cannabisnews.com: Seeing Criminal Addicts Through Middle-Class Eyes


cannabisnews.com: Seeing Criminal Addicts Through Middle-Class Eyes





Seeing Criminal Addicts Through Middle-Class Eyes
Posted by FoM on August 10, 2000 at 10:37:59 PT
By Jim Gogek and Ed Gogek 
Source: San Diego Union Tribune 
Some baby-boomers remember smoking dope and going to rock concerts back in college. Or they might have done a little cocaine once in awhile on a Saturday night, then went out out drinking and had a wild time.Was it really that bad? Some may still have a bag hidden in their closet, and smoke a joint on weekends. They still hold a job, have a family. . . . Is it a federal crime? It never seemed to hurt anybody.
When they read that nearly one-third of prison inmates are incarcerated for drug crimes, they're incensed. Those poor people should be set free, they say, and given some drug treatment. Why fill our prisons with people whose only crime is doing drugs?Such thinking embraces a faulty and dangerous assumption, one that lies beneath the rationale for decriminalizing illegal drugs, including the effort on the California ballot this fall called Proposition 36. Proponents don't see the downside of decriminalization because they look at their own middle-class lives and their own experience with drugs, and assume people in prison are just like them.They think the person in prison for drugs is someone, maybe much like themselves, who was just walking down the street one day with a bag in his pocket, got arrested and ended up in prison. That's simply not reality. Casual drug use bears almost no resemblance to criminal drug addiction.First of all, criminal addicts are severely addicted, not occasional users.Ernest Jarman, a prison psychologist, is assistant director for substance abuse programs for the California Department of Corrections. He works with the people in prison on drug charges, the ones drug decriminalization proponents believe should be set free."I've done research for the department for almost 10 years, and I don't come in contact with the casual drug user or the weekend drug user," Jarman said. "From my corrections experience, I don't know what that is . . . We deal in severity here."Claude Meitzenheimer, who runs a treatment program at the Corcoran state prison, says the inmates he treats are society's heaviest drug abusers, round-the-clock junkies and tweakers whose drug use is so all-consuming it makes holding a job, being a parent or living a normal life utterly impossible.Comparing the criminal addict to the casual user is like comparing the hardcore homeless alcoholic passed out on the sidewalk to someone who has a glass of wine with dinner. The middle-class casual drug experience might be smoking a joint before a Bruce Springsteen concert, then going back to work on Monday. The criminal addict drug experience is snorting crystal meth every day for three weeks, smoking pot and drinking a gallon of cheap wine each day to take the edge off, and in the meantime robbing a gas station, driving while extremely intoxicated and beating up his girlfriend. Eventually, the criminal addict gets arrested for one of these crimes, and drugs are found on him. When he goes before the judge, he often cops a plea down to the drug charge.And that highlights another fact legalization proponents miss. Criminal addicts lead criminal lives. These are not people who just commit drug crimes; they also commit the majority of non-drug crimes.While approximately one-third of state prison inmates are in for drug crimes, research shows that about 80 percent of all inmates have substance abuse problems. Addiction causes most crime, and that's all crime, not just drug crime. For example, most murders are committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The inmates locked up for violent crimes or property crimes are no different from those in for drug crimes. They're the same people with the same problems, they just happened to get caught for different things. Many convicts in for drug crimes were arrested for other crimes but then pleaded down to the drug crime."These are people with big histories of criminal behavior," Meitzenheimer said.Middle-class drug dabblers can't even imagine the world that criminal addicts inhabit. Most criminal addicts didn't grow up in anything resembling a normal home.Jarman: "Many people think that people in prison were raised in a middle-class environment, perhaps like we were. That is not the norm when you go to prison. You find prison is a generational phenomenon in some families. It's not uncommon to find several family members in prison. It's not uncommon to find a father and son team or a mother and daughter team in prison, even on the same prison yard."The criminal addict's life is so addled by addiction, both