Rant About Drugs

A friend recently told me about this website that had all sorts of information on drugs, including personal stories about doing drugs or how they had seen others react to drugs. If you haven’t been here already, I highly suggest you check out erowid.org if you have the chance. I’ve been reading different stories all day.

Start rant: I have never, nor will I ever, promote drug use or abuse. My ex-boyfriend and I broke up mainly because of alcohol and drugs. I’ve seen them ruin far too many lives. I only mention this because the website I said to check out has a large number of personal stories involving drug use in a positive way. Many stories even end with people suggesting doing the drug or saying that they would do it again. I know I have already stated that I do on occasion smoke marijuana, and I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite about drug use, so I will explain my reasoning as to why I think that it is okay for me to occasionally smoke marijuana but I do not think it is okay to do other drugs that are illegal.

I have a method to my madness, I promise. I have anxiety and depression. I hated the prescription drugs that my doctor gave me for it. They made me a zombie, rather than just calm me down. So my friend suggested marijuana and I smoked a little of it, and wow… I felt normal. Because my level of anxiety is so high the marijuana doesn’t do much other than take away that intense feeling of fear of everything. I was simply me but without the nervousness. And maybe a little bit hungrier (haha). I do not feel like I need to smoke marijuana. I do not do it excessively. I do not waste my money away on it. It does not change who I am as a person and it doesn’t make me do anything I wouldn’t do sober. I’m always safe about it, and I never push it on others to try it. It does not affect anyone around me. My roommate can’t tell the difference between me when I’m “high” and when I’m “sober.” And she lives with me so I think she knows me pretty well. There are other drugs out there that change you. They make you do things you would have never done if you weren’t on drugs. Everyone is different so the effect of drugs will be slightly different for everyone. But so far, from what I’ve witnessed first hand and what I have read about cocaine, I don’t think that anyone should ever try it. My father did cocaine and man was that terrifying to live with. And from the stories I’ve read it seems like most people act the same way my father did. Basically what it comes down to is one big reason: other drugs change who you are. They change the way you live your life, they change the people you associate yourself with, it changes your whole life. You lose people. You become a monster in some cases. They’re dangerous and addictive, as well as deadly. Trying marijuana once won’t get you hooked, but that isn’t how it is with other drugs. Other drugs are so addictive that once you do it once, your body has a slight need to do it again. And end rant.

Alcoholics Anonymous

My father is an alcoholic; he’s been sober for over twenty-five years, but despite this he is still an alcoholic. Thankfully, he is a recovering one and I pray he stays that way. Despite the fact that he has been sober for so many years, he still goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice, sometimes three, four times a week. Because after all this time, he still struggles with his addiction.

Thursday nights he goes to the local meeting in our hometown. He gets there twenty minutes early to make the coffee and brings a package of Oreos for everyone to share.  My dad helps out on Thursday nights by doing this, but mostly Thursday nights are for him and the support he gives and receives from other people in the group. My dad also goes to meetings he calls “Commitments” in other towns in Massachusetts to share his recovery story. I can’t even begin to explain how good these meeting are for my father. Contributing to these meetings gives him a sense of purpose first of all, but they also have created an amazing support system for him. By attending these weekly meetings he was not only set up with a sponsor, but also was able to become part of a community that understood him and related with him. And now, my father also sponsors other people in the community to help them as well. These meetings give my father hope, strength, confidence and a second family. I believe the reason my father has stayed sober all these years is because of these AA meetings.

            Some people see AA as a cult, or as an authoritarian structure that is obsessed with following the Twelve Step Program and with religion, but I see it as a comfortable environment where members of a community can come together and help each other through tough times. I have attending open meetings with my father, to see what they were like, and I never once felt like I was being pressured into becoming part of a “cult”. While the twelve steps were an important part of the meetings I attended, they were more like guidelines than authoritarian rule and were modified by each individual based on their personal beliefs. I found these meetings to be very inspirational and I felt welcomed and comfortable at each one that I attended and left feeling confident that I was not alone. 

