from use and the subsequent costs passed on to society, decriminalization of addiction makes sense. Making the drug freely available (legalization) does not. It’s not enough to address this particular substance solely as a health problem. We need to attack the supply. Meth has been around since the 60′s but it was virtually wiped out during the 70′s by a combination of LE efforts and increased imports of cocaine only to re-emerge in the 80′s and 90′s as a demand for a cheaper stimulant other than cocaine arose.
And I can find you one person who would start using meth if it were legal.
My cousin.
If it were legal, he’d be back at it tomorrow.
He’s just bitter that the world made it available to him and wishes he hadn’t had to make the choice and failed at the choice. He wants someone else to choose not to do the drug for him because he is too weak to make that choice. The fault lies with him, not the world’s inability to prevent it’s availability. Once again, why should I accept a police state to prevent someone else from having to make tough decisions. The more scarce it is, the more the financial incentive to make it, it will be manufactured. Iran executes drug dealers. Many countries execute drug dealers. There must still be drug dealers there if they’re executing them. How many don’t get caught? Even under threat of death they make, sell, and use drugs. Nope, control doesn’t work and it only makes things worse. We have the added negative bonus of all the botched raids and the militarization of police forces and the resentment against the police. You have noble goals, but they are impossible goals. The medicine is worse than the illness in this case.
P.S. If your cousin really wanted some more meth, he could go get some. It’s not as scarce as you think. I think you cousin has more fortitude than you give him credit for. For instance, where I live I can get meth delivered to my house faster than I can get a pizza. I’m not even tapped into the worst of society, and simply because I know a few pizza delivery guys I can get nearly any drug known to man faster than I can get a pizza.
It is physically and psychologically addictive and does horrible ancillary damage to families as well. Addiction is often a helpless response to a larger issue IMO. I think there is a real and practical place between criminalization and enabling, but only if it can be dealt with in the light of day. I doubt very much that there is any family that has not suffered from its effects at some time or another. Treatment, exposure to alternatives and those who have beat the beast….and personal resolve do more to eliminate the need for the drug than exposure to ever widening and deeper levels of distress….that just feeds the beast.
No. He’s not bitter, Alexander. He’s simply a junkie with no impulse control. He liked it. A lot. He wasn’t forced to quit by society. He was forced to quit because his failing health caused him to be in hospital long enough to get clean and he had no where to live but back at home because of his continued care requirements and he can no longer drive. If he could get some today? He would.
Your idea of no controls over any substances is simply not feasible. Not all drugs are created equal both in direct effect and in societal costs for allowing free distribution. This is not a naturally occurring psychologically addictive drug we are talking about, but a synthetic physically and psychologically addictive drug with huge associated impacts to mental and physical health that can last long after use has stopped. “It’s all drugs” is an argument of false equivalence. I’m for legalizing a fairly large range of drugs (marijuana, peyote, mescaline, cocaine should be freely available and LSD with a prescription) and decriminalizing others (heroin and other opiates) for many of the reasons you mention, but meth isn’t one of them.
As to your P.S., he can’t get a pizza delivered where he lives let alone meth. He and his parents live in the ass end of nowhere down a private gated road. If any of his drug buddies showed up there, they’d likely get shot if the dogs didn’t get them first. I know him and his circumstances a lot better than you do.
Alexander McNeely
1, August 11, 2012 at 9:48 am
….. Once again, why should I accept a police state to prevent someone else from having to make tough decisions.
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By that reasoning Mr. McNeely we should just roll up all the police forces and let the chips fall as they may. The ‘police state’ we are seeing now has more to do with economics than drugs and the drug lords and criminal damage surrounding meth has more to do with economics than drugs as well. I don’t want to be at the mercy of the merciless. Trust me, neither do you. People get hooked on lots of things for lots of reasons, that doesn’t mean we just say oh too bad and let them suffer any measure of damage….not if there is a shred of society left to our society that is. Addicts suffer from helplessness….why throw them to wolves unless you want to make monsters? Cops may not be perfect but they beat the alternative! [Now if we could just get them to focus on the real thugs and not the scarey mothers driving cars...]
Methamphetamine is clearly the worst problem drug the US has yet seen. I remember lamenting several years ago that we would all be better off if the drug users went back to marihuana and cocaine.
Fortunately at least in one respect the local manufacture of meth has diminished greatly, in large part due to the control of percursors such as pseudo-ephedrine and enforcement. What has happened was the drug shifted production for the most part to Mexico and it is being shipped up here.
I can tell you from experience ignoring the enforcement of meth possession laws will be counterproductive. Giving a permissive environment for use will encourage more of it.
“The govt is our daddy, we are not adults, they know better for us. We cannot make these choices for ourselves.”
Yes, meth has a horrendous effect of some people, but not all.