his own addiction and that of his family, that he never learned anything but a criminal lifestyle.Jarman: "We might call somebody like that undersocialized: They never reached a level of adult functionality where they could survive on their own and where they could be productive. You have to teach these people basic living skills. You don't rehabilitate them, you habilitate them."Again, we're not talking about middle-class populations. We could be talking about a child who grew up in a crack house, who grew up with parents who were criminals, selling drugs, and it simply became very normal behavior for him."A study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University bears this out. Forty-two percent of drug users behind bars have family members who have also been in prison. Nearly 70 percent had friends who were also criminals. How many suburban baby-boomers can say the same?The solution to the large numbers of drug addicts in prison is not to let these people go back to their addictions and criminal lives. Criminal addicts need extensive, long-term treatment to become happy, productive and law-abiding. But they rarely seek treatment by themselves, and don't want it when it's offered.Almost everyone knows that denial is a symptom of addiction; prisons are full of addicts who deny they have a problem. If we set them free first and then offer treatment, most will refuse it. But by keeping our drug laws strict, providing enough drug treatment in prison and for parolees and probationers, we can coerce criminal addicts into finally getting the help they need.Jim Gogek is a San Diego Union-Tribune editorial writer. Ed Gogek is an Arizona psychiatrist. Pubdate: Thu, 10 Aug 2000Contact: letters uniontrib.comAddress: PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191Fax: (619) 293-1440Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebXCopyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.Related Articles & Web Site:California Campaign For New Drug Policyhttp://www.drugreform.org/California Rethinks Drug War Strategyhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6303.shtmlRespondents Like Proposal of Drug Treatment http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6236.shtmlCannabisNews Search - Proposition 36http://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=Proposition+36
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Comment #14 posted by dddd on August 11, 2000 at 02:03:26 PT
OUTSTANDING!!
all I can say,is thank you to everyone for the dazzling array of comments.
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Comment #13 posted by Dan B on August 10, 2000 at 22:18:02 PT:
My Two Cents, Too.
Observer, you couldn't be more right. Our entire society has bought into the whole addiction/denial thing to such a degree that many don't realize they do, in fact, have control over their own lives. I strongly believe that most people who call themselves addicts are really duped into believing themselves such. Here is a snippet from my life story, to illustrate my point:  When I was 17, I decided that to be cool, I had to do the things the cool kids did. I started smoking tobacco (occasionally), drinking alcohol (occasionally), and (extremely occasionally) smoking weed with my friends (it was hard to come by, at least for me). And I thought I was pretty cool. In fact, I was convinced of my coolness to such a degree that when I left home for the Army, I accelerated these activities (primarily the drinking and smoking of tobacco, as marijuana use was, of course, illegal and urine tests were, of course, random and mandatory). I began to drink more heavily (daily) and started smoking 2 to 3 packs of cigarettes every day. In short, my life centered around drinking and smoking.  When I decided to quit drinking and smoking (this was about two years later), I was convinced that I had no control over my habits, and that a higher power was necessary to my "recovery." As it happened, I had some very good spiritual experiences during this time, and I am glad (frankly) that I had them. I quit both alcohol and cigarettes cold turkey. For eleven years. And I was convinced that if I ever had another drink, I would sink into an oblivion of alcohol abuse, and that to believe otherwise would mean that I was in--you guessed it--"denial."  