            While Alcoholics Anonymous meetings may not be right for everyone, because of the way I have seen them help and support my father and his friends, I believe that they are a great way to help those that are struggling with alcohol and drug abuse and they don’t deserve all of the hate that they are given by folks who have never given them a try.

Treating drug addiction with more addictive drugs seems like a logical solution.

The drug combines buprenorphine, an opioid, and naloxone, which counters the effects of an overdose. It’s known as Suboxone.

This OPIOD imbued medication is being used to treat those addicted to other OPIOIDS such as heroin, Vicodin, OxyContin, and hydrocodone.

Over three million Americans with opioid dependence have been treated with Suboxone. Last year about 9 million prescriptions for Suboxone were filled by those who potentially weren't aware they were treating their opioid addiction with another opioid. But many addicts have learned they can use the medication to actually maintain their addiction. Suboxone won’t get them “high” but it will help them smooth out withdrawal symptoms between highs.

Everyone knows the worst thing about drug addiction is withdrawal, right? Well, Suboxone controls the withdrawals so now everyone is free to shoot up as much heroin as they want and not feel any painful, uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms! It’s about time they came out with something to ease the rough period of time between highs. (Sarcasm.)

Of course Suboxone is great in theory when used for its intended purpose, but if all drugs were used for their intended purposes, we wouldn’t have Vicodin and Perc addicts in the first place. Suboxone is basically a maintenance drug. If your dope dealer isn’t around just take some Suboxone to get you through. (More sarcasm.)

Suboxone was first available in a pill, and users were crushing and snorting it and were successfully achieving a high. But, after Suboxone tablets were taken off the U.S. market last year, Suboxone only comes in individually wrapped film strips. Kenny Stearns III, who first took Suboxone to help him kick OxyContin after an overdose, liked to dissolve Suboxone strips in water and shoot the mixture into his veins. Drug addicts are so creative.

Maybe treating drug addiction with other addictive drugs isn’t such a good idea after all. Sigh.

A Cautionary Story

This is not meant to preach, this is not meant to ruin your day, this is meant to tell my story of how the world of drugs and their misuse can spiral out of control and ruin individual's lives and their friends and loved ones. 

On June 1st 2014  I lost one of the greatest people in my life to heroin addiction, a tragic story of a boy that had so much potential and love in his heart, and he has been taken from me and and his family at too young of an age. We saw his struggle first-hand, and we saw how substance abuse can become just that. Life can be cruel and unfair, and it is a blessing we all have the privilege to be a part of it.

He used drugs as an escape rather than a recreational activity. People begin to think they are invincible and the stories they hear won't happen to them, and only when it does do they realise that they should've listened and learned whilst they had the strength to do so. I lost a close friend I considered a brother, and his mother lost her son, and the world lost a beautiful human being.

Always take precaution at any substance that life offers you. Any drug can be used to experience in a different, fantastic light, but in the same respect it can be too easy to see it as a necessity for happiness. Love sober life and what it offers you, before it leaves you in the dark and you are no longer a part of it.

I leave you with words a stranger at his funeral once told me that has helped me through these tough times.

"Drugs should never be used to escape a world that you hate,

But instead to enhance your experience in the world that you already enjoy,

For in darkness they will make sobriety seem worse than living,

And in light they shall open your eyes to everything that life has to offer."

Cigarettes vs Weed

Many people seem to think and say that marijuana is bad for you and should be illegal.  They argue that it’s bad for a person’s lungs, it’s addictive, and it has a terrible smell to it. Yes, these people seem to think they know what they’re talking about and what’s best, but how about cigarettes?  I almost never hear people who complain about pot ever say a word about cigarettes. Cigarettes are the leading cause of lung cancer, highly addictive due to added nicotine, and produce a terrible smell of their own but continue to be legal and no one bats an eye at that.  My point here isn’t that cigarettes should be illegal, but more that these two products are very similar except that one is legal and one is not.  But which one is truly worse for you?