In fact it is likely that most people do not suffer ill effects from the drug. It is just that we don’t hear from them; we do hear loudly from the idiot highlighted in this article, and we hear loudly from those who can’t handle it in any responsible manner.
So daddy govt says that because some people can’t handle it in a very public way, we then we all can’t handle it, and will punish those severely who do, responsibly or irresponsibly.
There are some habitually awful drivers, who cause accidents and kill people and themselves. Do we outlaw driving for all because of them?
Who draws the line as to when we say because some can’t handle risky behavior, all must be prohibited from that risk?
You all have noble goals. But you’re denying reality. Controls don’t work. Never will. They threaten to, and actually do, kill people in some countries to try to prevent drug abuse. And they still make them and take them. What do you want to do next? Threaten their families for raising such horrible kids? You can’t save everybody, and I don’t think we should turn Earth into Hell to save everyone. The aforementioned cousin has a brain disease. A unique psychotic urge to take quick pleasures over the pleasure of a long and fulfilling life, borne by some disease or crossed wires in his brain. People die from diseases. You can’t threaten people with death for eating cheeseburgers until they have a heart attack or die from diabetes. Sure, death by obesity is slower. But it is just as expensive and damaging to he people watching the person eat themselves to death.
Perhaps the best reason to legalize is we can more effectively prevent kids from getting them. It sounds so cliche at this point probably, but drug dealers don’t check I.D. For all of you claiming th sky will fall if we create a more permissive environment, I suggest you look up the example of Portugal. Posession of up to a 10 day supply is legal. No legalized production yet, but you can get it on the street easily now of course. This means that people are still producing the drugs despite “a focus on stopping the producers.” Drug use has declined in all categories except a slight uptick in marihuana use amongst adults. Use by children is down. Apparently it’s no longer “cool” to do drugs because they’re legal and people who use them are seen as sick people who need to go to the hospital to get treatment for their addiction sickness. And who likes going to the hospital when you’re a kid? Guys and gals, the solution is legalization. Give everyone a dump truck full of their favorite powder and let them go to town. If someone wnats to kill themselves, I don’t care if they do ti with a gun, a rope, or their favorite white powder.
I have lost many good friends to the ravages of drugs and one dearly loved brother to alcohol. I tried everything I could do to help them but nothing did and they are all dead now.
In an effort to save my children and grandchildren from a similar fate I used education and threats. Typical stuff to begin with like, “Drugs from the doctor are good; drugs from friends are bad.” etc. In Junior High I started with the random drug testing which was nothing more than a flashlight shinned into their eyes when they came home from a party. I wanted them to be more afraid of me than they were of peer group pressure.
I told them stories, true stories about friends of mine from the world of music who destroyed their lives with drugs and alcohol. These were people they knew about, people they had met, people whose music they played … graphic horror stories not told in the press.
I had no idea if my plan would work but my goal was to get them alcohol and drug free to an age where they would begin to see the destruction drugs and alcohol were having on their own friends.
I had no idea if I was following a correct path but it was the only path I could find so I went down it dragging them with me.
It worked. My oldest child had to go back for three separate lie detector tests with a law enforcement agency she had applied to because they couldn’t believe she had never used drugs. None of the kids have had to worry about drug testing for a job or a scholarship and took note of how worried their friends were/are. No body has been kicked out of their dorm room for possession.
My two children made it through the threat of their twenties without drugs . Five of my grandchildren are in their early twenties or close to it. I think they too will stay clear mainly because they have now seen several of their own friends totally lose their futures to drugs.
It was damn hard work and all the kids hated me at one time or another for my failure to understand how “cool” it was to get high. That passed the first time one of their friends was arrested.
In fact, the other day I overheard the 19 year old telling her 4 year old cousin, “Drugs from the doctor or your parents are good; drugs from friends are bad.”
I have no idea what the answers are to the questions Gene has posed. I do know this, methamphetamine destroys everything it touches.
Good article…..things to ponder……
Great job Gene. I hope your cousin can stay clean. The Meth problem is a huge one, but I think any drug dependency issue should be a medical problem and not a criminal one. The only hope of stopping this destructive behavior is through the intervention of medical personnel. Maybe mandate that anyone found using this stuff be “sentenced” to a long period of time at a facility designed to help rid themselves of this drug ball and chain. Tough issue that needs to be solved.
It seems like Missouri is ground zero in meth. When I moved to KC in 1975 from the east coast meth was epidemic. I had never heard of it. It waned in the 80′s a bit w/ the help of Pablo Escobar, but rekindled along w/ crack..the ugly cousin to meth poisoning. My wife was a Fedeal Probation Officer and she has horror stories on how meth cooking and use is almost satanic. If you want to get a gripping view of this culture, watch Winter’s Bone. But make sure you take your prozac first. It’s set in southern Mo. and as realistic as can be, almost a documentary but w/ superb acting.
