RSSAnother Try: DRUGS
Aug 16
A few people have called me out on my marijuana blog. They think I’m hiding behind extreme examples. A friend dying of cancer in horrible pain, while a true story, has very little to do with the day-to-day problem of drugs. My critics are correct. I censored myself. I was worried that airing my opinions would jeopardize my future as a teacher. Since, however, several of the critics who called me out were former students of mine, I am going to trust that my teaching speaks for itself. I will put it on the line. I think all drugs should be legal.
Some should require prescriptions, yes. Some people will abuse this, yes, but look around folks: people are abusing them anyway. In fact, someone somewhere is abusing just about anything you can think of. Addiction has become the prevailing metaphor of our lives. I hear about a new addiction every day. I hear about internet addiction, food addiction, and sex addiction. People are shopaholics, they get addicted to celebrity’s lives. They get addicted to exercise and competition. Some people even get addicted to pain.
What can we do? Should we criminalize everything that is possibly addictive? Should we each sit alone in a stark white room and not be stimulated at all, because anything that feels good will become an addiction. Love for another human being is, bio-chemically, a form of addiction, isn’t it?
The point is, we are all addicts of some sort. If I don’t have coffee by noon my head feels like it’s splitting open: withdrawal. When I go on a diet, the first two days of reduced calories are irritable and physically unpleasant: withdrawal. Chris Hedges even talks about his addiction to danger. As a war correspondent, he fell into dark depressions when he was not living in a war zone. He would wake up in cold sweats and pace the floors for hours, anxious and aching for the sounds of war: major withdrawal.[1] A friend has even claimed to be addicted to my Twitter (and I love you for it). When someone I love leaves me, I get sick for weeks: is heartbreak a withdrawal, too?
So if everything is addictive, why are we singling out drugs? Because they are so dangerous? Because they destroy lives and minds and bodies. All of this is absolutely true, Big Brother. You and I do not disagree on the existence of the problem, but we part ways when it comes to your solution. Follow my logic. Facts: Everyone is addictive in nature. We get hooked on almost anything if we overdo it. Unfortunately, some of us are way more addictive than others, and some people, for whatever reason, are only addicted to a certain stimulus. They live pristine lives, have perfect diets, run and do yoga. They take excellent care of their bodies, yet poison it with drinking. I’ve known these people. They aren’t stupid or sinful. They don’t choose this. This is what they are. This is their handicap. The most extreme sufferers are addicted, period. This is my friend quit drinking every day by smoking pot every day, or my other friend who doubled her food intake in the absence of cigarettes. The truly sick among this upper tier of addicts are what we call junkies—a horrible slur for a mortally ill human being.
It’s time to grow up, America. Addicts are no more the victim of character flaws than are people with Diabetes or Down’s Syndrome. They are no more to blame for their condition than a Schizophrenic or a Depressive. They were born this way. They are mentally ill. Our society is imprisoning people for being born with a treatable mental illness. They are putting mentally ill people in prison, instead of building hospitals to treat them. Our government is shipping our mentally ill family members off to concentration camps because they don’t want to deal with them. Are we ok with that?
[1] Find some of Chris Hedges’ work at http://www.truthdig.com/
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P.S. The greatest people who ever lived had a lot of help. - http://www.projectknow.com/drug-addiction.html
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