According to the CDC at cdc.gov, smoking has been known to cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, and diabetes.  Tobacco use causes around 5,000,000 deaths per year worldwide and at the rate it’s going, it will rise to an annual 8,000,000 by the year 2030.  I will say that selling cigarettes is good for the economy because it brings in so much money, but it also costs the country a lot of money.  More than $289 billion a year is spent in direct medical care to treat people who suffer from the effects of smoking cigarettes.  To me, it is ridiculous that everyone seems to be fine with this being legal.  I feel like it’s because cigarettes have been around long enough for people to just think it’s normal.  The truth is, if these are legal when they have been directly proven to kill people, then there should be no reason why marijuana is illegal.

Let’s look at the facts about marijuana.  We can start off by saying that there is no direct proof that marijuana itself has ever killed somebody.  In my opinion, that should be enough to legalize it right there!  I mean, if cigarettes are proven to directly kill millions of people each year and weed doesn’t, why are cigarettes legal and not marijuana?  Think about how much money people spend on cigarettes.  If marijuana was legal, it would greatly boost our economy and bring in an estimated 8.7 Billion dollar revenue each year, according to factslides.com.

Marijuana is safer than cigarettes and much less addictive.  Although it is possible to manipulate it, most marijuana smoked is natural and organic.  Cigarettes use tar and nicotine and other chemicals added to the tobacco.  I will smoke weed any day before smoking a cigarette if given a choice between only having one or the other.  So which substance is truly better? You decide.

Alcohol Versus Marijuana

About 88,000 deaths per year, between 2006 and 2010, were caused by excessive alcohol consumption. Can you guess how many deaths are due to smoking marijuana? Let me give you a hint, that answer is right around zero deaths per year. This is just my first piece of evidence to support my opinion. My opinion is that it doesn’t make any sense that alcohol is legal while marijuana isn’t.

I’ve seen first hand what alcohol can do to someone. I’ve seen what alcoholism can be like. And it is not pretty. Growing up in a household with an alcoholic parent is not an enjoyable time. Holidays, birthday, special occasions… they’re all ruined. When I think back to my childhood it is very difficult to remember an enjoyable memory. It’s difficult to remember any moment of happiness. They’re all clouded by the horrors that were my alcoholic father. I remember, as I got older, I learned the steps, or phases rather, of my father’s drunkenness. First he would all silly, laughing at everything and telling everyone that he loved them and how happy he was that were there with him. Next came his rants on politics and government, and how he hated certain groups of people. After that he would fall silent. His eyes would start to shut, he would start to sway back and fourth, and you would think that he was about to just pass out. Don’t worry; he wasn’t about to pass out. No, he was just getting started. It was only a matter of time before he came back to life, so it seemed, and just be in a drunken rage. The yelling, the pushing, the fear… That is what the last phase was before he actually passed out. This is when I quickly learned that it wasn’t a choice to fight, flight was the only option I had. Of course at the beginning I was naïve. I thought I could change him. I thought I could talk him out of his rage. The black eyes and bruised ribs I was left with proved otherwise.

You see my father wasn’t that way when he was sober, on those rare occasions that I actually saw him sober. If alcoholism wasn’t part of my life, I think I would have happy memories of Christmas and birthdays. I saw glimpses of this as I got older, but it was already too late. My father had already let the demon take over.

College campuses have a problem with students consuming too much alcohol. Too many times we hear about someone getting raped at a party by a drunken man or woman. Too many times are women taken advantage of because they are drunk and don’t have good judgment. Too many times we hear about men or women getting abused while their significant other was intoxicated.

Now when I think about anyone that I have ever been around that has smoked marijuana, I can’t think of anything bad. They may steal an extra cookie from me, laugh too much, be generally happy, or even just generally quiet. But I have never had anyone hit me because the marijuana changed who he or she were and made him or her violent. Marijuana never let that demon out.

I’m not trying to say that marijuana is a miracle drug that has no bad side effects and doesn’t indirectly cause harm to others, I’m just saying that it blows my mind that alcohol is legal over marijuana. It is weird to me that something that could be equally as bad, if not better, than the other makes one legal and one illegal. Both can have negative side effects on the human body but it seems to me that the risk is much greater when it comes to consuming alcohol.

Justice 4 Alex Hill

On the night of July 29, 2013, Joshua Hill received an urgent phone call with news that his 2-year-old daughter, Alexandria "Alex" Hill, was beaten into a coma by her 52-year-old foster mother Sherill Small. 