Cannabis should be legal, it’s insane that it’s not. I’m a decriminalized person for most drugs but certainly not meth..it’s poison. What we Americans need to realize is we need to stop blaming other countries for OUR problem. When I went to Medillin and Bogota to adopt our son in 1987 it was the peak of Escobar. I was in a coffee shop in Medillin having a nice cup of tinto. That’s made from the cheaper coffee beans, the good ones are exported. A young businessman was curious about my presence and we had a great conversation. Well, when you’re in Medillin in 1987 the topic of course gets to cocaine. This gent said something to me that changed my thoughts on cocaine. He said, “Our country produces the legal product of coffee. If the US stops drinking coffee we will stop producing it. The same goes w/ cocaine.” Ironically, shortly after that conversation Starbucks became ubiquitous and we Americans started drinking exponentially more java!
Gary T
1, August 11, 2012 at 10:19 am
“The govt is our daddy, we are not adults, they know better for us. We cannot make these choices for ourselves.”
Yes, meth has a horrendous effect of some people, but not all.
In fact it is likely that most people do not suffer ill effects from the drug. It is just that we don’t hear from them; we do hear loudly from the idiot highlighted in this article, and we hear loudly from those who can’t handle it in any responsible manner.
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The focus group in this article are those who already obtain and use the drug illegally. They are ALREADY controlled by the drug. If, as you say, IF it is most likely that ‘most’ (?) people do not suffer ill effects from this drug, they are most likely those who obtain it legally with an actual demonstrated condition or necessity for it. To use this recreationally is insane. I have seen the walking corpses it produces…they all think they are having fun and it’s doing them all kinds of good!
Oh, they use that Daddy Gov argument too when they are justifying their behaviour….
I do concede the point that there are indeed some people who would use meth if it were legal. But….But, I say make it legal and make that the choice. Do you want to end your life with this stuff or do you want to live. I think by forcing the aforementioned cousin to stay away from the drug you are either illgally imprisoning an individual or there is some small sliver of consent within him, allowing himself to be imprisoned. If the choice to live or die would have been made ealier in his life (forced upon him by the legality/availabillity of a dump truck full o’ meth), while life was more thrilling, he probably would have chosen to stay alive and never looked back. The alternative is that you are forcing someone to live who doesn’t want to live. And that sounds like torture to me.
Good advice, Blouise. The one thing I would ad is that prescription drugs from the doctor or doctors are the most abused drugs today. Most going into treatment now are addicted to multitude of drugs but often mainly prescription sleeping pills, pain pills, and xanax. Some are going for adderall which is a meth salt. You know my story.
Blouise, I loved your story. I have a kind of funny one to tell. I’m the one who, like your kids, never tried any drug at all, not even one puff during college while the weed was so thick that you could get a “second-hand smoke” high walking down the hall in the dorm. My kid came to believe (how, I don’t know) that drugs were some bizarre, terrible, terribly unnecessary, dangerous stuff that nobody in their right mind would want. (I don’t remember saying any of this to him but perhaps I did; perhaps, also, he just formed this opinion on his own.) But after he was 18 and he was at college, he called ME and asked if I thought it would be OK for him to experiment with Marijuana!
I had no earthly idea! I told him I had no earthly idea, and would get back to him in a few days, and that he shouldn’t try any during those few days.
Then I did research (and back then, no internet, so it was library research plus asking all the people I knew for their opinions plus checking with half a dozen physicians and a handful of lawyers). When I called him back I gave him the rules:
1. Sure, go ahead and try the marijuana. SMALL SMALL QUANTITY.
2. Try it when you’re among friends you trust. NOT MANY OF THEM.
3. Never distribute, sell, or carry.
4. NO OTHER DRUGS, EVER, PERIOD.
5. No driving when you’ve been consuming.
6. Only get it from someone you know other students have gotten it from (and if you get it from a student, make sure it’s not someone who is doing any other questionable activities or selling other drugs).
7. If you have any adverse reaction at all, go to the doctor and tell the truth about what you’ve been doing and how you came to have your reaction.
So he started to experiment with marijuana and he loved it. Then he and the friends who smoked it thought they should tell me how great it was and offer to “turn me on” and I politely declined. They laughed when I told them I had never even tried it during college. My kid no longer does any of the stuff; he never had any bad reaction or anything but I think he outgrew it.
But one of his friends did meth, and got totally messed up. My kid and I both worked with him over and over to try to get him away from that drug. He also ended up in the E.R. once, nearly dead, and “reformed” for a while but then fell back into the addiction. His parents later put him through some serious rehab experiences, but not until he had started also drinking to extremes, wrecked his and their cars (thank god no vehicular homicide but that just by luck!) and all the usual etceteras. That was a horrible experience.
About Mr. Forber, though — how did they get him into the squad car? Weird!
