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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (782441)	4/28/2014 5:51:22 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577594

I'm really going to avoid the minutia argument because I have stuff I have to get done today. But I do want to say something about substance abuse that pretty much covers the spectrum. There are three kinds of substance abusers. Most will smoke pot, maybe try some Xanax, some MDMA, some Coke, or whatever. And almost all of those people will move on with their lives, suffer no ill effects from it, and turn out to be a functional adult. It doesn't matter if the drugs are legal or illegal; they're going to do their thing and move on. A small percentage of drug abusers have their lives destroyed by drugs (which includes alcohol). They cannot control it, they will take any drug they come in contact with -- whether it is pot, coke, Meth, or whiskey, they'll use it. The only thing that can help these people is to realize it is destroying their life which sometimes can be done during drug treatment programs. In general, these people will end up in prison or prematurely dead. Among them are young girls who have been sexually abused as kids. Young boys who had the wrong influences as children. Young kids of both genders who suffered from undiagnosed problems like ADHD and undiagnosed ASD. And often due to a genetic predisposition. I talked to a woman not long ago whose son was in this category for ten years. He finally seems to have worked his way out of it. She put it very clearly: "If I were on my death bed and they offered me those ten years back, I wouldn't take them." That is a parent who has been through drug addiction with her kid. It is not "bad behavior". It is cancer, it is major illness, it is tragic and it damned well shouldn't be a legal problem. It is a medical problem. The third kind of drug abuser is the same as first mentioned -- ones who will move on with their lives -- EXCEPT they got caught up in the legal system and the legal system, NOT the drugs, destroyed their lives. We hear it is mostly blacks but it happens to whites, too. A kid who, as an 18 year old, decided to pick up a few bucks by selling a little pot and ended up doing jail time which set his course (that could have been me except for a total stroke of luck). There are plenty of examples. Now, you tell me (a) can you identify another subgroup I've missed, and (b) which of these groups is helped by making drugs illegal?