But then, one day, I began to understand that I do have control over my actions, and that I do not have to believe that anything has total control of me. Oh, I still believe in God, but not a God who sits in Heaven like an ogre waiting to strike down people for choosing to get high once in a while. I realized that I can smoke marijuana one day and not smoke it the next, and I wouldn't become addicted as long as I remained in control of my own decisions. I could choose to drink, or I could choose to not drink, and I could decide how much I wanted to drink at any given time and stick to it. I have applied the same principle to marijuana use (some time ago) with success. I haven't had any for quite some time now because I want to be more active in fighting the drug war, and I'd frankly rather not take the chance of losing my right to speak out and vote. And I've made a pact with myself that I won't smoke marijuana again until it is legal. Quite a motivator.  So, what am I saying here? No, I'm not saying that everyone should follow my example. That would mean letting me take control of your decisions, and frankly, I don't want the responsibility. But I am saying that I quit smoking tobacco--by most accounts at least as addictive as heroin--without any treatment, cold turkey. And I quit drinking alcohol at the same time. These were my habits, and I chose to quit. And anyone else can choose to if he or she wants to. Or not. It's up to the individual. But NOBODY should be forced to quit. And as far as I can tell from my own experience, marijuana should be the least of the worries in this country.   Others have different habits, and none of them deserve prison time unless they infringe on the rights of others (in other words, those who have a habit of killing people should be locked up, but those who have habits that involve using substances should not). And nobody is served by the notion that one cannot control one's own actions. If one wants to use a drug, one can make that choice. If one wants to stop using a drug, one can also make that choice. Yes, it is difficult for some to make a choice to quit using heroin, for example, but if one wants to quit using, one should be able to find a treatment facility that is more concerned with helping a person detox than it is with locking people away from the rest of society. All it takes is a choice and a commitment.  The reason why people feel trapped by their habits is because society keeps telling them that they can't control themselves. This kind of a mentality is the real crutch this country needs to leave behind. This is the real insanity that people like Martin Sheen buy into.  Let drug users use drugs. Let drinkers drink, and let smokers smoke. The only people who deserve to be locked up are those who harm people. Lock up the murderers and rapists; lock up the people who take or destroy other people's stuff; lock up the oppressors who lock up drug users and say it's for their own good.   But in America, we should halt the drug war, making freedom to make our own decisions the rule, not the exception. That was what the founders intended.
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Comment #12 posted by shishaldin on August 10, 2000 at 21:49:07 PT
For observer, Thomas Szasz, and David Wagner...
>>>>First, they deny that the affected minority is seriously mistreated, and defend the "mild" repression they acknowledge by stressing the need for social protection from malefactors. Second, they proudly proclaim their aim to destroy the accused minority, and justify it on the grounds of self-defense against a diabolically dangerous and vastly powerful adversary bent on undermining the fabric of existing society. . .Sure sounds like the docs need a lot of justifications for their actions, just like those in, well, denial. Sounds kinda textbook to me. Head shrinkers like "Doctor" Gogek should be the ones on the cell floor..er, couch. As an American citizen, I feel that we SHOULD "coerce criminal addicts into finally getting the help they need". So-called Doctors such as Gogek apparently have a criminal addiction to our tax dollars. They've become a menace to society, a scourge upon our great land. I believe it has come the time to declare the War...the War on Parasites (WOP)! Parasitical elites, who would seek to divide and conquer us, such as those Szasz desribes: "Like earlier processes of stigmatization and the discriminatory legislation based upon them -- such as those authorizing the persecution of witches and Jews -- statutes discriminating against psychiatric minorities are not imposed on an unwilling public by a few scheming tyrants", should be tarred and feathered for their treachery, thievery, and outright rape of this land and it's people, all the while telling us, "It's all for YOUR own good". People such as these should be put on public display, Olde World English-style...in a stockade. Now, THAT would be for MY own good.Many thanks and big props to observer for providing me the powerful impetus to rant.....peaceout,Shishaldin
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Comment #11 posted by dddd on August 10, 2000 at 20:46:42 PT
the brothers
The Gogek brothers have done an excellent job in securing a beefy check from the buh-czar.