Apparently it’s no longer “cool” to do drugs because they’re legal and people who use them are seen as sick people who need to go to the hospital to get treatment for their addiction sickness. Alexander McNeely
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Are you sure it’s not that they are legal BECAUSE people who use them are seen as sick people who need to go to the hospital to get treatment for their addiction sickness?
I agree that there are better controls when things become legitimized, but there are legitimate channels for obtaining this drug and the wars abroad have superceded much of what has been happening here in the US. Just think if all that energy had been put into programs here at home….
http://alcoholism.about.com/od/prescription/a/Commonly-Abused-Medications.htm
Above is a fantastic movie about meth addiction and the people it affects.
“Are you sure it’s not that they are legal BECAUSE people who use them are seen as sick people who need to go to the hospital to get treatment for their addiction sickness?”
You brain is made out of the same DNA-coded flesh that your other organs are made from. All organs are capable of failing to the point of killing you. The brain isn’t?
Alexander McNeely
1, August 11, 2012 at 11:13 am
I do concede the point that there are indeed some people who would use meth if it were legal. But….But, I say make it legal and make that the choice……..The alternative is that you are forcing someone to live who doesn’t want to live. And that sounds like torture to me……..
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It is a distortion to think that meth is as benign as marijuana. It is much more debilitating and damaging as well as probably more addictive than cigarettes…it acts like uber-nicotine on dopamine receptors in the brain and is akin to constantly driving your car with the pedal to the floor and even idling at full rev. Look at what it took for the tobacco industrys denouement…
[My mother was 'prescribed' tobacco (as were many) by her doctor way back when to help her strengthen her lungs. She died of emphysema. Studies have shown tobacco to be harder to kick than opiates. ]
“But is it wise to treat addiction as criminal matter rather than a health matter? Can we let methamphetamine users slide? Can we let methamphetamine production and distribution slide? Should law enforcement focus time and resources on manufactures and distributors and leave the addicts to the medical profession? Decriminalize possession for addicts but increase penalties for manufacture and distribution?
What do you think?”
We might consider tailoring a solution or solutions based on the environment within which such activity originates and is then acted out.
What I mean is that in the sense that “it takes a village to raise a child”, it is also hazardous for a village not to take part in raising a child.
We place all the “blame” on the parents and the meth head when the “raising” comes to fruition.
It might be better to allow local communities at some level (town, county, state) deal with it rather than at the federal level in the form of a “war on drugs”.
Alexander McNeely
1, August 11, 2012 at 11:33 am
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I don’t see your point in relation to what I said…..but do you know what has happened to the funding for at home drug treatment programs while the war in parts afar was waging? Do you think as it winds up that we will see the same kind of problems w/addiction that the troops returning from Vietnam faced? Legalizing this crap now could endanger a lot of people who have lost health care coverage,homes, 401K’s, economic stability, in short been made more vulnerable due to socio-economic stresses imposed by failing industries. Is this a cheap way to skirt the issue of treatment costs and care of those MADE vulnerable by market forces over the past decade?
SwM & Malisha,
I gave up the Savior complex years and years ago. I wasn’t any good at it. I remember something a friend’s drug councilor told me, a question he used to separate the addict from the simple user. He told me that no individual knew if he/she possessed the addict gene until that first use.
The question: On a scale of 1-10 describe your first high.
Those who say 11 or above are going to have a huge problem getting clean.
So, where the kids were concerned, who had the addict gene? No way of knowing so impress that on them and go from there.
I think marijuana should be legalized but since it isn’t, how to keep the kids away from it? No kid in junior high or high school knows what career they will choose as an adult. Illegal drug use can limit one’s choices, plain and simple. That’s part of the education package.
I was hell on wheels and the kids knew it. There was no self-righteous religiosity to it … just plain old common sense … don’t f*ck up your future before you know what future you want.
My final rule: When you are 30 years old, you can try any drug you want.
The grandkids have a favorite toast at each and every family dinner … one imp will raise his/her glass and loudly clear their throat at which point the other 4 will raise their glasses and say, “Here’s to our 30th birthday!” Bunch of smart-asses.
Swarthmore,
I will have to see that movie. Thanks to you and nick for mentioning it.
Blouise, their asses are not only smart, but well educated. Congratulations!
Malisha,
So far … (check your own bedroom, not the kid’s room if you want to find his/her drugs
)
hahaha! I second Malisha, but did you ever dread their 30th?
