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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Friday, February 22, 2019

Commentary: War on Drugs: Crime, Violence, and Mental Illness

By Rich Kozlovich


Ten states and Washington, D.C., have legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Twenty-two other states, along with U.S. territories Puerto Rico and Guam, allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. Let's examine some hidden issues about marijuana use........  Alex Berenson is a graduate of Yale University, with degrees in history and economics. He delivered a speech last month at Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., on the hidden dangers of marijuana use. He told his audience, "Almost everything that you think you know about the health effects of cannabis, almost everything that advocates and the media have told you for a generation, is wrong."
Even the author, whom I've been reading and enjoying for years, can't bring himself to come to the right conclusion: We're losing the war on drugs because we're not fighting a war on drugs.  

For the most part I’m a firm believer people have the right to screw up their lives. I’m also a firm believe it’s not my responsibility to fix them afterwards. If they make bad decisions let them live with it. Is that cold? Yes, but it’s based on reality.

These people screw up their lives and then cry and whine to the people who told them not to do the things that messed up their lives to help them. But invariably there's this spoken and unspoken caveat - "Don't you dare to tell me to stop what their doing".   Ask anyone who deals with drug rehab how many fail.

Being an exterminator for 37 years means I've been in other people's bailiwick every week for 37 years. I can see prominent businessmen, politicans or celebrities along with the dregs of society on any given day. In pest control you see it all, and if you’re not as obtuse as a rock, you begin to see patterns.

Years ago I had a restaurant account where I had become good friends with the chef for many years- at least I thought we were friends. Then he started getting nasty and unpleasant for no seeming reason. At some point I asked him why he was acting that way, and if I had done something to offended him please let me know, I would apologize. He got nastier and told me to just shut my mouth and just do my job and turned on his heel and walked away. The next week he was gone. The company paid to put him through rehab. 

Then I remembered a conversation we had some years before when I told him one of the things I liked best about him was he was always stable. He said it wasn't always that way. He'd had a drug problem in years gone by and he said his emotions bounced all over the place.

When he returned to work, he was the same old friend he was before and apologized for treating me as he did. However, it didn’t last. It turned out to be an invaluable experience. I learned two things.

First, the nasty and unpleasant personality he displayed I see a lot. I’ve seen people go from normal and friendly to mean and nasty. I couldn’t understand it, at least until this episode.

The second thing I learned was that druggies are repeaters. In most cases they just can’t be fixed. The third thing I learned was not to automatically you are the problem…..you aren’t…..it’s them, and you need to get those people out of your life as quickly as possible.

Make not mistake about this. The violence and mental instability is going to grow like a deadly fungus on society.  The problem is we're not really fighting a war on drugs,

If society decides to ignore reality and accept drug addiction as a new social norm then there will be consequences to those addicted and those they impact. These drugs destroy people, and if and when it becomes common place, it will destroy society.

That’s history, and that history is incontestable.

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