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Comment #10 posted by romper on August 10, 2000 at 19:30:33 PT
This seems like a 
good opportunity to talk a little sh5t. Now I agree that there are some people out there that need help with their drug problems but there are just as many that need help with their alcohol abuse but we don't throw them in prison for years on end ,destroy their lives and their families and compenscate all their belongings and sell them to make a little pocket change for the police department. Instead we give them some therapy and send them on their way to beat their wives and kids and possibly kill someone on the streets while driving drunk. If the occasional user is not considered to be an addict or dangerous to society then why are they so heavily prosecuted? People need to understand that pot is not the evil weed as our government would have them believe. People are scared of things that they do not understand and I believe pot is one of those things. I know from experience that pot does not have the addict power of cocain and crystal meth and other chemical substances. Cocain and other such substances were meant to be addictive to keep the user comming back again and again and again until the are so strung out they don't even realize that their live is slowly being destroyed. I have seen this time and time again. Same with alcohol, some people must drink a case of beer a day just to be able to deal with everyday life. Why? because they are an addict. Coinsodence? I think not. The alcohol producers and tobacco companies alike know that their product to is addictive and habit forming. Are they cosidered drug dealers? Why not? Just like everything eles in this world there are always going to a few bad apples but does that mean we all have to be treated as criminals? Why should the man next door who never bothers a soul be allowed to set down to dinner with a glass of wine if I the good hearted samaritan is not allowed to set back and enjoy an occasional joint after my dinner? What it boils down to is different strokes for different folks. I say to you Mr. Gogek if I'm not bothering you why should you bother me? Its time for the blind drug warriors to open up their eyes, put aside their blind ignorance and see that most of the damage being done is cuased is by lack of knowledge in our governmant and society alike. Pot is a natural substance put on this earth not created in some labratory. I'm not saying there are not abusers of this herb but there are alot of decent people who enjoy their smoke and don't abuse it. What about them? Who are or anybody else to deem these people addicts or crimials? Where did you or anybody else obtain this almighty knowledge that no one else has? I think it's high time that the people of this nation were told the truth and the government give the people back the freedom that we once had. We live only once who are you to decide how I or anyone else pursue their happiness???????????????   
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Comment #9 posted by observer on August 10, 2000 at 18:57:52 PT
Denial (1/2)
A few comments, not necessarily in order.Notice how this man likes to associate "criminal" and "addict". It is almost as if he hopes that by using the two words together enough, that the association will be strengthened in the reader's mind. He's playing off common prejudices and myths. Drugs users are dangerous people. They're criminals. They're addicts, those drug users.  Pure propaganda.The criminal addict drug experience is snorting crystal meth every day for three weeks, smoking pot and drinking a gallon of cheap wine each day to take the edge off, and in the meantime robbing a gas station . . .The officer questioned him about the gang�s crimes: �Remember that filling-station attendant you robbed . . .Marijuana, Assassin of Youth, 1937http://www.redhousebooks.com/galleries/assassin.htmAnd that highlights another fact legalization proponents miss. Criminal addicts lead criminal lives. These are not people who just commit drug crimes; they also commit the majority of non-drug crimes.And here's a fact that drug warriors intentionally omit, and want you to forget about too: people who are for legalization are for returning to traditional American freedom. The freedom to consume what you choose, a freedom that all Americans once shared. But Gogek's straw man is to assert that people who want these freedoms returned are somehow also for overlooking traditional crimes: property crimes and violent acts that have always been criminal. He wants you to confuse the two separate things, drug use and crime: violent crime, and other crimes that have always been illegal and immoral. Not so with using drugs. He gives you a scary story of a hell-bent "addict" who robes and kills and beats etc. This is supposed to justify coercion and forced treatment for responsible adults who use cannabis? Do you buy that? I don't. Casual drug use bears almost no resemblance to criminal drug addiction. First of all, criminal addicts are severely addicted, not occasional users.Any illegal (hence "criminal") drug use (including and especially marijuana) is considered fair game for the "treatment expert$", as Mr Gogek is well aware. It is considered "addiction". "Casual" marijuana use counts as "still involved with narcotics" when officially expedient, as Mr Gogek is also well aware. One test positive for cannabis is consdered official proof that you're a "drug addict" with a "substance abuse problem"; one such test is all it takes to revoke parole, add more years to a prison term and