You implied that drug users really aren’t sick people. Unless I am mistaken. My answer should have been prefaced by saying addiction is a sickness. A disease of the flesh. It’s a broken piece of genetic code that is responsible for bad brain chemistry. Everything you posess mentally, you work ethic, your willpower, your IQ, is a result of the unique brain chemistry you did nothing to earn. You didn’t earn the genes and environment then enable the life you have. They didn’t ask for the genes and life they have, but they have it. Drug addicts are just suicidal people who weren’t allowed to make the choice earlier in life. From the first time they did meth, they were already dead. The person they were died when their sick brain realized that it could trigger it’s pleasure center NOT by doing things that are good for itself, but now simply by ingesting a white powder. Right now the choice to use meth is seen by most addicts as, “Well, I’ll feel really great, it’ll be expensive, and I might go to jail…” and that’s all they think about. We need to let people know that they die when they use meth. We need to force THAT choice on them by making meth as comepletely freely available as water, so that at the age of 18 they are allowed to choose to live or die. We already trust them with that choice, anyone can drive a car off of a cliff at the age of 18 if they want to leave this world. Here’s a bucket of meth, a bucket of cocaine, and a bucket of heroin. Stick your head in that sucker and inhale deeply if you want to take all the happiness and joy you were going to have in your life, divide it by one million, and that will all be crammed into 1 day of sheer ecstacy and then you’ll die. If we do these things, I believe the perception of drugs will change very rapidly in society.
Woosty,
Both of my children told me when they reached 30 that they would wait to try drugs on their 40th.
Since I’m way ahead of them I know that come that 40th birthday they won’t have time to sit down let alone find a supplier.
Blouise and Woosty,
I have to admit that it helped me as a parent to have dabbled with marijuana in college because I can still smell it a mile away. I suggested to my daughter and her friends one night when they had returned from a night out, that I could smell it and I never want to see it, or smell it again in my house. I never smelled it again. Maybe they just perfumed their way out of it, but I don’t think so. I don’t know what I would have done if heavier drugs were involved.
Blouise, My husband’s mother and my father were alcoholics so my kids could very well have the gene. I worried about it when they were younger but so far so good.
SwM,
I’m pretty sure I have the gene … even if I don’t I’m going to assume I do. You know the rules … never drink because you have a problem, never drink to “loosen” up.
My brother’s kidneys and liver were in pretty good shape … the excessive alcohol damaged his brain causing him to lose feeling in his feet, balance … etc. The doctors told me exactly what portion of the brain was damaged but I don’t remember now. He was dead at 52. He started drinking during Nam … it took about 30 years for the liquor to kill him.
Meth can kill you in seconds.
raf,
If you’d hung out in a Conservatory of Music, the smell of burning rope would have stayed with you all your life … though heroin was the drug of choice.
You are so right about the heavier drugs and the sense of helplessness.
You want to know what I think? I think I’m lazy so I’m just going to agree with you completely on this one. Although I am curious as to why we think that LSD should require a prescription while peyote and mescaline don’t (and what about mushrooms—how do you feel about fungus?)
Great article.
“…why should I accept a police state to prevent someone else from having to make tough decisions. …”
It’s not a police state. It’s called a community, a nation, a group of people concerned about each other, their health and their future. It’s why the community provides fire protection, health care, education. Americans are NOT all individual independent contractors. We are a community of interdependent individuals. The US isn’t about me or you or I, it’s about us. Denying this fact is to deny the real and true American Exceptionalism and the reason people come here from all over the world. Denying this interdependence is the heart of what’s wrong with conservatism. Conservatism is the exaltation of selfishness and greed. It is not the foundation of the American experience and continued acceptance of this failed philosophy by more than three or four right wing radicals could destroy our nation from within.
rcampbell
1, August 11, 2012 at 3:48 pm
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hear hear!
what Woosty and rcampbell said.
Denying, or in my case rejecting, coerced interdependence prevents people from becoming slaves to others. You do not have a right to happiness and comfort in this life. You have a right to PURSUE it. The sanctity of the individual is paramount. We are a community of interdependent individuals, yes. But we must only submit to that dependence voluntarily. We consent to be governed, we consent to join society. Otherwise it becomes slavery to the whims of others. Why should I have to defend my right to sit unmolested? The onus is on you since you wish to use force to compel me to do or not do things, whether or not it’s for the good of “society.”
Just because someone was born, does not mean they have a right to stay here. We are not obligated to keep someone alive and comfortable just because your parents decided to force you into this world. Out of sympthy, I may or may not consent to helping others. But, that is my decision alone. When you threaten me with the initialization of force, you threaten me with a gun or with caging if I don’t pay my taxes to fund your anti-drug programs or welfare programs, you aren’t allowing me to consent to being governed and you’re forcing me to help keep someone alive. Well that kind of ruins the warm and fuzzy feeling you’re supposed to get when you help people.
Blouise,
I know that smell of burning rope, even without the music background.
Alexander, Love is sacred, Children are sacred, Protecting my children is sacred. Life is sacred, Individual experience is sacred, Growth is sacred.
