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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jack Clarke who wrote (14336)	4/21/1998 10:49:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20981

Jack, I can understand feeling very conflicted about wanting drugs decriminalized. I think everyone fears the worst--that once they are legal more people will take them. But really, except for brief periods like the late sixties and early seventies when drug experimentation was a political statement of sorts, probably at least partially because they were illegal, as Janice has pointed out, it seems like the drug-taking portion of the population has stayed fairly stable in size. As a physician, I am sure you are probably aware that drug and alcohol abuse are a constant in a very small percentage of the population, and most of that population is self-medicating, in a way, for a host of psychological and physiological conditions, some of which we don't fully understand yet. That was a very garbled sentence, sorry, but what I meant is that pain-killing behavior of some sort seems to be at the root of drug and alcohol addiction. Not many people know that early America was rife with alcohol--it was common to drink for breakfast, and then all day as well. Cocaine addiction was prevalent in the last century, in all the social classes. I am wondering now that I am writing this if there might even be a connection between adventurous risk takers--the gene pool that produced America--and a higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse. In any event, I think it would be smart to regulate drugs the way England did heroin--legal for addicts, once you have gone to the doctor and have been determined to be one. All the decriminalized drugs are administered, as I understand it, by pharmacies. I am curious about the drug policies in the rest of Europe--I know some countries in Northern Europe are wrestling with this issue. My goal is to make sure treatment is available for everyone, and while it is if you are affluent or have good medical insurance, there is very little available for the disadvantaged, with very long waiting lists. I also think if we removed the profit motive and the attendant glamour, kids growing up in inner city ghettos would not have to shoot each other in turf wars, and their younger brothers and sisters would not grow up thinking drugs and drug dealing are 'cool'.