But hey, at least they aren't smoking mar-ju-wanna, right?
Prescription drug abuse ravages a state's youth
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says nearly 7 million Americans currently abuse prescription drugs, noting that is "more than the number who are abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, ecstasy and inhalants combined." The DEA also reports that "opioid painkillers now cause more overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined."
"Something needs to be done, because it's killing our kids every day." said Lynn Kissick. "People need to stand up and take notice. Our kids are dying. They're dying because of these drugs."
I usually don't consider the DEA to be remotely credible because their Number One Job is lying about and attacking marijuana and marijuana smokers. Here they have a relatively large number of toe tags to tell me they may be close to correct.
What's going on?
Why are "kids" and "young people" eating oxycontin and Xananx and Valium like skittles?
There's nothing in these reports about pot smoking, most likely because 'marijuana' is non-toxic. Non-lethal. Non-killing.
Stamping it out remains Job # 1 for Law Enforcement and the DEA.
But here we have a genuine serious situation confrronting them. Marijuana is NOT serious. It doesn't kill people. Pharmaceuticals kill LOTS of people even when they are taken correctly and under medical supervision.
But the situation now is that hundreds of people a year - 485 last year in Kentucky alone - are dying from abuse of these dangerous chemical medications.
Last year alone, at least 485 people died in Kentucky from prescription drug overdoses, according to the state's Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Medical Examiners' records indicate the drugs most commonly found in those death cases were methadone, the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone, alprazolam (Xanax), morphine, diazepam (Valium) and fentanyl.
"It's an epidemic and I'm afraid we're losing a whole generation," said Beth Lewis Maze, the Chief Circuit Judge for the 21st Judicial Circuit in Kentucky. "These pain medications are so highly addictive that these young people are digging themselves a very deep hole."
The list above contains "opiod" drugs - synthetic opiates like Oxycontin and methadone, as well as the benzodiazepines - Valium and Xanax.
Benzos, as they are often referred shortly, are highly addictive and severely so. The withdrawals can be terrible. I have seen a person withdrawing from long-term Valium abuse in a hospital long ago: it left a lasting impression on me.
Nationwide the
overuse of painkillers in the United States accounted for 8,500 deaths in 2005, said the report, warning that the figure indicated a 114 percent increase in the number of fatalities attributed to such abuse since 2001.
More alarming is that more teens are turning to prescription drugs in 'pharm parties', which involves an unregulated intake of such prohibited drugs.
Meanwhile, Kentucky is blaming Florida
Broward has become the nation's capital of illegal prescription drug trafficking, police say, with nearly 100 storefront pain clinics feeding a black market in pain pills stretching through Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Massachusetts. Florida leads the nation in oxycodone sales -- largely because of these clinics -- according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data.
So the fuzz have themselves a REAL problem to deal with. Its not "mar-ju-wanna" - I write the word that way to make fun of the dumb people who still cower in fear at the mere mention of the Evil Weed, many of them cops - they have to fear, it's REAL drugs.
Bush and D.A.R.E
I want to go back to look at the "114%" increase in drug abuse of prescription drugs: 114% since 2001: Hmmm...2001...2001, rings a bell for some reason but I can't quite... Oh yeah! The beginning of the Bush Years and the brand spanking new crackdown of "druuuugs" that came with that sad excuse for an administration.
This needless travesty was led by a total dickweed named John Walters, a geek-like liar who knew no shame when it came to prevarication about mar-ju-wanna. He was simply a lying son-of-a-bitch and he was handsomely paid to do this with your tax dollars.
So the War on Drugs, originally begun by Richard Nixon, another Republican, and amped up by Reagan and Bush 1 - MORE republicans - was cranked WAY up after Bush 2 was appointed to office. They just kept on cranking it up, as evidenced by the ever-increasing numbers of arrests for marijuana "possession (possession merely means you were touching the marijuana. Smoking is not part of the concern of the law: they don't want you touching it.)
Even after 9/11/01 Law Enforcement's MAIN are of accomplishment was arresting people for touching marijuana, which clearly and inescapably betrays their sense of priorities.
With the war on drugs, the MAIN focus was MARIJUANA and this Federal and primarily Republicans jihad involves tremendous use of drug testing.
See, drug testing for marijuana is really easy and so it is done A LOT. Teens are often subject to random drug testing in the school for any number of increasingly ridiculous reasons. We have republicans to thank for this as well. Ronald Reagan encouraged private agencies to violate your 4th Amendment rights to require you to pee for a job. Most of you just pee without a second thought because you have nothing to hide, but you got your panties on a knot over Bush's spying on you. Alas, some folks will never make the connection. I digress.
Marijuana stays in the system for approximately 30 days making testing for it very easy and makes use very difficult since a person could smoke on Saturday the 1st and fail a drug test on the 23rd.
So, basically, teens have turned to OTHER DRUGS. Crack and cocaine are out of your system in a couple of days. I honestly don't know for sure, but oxycontin most likely stays in the body a couple of days, and up to 2 weeks if one is taking it daily (as in prescribed).
So what I am alluding to is that the war on drugs and the intense focus on marijuana and drug testing has driven a generation of youth to not smoke pot as much and to take a lot more dangerous drugs simply because they can more easily beat the drug tests. The war on drugs is causing this.
REAL drugs are killing LOTS of people but since these REAL drugs are made by some of the most powerful and lucrative corporations in America, we don't have the same sort of "madness" in addressing the issue that we have all grown up with regarding the Evil Weed.
Our drug education is all screwed up and useless.
The high-school class of 1996 was the first one to increase its use of drugs since the across-the-boards decline of the eighties. That group of students had entered kindergarten around 1983, the same year that the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, now D.A.R.E. America, was founded by Los Angeles Police Department chief Daryl Gates.
D.A.R.E, and Daryl Gates (who considers pot smokers "traitors" who should be "shot"), are completely full of shit and more than useless: DARE is useless if not counter-productive.
I am NOT encouraging children to smoke pot. Let's just cut off that noise right now. Regulated cannabis will not be any more legal or appropriate for children than tobacco and alcohol, America's favorite killers. We can co-exst with deadly alcohol and tobacco, we can peacefully co-exist with non-lethal cannabis, and NOBODY has an argument to refute this.
I am telling ADULTS that we must discourage drug use in children but the temptation to invade the child's privacy is going to cause a number of children to take evasive maneuvers in their quest to experiement with "getting high.
Marijuana propaganda has been so over-the-top with it's lies and distortions that once people do sample the evil weed - always portrayed as the worst drug out there - and find that it is rather ho-hum, they assume they have been lied to about all the other drugs. And off to experiment they go.
End the lies about cannabis and "marijuana", tell the truth about drug abuse, advise people that pharmaceutical drugs are a lot more dangerous than you imagine; make cannabis regulated like tobacco and alcohol and firearms - 3 deadly things we manage to live with - since it is not lethal, we can easily tolerate it.
We can get cops to stop spending every waking moment chasing pot smokers, arresting 1 person for pot-touching every 38 seconds and put them to work doing something a bit more useful for the country.
Like dealing with drug trafficking networks that deliver deadly drugs to young people in this country, for example.