There is a dichotomy here, having children is inherent Joy, letting them go, is inherent pain. Life is a teeter totter, up and down, side to side. Balance in all, moderation in everything. Run for the roses and fall in the thorns. Aspire to the higher, do not fear the dire. They exist, they both hit with a ton of bricks. One is Joyful, One is an emptiness filled with pain. This is the teeter totter of life. Two sides, both offer lightning bolts of emotion, …..
Straddle the middle, hold on for your life, it’s the only ride I got, and the price of admission …is Death. ….Before your nickle runs out, get your nickles worth.
Some people spend a lot of time on very unhealthy things. I am learning now, health and growth expose joy previously unknown, unseen, and until found uncomprehended. Addictive drugs deliver euphoria for the price of the drug. A known euphoria, a friendly euphoria……. but one that wanes, a euphoria that must be chased harder and farther, sought more frantically, dedicatedly. And when found it is the same or less. A promise half kept, a promise unfortunately driving the addicted individual further into ill health.
Joy found from health and life is inviolate, it is owned and always possessed. Joy found from drugs is fleeting and many run the same field over and over to find it. There are so many other fields, so much else to find and experience. The drug addicted know no such other field.
Slarti,
I would include mushrooms on that list. However, LSD is not like those other hallucinogenics. One, it’s a synthetic and as a synthetic I’d prefer it be made under controlled lab conditions. Two, its reaction is different from the naturally occurring compounds. I think some psych screening before taking it is simply wise. Some people can benefit enormously from taking LSD. It can be an enlightening and positive life changing experience for people with the right type of personality. Others outside that range of right personality types however should never take it. Ever. They would have problems adjusting to the self-knowledge or world knowledge regarding perception gained by a positive LSD experience and/or other problems with the experience. I also think it is a substance that should be done under controlled circumstances. In a safe friendly home or natural environment where environmental stimulation can be moderated if not controlled. A first time LSD user should not consider doing something like say going to Mardi Gras and no matter what their experience they should never engage in behaviors like driving or situations that could cause sudden and startling changes in their sensory input loads as the drug is going to make them hypersensitive in the first place. That is why I think LSD should be available but require medical supervision and guidance.
Woosty’s still a Cat said:
1, August 11, 2012 at 11:10 am
“The focus group in this article are those who already obtain and use the drug illegally. They are ALREADY controlled by the drug. If, as you say, IF it is most likely that ‘most’ (?) people do not suffer ill effects from this drug, they are most likely those who obtain it legally with an actual demonstrated condition or necessity for it. To use this recreationally is insane. I have seen the walking corpses it produces…they all think they are having fun and it’s doing them all kinds of good!”
I doubt very much that most people who use meth obtain it legally.
Notwithstanding, most people who use it, do not wind up with these horrible circumstances.
Of the people who use it, some just don’t like it, some like it for its utilitarian reasons (remember it was and is given regularly to soldiers in endurance circumstances), others like the high but are quite aware that taking too much is just not fun at all, and there are many who try it and like it, but it becomes just another phase in their lives they don’t need anymore and stop just because.
And there is the phenomena of the working addict, the type who are addicted to a drug, but continue to work and live their lives productively.
All the above types, we just don’t hear about in these sensationalized stories.
And in fact they are the majority, but it doesn’t seem that way, because there are no sensationalized stories about successful or stable users of these drugs.
We don’t get the whole picture, only the horrible 1/40th of it.
“Smoke em if ya gottem.” If we encourage young and old in America to smoke tobacco and we know for a fact that it kills and tortures the user on his way to the funeral parlor, then why stop the same schmuck from indulging in any other drug?
I would not want to sit in the back seat of that cop car after numnuts had been hauled off to jail in there.
“Guys and gals, the solution is legalization. Give everyone a dump truck full of their favorite powder and let them go to town. If someone wants to kill themselves, I don’t care if they do it with a gun, a rope, or their favorite white powder.”
Alexander,
I agree with you and have felt this way for years. I’ve had friends who were addicts who’ve died. I have created and run Drug Programs for psychiatric patients with addiction. Until my retirement I was accredited and licensed to do treat the addicted, run programs for them and to also run “drug prevention” programs. The reality is that there is an “addictive personality” in some people that could have many root causes. Some of it is “brain wiring”, some of it is an intolerable environment and some of it is “self medication” for those with severe mental illness. However, in our “war on drugs” environment, the distinction between those who are able to use drugs recreationally and those who need to be addicted to whatever, is lost in the rhetoric of false science in the service of law enforcement.