The little girl died from her injuries.
She was murdered by her foster mother. 

Sherill Small told police that she had accidentally slammed the child into the floor, but later admitted that she was frustrated that the TWO-YEAR-OLD woke up so early. Is this lady alright? Who claims to have accidentally slammed a child into the floor?

Why was Alex in foster care to begin with? 
In Texas, using cannabis goes against child welfare policy so Alex Hill was confiscated from her loving home with parents Joshua Hill and Mary Sweeny because they smoked marijuana. Mr. Hill admitted to smoking after his daughter was in bed, and Ms. Sweeny used marijuana to keep her frequent seizures at bay. There were no signs Alex was abused by her parents. She was a perfectly healthy and happy little girl who was adored by her parents. 

But apparently she was in danger so she was placed into a home with a crack addict and a psychopath. Where she would be safe. 
Sherill Small's husband, who lived in the home, was a "recovering" crack cocaine addict with multiple drug charges. 
I understand that Mr. Hill violated the child welfare policy laws, but who is the one judging the safety of these homes? Because it seems to me like they're high on something.
When Alex was first taken from the home and put into foster care, Mr. Hill found bruises on his daughter and mold in the home and demanded that she be placed in a new home. That's when Alex was placed in the care of Sherill Small.

Small was approved as a foster care provider by Texas Mentor, a third party private agency who provides foster homes to the Texas Child Protective Services. Texas Mentor has racked up 129 violations, but was Joshua Hill informed of this? Nope, not until he was sitting in the courtroom listening to the testimony of his daughter's murder.

Joshua Hill was only four months away from getting his daughter back in his custody when she was killed.

In summary, Alex Hill was in extreme danger under the loving care of her parents who smoked a little weed while she was sleeping. So, she was placed in the safe care of Sherill Small who killed her because she woke up.

Does being stoned make you a "stoner"?

People who smoke weed, pot, marijuana, Mary Jane, or whatever you choose to call it, are thought of in a very negative way and for reasons that don’t seem to make very much sense.   The media portrays everyone who smokes weed as a “stoner” and showcases them in a comically negative way.  Just because somebody smokes weed doesn’t make them a stoner or a loser.  Television and movies make it seem like people who smoke weed are lazy, stupid, trouble makers, and addicts.  I’m sure this may be true in some very rare cases, but for the majority of people who smoke weed, it’s actually not that big of a deal.  So is there a difference between what the typical marijuana smoker is portrayed to be and what he or she actually is? Yes, a big difference.

                Many people around the world have at least tried marijuana and it hasn’t sent the world into any sort of chaos yet. In fact, according to drugfreeworld.org, (http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/international-statistics.html  ) the United Nation reports that 158.8 million people worldwide use and smoke weed, that’s 3.8% of Earth’s entire population.  Out of that staggering 158.8 million, 94 million are from the US alone.  Now let’s think, that’s a HUGE number, but do we see people acting like people in movies who smoke weed?  Not really.  The truth and reality of the situation is that people who smoke weed, even consistently, just laugh a little more and snack a little more.  It doesn’t make them necessarily unproductive and stupid, in my own personal use, I can get more done because I find it helps me hyper focus and think creatively.  Some of the smartest people I know smoke weed and have gotten accepted to great colleges like Penn State, Quinnipiac University, Boston College, and Yale University, where even though continuing marijuana use, obtain Dean’s List averages consistently.  I know there are commenters out there saying “well that’s just your own personal life and it doesn’t prove anything”. Well, according to the Huffington Post, very iconic, influential, and successful people like Madonna, Sarah Palin, Maya Angelou, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and yes, even your dear and beloved commander in chief, Barack Obama have all admitted to smoking pot and look where they are now.  So the next time you want to believe the idea of the stereotypical “stoner” do some research or try it for yourself before drawing conclusions.