In my experience among the most dangerous drugs available to the addictive personality is alcohol. Yet this country’s “noble experiment” with Prohibition proved to be extremely counter-productive. This is true today of the “war on drugs”, but that fact is lost on cowardly politicians who dare not protest and it is ignored by “pious moralists” who believe any pleasure is contrary to “God’s
Plan”. The extent of the hypocrisy can be seen in the concept of the “Methadone Program”, whose “dirty little secrets” include that this “alternative”
gets the user high and is itself far more addictive than the “illegal” drugs it is meant to replace. The added benefit to the addict of methadone is that when mixed with a drug like Xanax, the resultant “high” is the equivalent of heroin. That truth is reinforced by the amount of Xanax dealers that congregate outside of methadone clinics.
Unfortunately, the “war on drugs” has created an industry that has grown into big business, for Law Enforcement and for Treatment. Too many jobs would be lost from legalization and their lobbying through fear to maintain their perquisites is extensive. I the end the most I ca say is that working in the drug prevention/treatment field was a experience that proved to me that I was nowhere near as smart/competent as I thought I was.
Alexander McNeely
1, August 11, 2012 at 9:03 pm
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Can I ask, a personal question for purely personal edifications? Are you by chance a Republican?
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“All the above types, we just don’t hear about in these sensationalized stories.
And in fact they are the majority, but it doesn’t seem that way, because there are no sensationalized stories about successful or stable users of these drugs.
We don’t get the whole picture, only the horrible 1/40th of it.”~Gary T
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http://portaltools.na.org/portaltools/MeetingLoc/
Woosty, don’t know if you were asking me something or pointing something out to me.
I am not a republican, but a libertarian.
“The reality is that there is an “addictive personality” in some people that could have many root causes. Some of it is “brain wiring”, some of it is an intolerable environment and some of it is “self medication” for those with severe mental illness. ……
…..The extent of the hypocrisy can be seen in the concept of the “Methadone Program”, whose “dirty little secrets” include that this “alternative”
gets the user high and is itself far more addictive than the “illegal” drugs it is meant to replace.”Mike Spindell
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There is a genetically activated addictive personality….it is rampant in the Halls of Power right now….addiction to control….addiction to money…addiction to oil blah blah blah….the biggest crimes are being committed by the biggest addicts in the world right now. Methodone does not ‘treat’ the addict as much as it lets him/her remain in the world at large…not committing crimes on others and perhaps, if they are strong enuff, stabilizing and getting control of their own addiction. It is also a cleaner drug. Most importantly, from a Public health perspective, they are not using needles, carelessly discarding needles, sharing needles etc….so they are not spreading unwanted virii and blood borne pathogens into the general population. Crystal meth…have you seen what an addict looks like? They become walking talking (maybe) zombified petri dishes. And yet still there are human beings in there….
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/27/meth-rehab-former-labs-nightmare-for-unwitting-homebuyers/
Gary T
1, August 12, 2012 at 10:59 am
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asking
so do you think we should just de-criminalize everything in one fell swoop?
what about treatment? for those already addicted…for those who become addicted because of imposed socio-economic conditions imposed on them un-wittingly or that THEY did not agree to? Right now I know an awful lot of people who don’t even have healthcare….street drugs often start out being a self-medicating solution that then turns into a problem….or is every problem just something that each hardy individual mst conquer of their own innate strength and resource, against all odds and with no other recourse?
I lost a friend about ten, fifteen years ago who had been addicted to tobacco when he was a young recruit in the US Army. He had been sent over, at age 18, to Europe, during WWII, and he was one of the troops who liberated Dachau. His job was to go out into the surrounding areas, bring in the locals, and force them to tour the camp, to let them know what had been going on there (as if they didn’t know). He was given FREE CIGARETTES. He was hooked almost immediately of course. He died of cancer 60 years later.
People I know who know a little bit about the diamond mines in South Africa have told me that all the workers get free marijuana. Why? Keeps them mellow. They work harder, more willingly, longer, without complaint, without problems, if they get high on breaks every few hours.
I haven’t done the research to find out much more about many of the other drugs that are available (legally or illegally) in the world. But I believe that to a significant degree, the drugs that we allegedly have a “war against” are the drugs that the society has provided for the pacification and the numb-ification of large masses of people who would otherwise be a bit harder to control.
Were it not for the illegal drugs, how could we fill these prisons?
Woosty:
No, I don’t think we should legalize everything in one fell swoop.
That is principled, but not necessary.
But the inequities and injustices made upon people for what is essentially a health care policy issue turned criminal justice problem, needs to be stopped.
I would say decriminalize over a period of 4 years, and let non-violent drug ‘offenders’ have an opportunity to petition for release.
If we are as a nation going to spend massive amounts of money on this problem, then let it be toward a direction of assisting those who hurt themselves, not hurting them more by criminal sanctions.
Malisha
in south america they give workers coca leaves to chew on. in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s black dockworkers would buy small amounts of cocaine to work faster.
also i believe in asia workers were given small amounts of opium for smoking because it helps with back breaking, repetitious work.
i can’t say i’ve ever heard of giving anyone marijuana to make them work harder unless they were a taste tester for frito lay. i’m also not saying they don’t. different strains produce different reactions.
maybe you can see where i’m going with this. many people start using crystal meth because of work overloads. it will help you get through the day (or night), at least at first. it’s cheaper than cocaine, or at least it used to be, and you don’t have to do as much. generally speaking meth is not diluted or stepped on as much as coke.
Woosty, I am a libertarian who follows Christ. I have experimented with marihuana in the past, it definitely opened my eyes to the lies people told me about drugs in school. I questioned their claims about ALL drugs after I realized they lied to me about the dangers of marihuana. Luckily I didn’t have a death wish and stopped at marihuana. I’m now 30 years old and haven’t smoked weed more than a handful of times in 7 years. I would help those who want help and never stop loving those who don’t until they do. My posts may seem slightly psychopathic, but only because I like to boil things down to their basic essence, it helps to foment wider understanding. I agree with the posters advocating a multi-yeared approach to RE-legalization. It will be a shock to the system and we will have to prepare for it.
“The care, therefore, of every man’s soul belongs unto himself, and is to be left unto himself. But what if he neglect the care of his soul? I answer: What if he neglect the care of his health or of his estate, which things are nearlier related to the government of the magistrate than the other? Will the magistrate provide by an express law that such a one shall not become poor or sick? Laws provide, as much as is possible, that the goods and health of subjects be not injured by the fraud and violence of others; they do not guard them from the negligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves. No man can be forced to be rich or healthful whether he will or no.” — J. Locke
“All duties are either duties of right, that is, juridical duties (officia juris), or duties of virtue, that is, ethical duties (officia virtutis s. ethica). Juridical duties are such as may be promulgated by external legislation; ethical duties are those for which such legislation is not possible. The reason why the latter cannot be properly made the subject of external legislation is because they relate to an end or final purpose, which is itself, at the same time, embraced in these duties, and which it is a duty for the individual to have as such. But no external legislation can cause any one to adopt a particular intention, or to propose to himself a certain purpose; for this depends upon an internal condition or act of the mind itself.” — Immanuel Kant
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Punish the drug user? For what trespass would that be?
“Jesus man! You don’t look for acid! Acid finds you when *it* thinks you’re ready.” – Hunter S. Thompson
Bob,
I’ve got to agree with Hunter on that one…
“Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it.” If one can’t see the comparison to Prohibition and the Mafia, and our drug policies and Colombian/Mexican cartels, then they are either blind or stupid. I worked in a maximum security Federal prison[Leavenworth]. We couldn’t keep drugs out of there where there are no 4th amendment rights, then how in the name of everything holy can you keep it out of this country! Where there is demand, there will be supply. You work on the demand. There is a powerful private lobby that opposes this, it’s the liquor lobby. Then there is the private sector lobby; police, attorneys, prisons, etc. who also oppose. Our president and AG has been a bitter disappointment on this issue..bitter disappointment.
Show me the moral justification for treating a drug user on the same level as a rapist.
Bob, Esq.,
Been missin’ you, my good man.
I have latched onto News Room on HBO (written by Aaron Sorkin so very liberal and fast-paced). Justified it ain’t but still a fairly good watch. If you get the chance watch a couple of the episodes and let me know what you think.
Still have at least 5 months before we may return to the holler
pete: “i can’t say i’ve ever heard of giving anyone marijuana to make them work harder unless they were a taste tester for frito lay. i’m also not saying they don’t.”
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At one time cane cutters in Jamaica were allowed to smoke. A study of them was done many many years ago (about 40+ years ago) that I recall reading about in, I think, the Consumer Reports book on drugs. Those that smoked worked more slowly but they worked longer, had no more accidents than non-smoking co-workers, and complained less than non-smoking co-workers. CR found it odd that the study was never considered by the US in making drug policy.
Also, I agree with Gary T, its been a totally one sided debate for 50+ years, it I believe a testament to how widely illicit drugs have percolated through the society over the last couple of generations that with nothing but government propaganda in all major media, that the attitude about some recreational chemicals have changed to the point that we have a virtual war being fought between the Feds (spits) and the states on this matter. What is happening in California and other states that have legalized ‘medical’ MJ is almost as if after prohibition was repealed the Treasury Dept. had continued to raid breweries. Madness.
About marijuana and the diamond mine workers in South Africa, I got that story second-hand but from three different individuals second-hand, ALL of them from South Africa: two South African non-miners who were “Black” and “colored” respectively, and one South African White who was a diamond mine OWNER! (Don’t know how much of a share he had, though.) They said the same thing: No rebellions, not many injuries, no fussing, no complaining against bad working conditions, good work, plenty of it, jovial workers.
Blouise,
Been watching Newsroom as well. Has its pros and cons; I can explain better in an email.
Let it slide. Prohibition doesn’t work.