Losing a War Against an Inanimate Object = Priceless

            Recently new polls have come out that the public sees the “War on Drugs” as a failure.  It's because it was never a war on drugs. This is a war on people who use and are involved with drugs. Maybe if the government helped these people instead of sending them to jail or probation for unreasonable amounts of time, there would be fewer addicts. We have thousands of years of experimenting with Marijuana  to look back on to see it's nowhere close as harmful as the stuff we allow adults to consume in nearly unlimited quantities, like alcohol and tobacco.

Our current approach to drug policy obviously isn't working and instead of realizing we're failing and changing our response, we're nonstop beating our head against the wall. People have used drugs for basically all of human history, they won't be stopping anytime soon just because the government says so.

We inflict so much destruction, hardship, and suffering on good people's lives and can justify it by a single joint. It's disgusting. Nobody would advocate sending you through the courts for having a cigarette or even enough alcohol to kill yourself ten times over. I could go buy two gallons of vodka and drink until I passed out from alcohol poisoning. And that's perfectly legal. But a few grams of weed could have me dragged through the courts for months/years, and possibly even have me sent to jail and cost me thousands of dollars.

The war against drugs, which actually is a war against civil rights, don't ever be fooled again. If they cared about us they'd get rid of the number one drug which is cigarettes; kills more people than crack, coke, and heroin combined, times 100. Legal. I’ll buy into drugs being illegal because they're bad for us when they make cigarettes illegal, and that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.

War on Drugs is a Failure.

I loved when Bush came out and said, "We are losing the war against drugs." You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it.  Remember how the Reagan/Bush axis of racism flourished by synonymizing drugs and their use with violent black crime. Sickening to consider and we are still swimming upstream against that kind of thinking. Science and compassion are not looking like they will fare well in the next set of elections.

What I hate about the war on drugs. All day long we see those commercials: "Here's your brain, here's your brain on drugs", "Just Say No", "Why do you think they call it dope?”

And then the next commercial is [singing] "This Bud's for youuu." C'mon, everybody, let's be hypocritical bastards. It's okay to drink your drug. We meant those other drugs. Those untaxed drugs. Those are the ones that are bad for you. The war on drugs is a ridiculous waste of resources and does not help society at all.

The war on drugs has been a phenomenal success for those "fighting" it - the drug lords, the shadow governments, and the criminal "justice" system. For everyone else it's a catastrophic failure beyond words. Don't forget how rich it makes the pharmaceutical companies. Legalizing would increase supply massively, killing their huge profit margins, and their monopoly. Less money for big pharma = less lobbyists, and less money for gov. Too many people are getting rich from keeping drugs illegal. This is the reason they haven't, and still won't be legal for a long time.

Rule of thumb: Don't call it a "war on" if you can't put "peace with" in instead and make a meaningful sentence.

Marijuana is helpful for the economy, as well as on a much smaller level

Not only would legalizing marijuana be helpful for our economy, but it would also be helpful for people who use marijuana for certain mental disorders and physical injuries. I used to be on Xanax, an anti-anxiety and anti-depression medication.  Xanax made me emotionless and I hated being on it. When I tried smoking marijuana I found that I was less stressed, and my depression wasn’t nearly as bad, all without taking away my sense of emotion completely. I was still able to laugh and socialize without being a zombie, and without being too anxious to do so. I have also had cancer, nothing too extreme, but let me tell you it was not fun. Currently my doctors think that I may have cancer again, which would mean a more extensive treatment than before. Instead of putting me on extremely addictive pain pills the first time I had cancer, I would smoke marijuana in order to help with the pain. I think this is a much safer way to handle this. Of course this is not the ideal situation for everyone. Just like every pain pill or anti-depressant, marijuana won’t work for everyone. It would just be another way to help people who have certain mental illnesses and physical injuries.

For example, I found one study that resulted in marijuana being helpful for patients suffering with eating disorders, such as anorexia. Because marijuana can increase your appetite, it can increase weight gain and help the patient feel more relaxed when eating. Of course, there are concerns with patients becoming dependent on marijuana, but isn’t that the risk with every other prescription drug out there? Are there really any prescribed drugs that people aren’t worried about patients getting addicted to? If anything, I believe that marijuana is one of the least addictive drugs out there. This is why I believe it would be extremely helpful, and less harmful, as a prescription drug compared to other drugs that can be prescribed currently.