worse. I'd bet that Mr Gogek knows all of these facts, too.With rare exceptions, however, the professionals, media spokespersons, and social scientists who constitute a large part of the New Temperance movement, along with various other components of the movements for temperance (such as self-help groups), eschew moralism in order to adopt one of two views of judgmental dupe-ism. One popular view is the addiction/denial paradigm, which medicalizes the problem behavior. Recently, however, another view has been catching on as well as an explanation for "deviance": It relies on imputing to the mass media an all-powerful capacity to shape the behavior of its audience.Beginning with alcoholism, then spreading to other at least arguably "physical" dependencies such as drug and cigarette habits, the addiction paradigm has expanded to the point where Americans now speak of being "addicted" to sex, to food, to work, to love relationships, to television viewing, and to a host of other behaviors for which a physical dependence constitutes at best only a metaphor. Magazines and television shows have trumpeted the addiction metaphor since the late 1970s, acknowledging "America's addiction to addictions." The addiction/disease metaphor allows professionals and self-help movements to reduce the moral stigma of miscreants, but only at the cost of their admission that they are unable to control their own lives. The victims of addiction then must turn to a professional, a self-help group, and/or a "higher power" for assistance in providing this missing control. For example, drug users, contrary to some of the evidence presented previously, are said to be "enslaved" and irrational: "Drugs abridge the freedom of the individual by enslaving him in a habit which he may no longer control."110Yet, as noted, millions of people are not physically addicted to drugs; and of those who are, millions are able to control their habits and manage their lives. Furthermore, millions of people have quit smoking, cut back on drinking, lost weight, or gotten off drugs on their own, without the aid of professionals or treatment centers or self-help groups. Alcoholism expert Herbert Fingarette argues that the very success of people who quit on their own, and of groups like AA, actually disproves the disease/addiction paradigm. If a person were actually out of control of his life and his drinking, he would not be able to simply cease drinking at some point in time and accept the demands of treatment programs or self-help groups that he abstain henceforth. (Of course, this is not to say that stopping a drinking problem or other serious habit is an easy thing to do.)111Closely related to the addiction paradigm, and so popular that it might be called the American word of the late twentieth century, is the catch-all term denial. Although it is true that people with severe problems sometimes don't see them or admit to them, the idea that each substance user or overeater has no awareness of his or her actions or no control over them is probably a cultural fiction. Moreover, the broad term denial removes all power and attribution of rationality from the affected person or group of persons, and places true awareness and rationality only with higher-power actors, usually professionals. The use of the concept of denial as a subterfuge for the repression of young people, as well as a means of generating profits for the treatment industry, has become endemic in recent years. The New Temperance, 1997, David Wagner, pp.96-97http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813325692/Cannabisnews/ 
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Comment #8 posted by observer on August 10, 2000 at 18:56:54 PT
Denial (2/2)
Gogek goes on:Almost everyone knows that denial is a symptom of addiction; prisons are full of addicts who deny they have a problem. If we set them free first and then offer treatment, most will refuse it. But by keeping our drug laws strict, providing enough drug treatment in prison and for parolees and probationers, we can coerce criminal addicts into finally getting the help they need.Again, Mr Gogek ignores the fact that anyone caught with any amount of cannabis is considered both a "criminal", and an "addict" (yes, addict: the amount of use claimed is irrelevant). So much for Golek's weasel-worded "criminal addict" slogan/theme he stresses and repeats, for effect. As soon as the adult who uses cannabis utters the words, "I'm not an addict", the "treatment professional" just knows that adult is simply "in denial." Heads: The State wins; tails you lose. The State asserts you have a problem and need "help"; any refusal to agree that you have a problem is prima facie evidence of your problem. Case closed. As Stanton Peele notes, in 1985 CBS Evening News got a teenage girl (who had no drug problem) into a treatment center as a ruse to reveal the profit-generating nature of such facilities; "when she claimed she didn't have a drug problem, a counselor was heard saying that this is the response inmates always gie... [it was] denial."112Given that the young and poor in particular, but also most consumers, have low power relative to professionals and social institutions, how are we to judge what is an irrational "denial" of facts, and what is a realistic assessment within the context of a person's life? For example, it has become fashionable to speak of denial in reference to AIDS. Sara Nelson, echoing the phraseology of self-help books (i.e., referring to women "who love too much" and make foolish choices), worries that women are denying the reality of AIDS: "Whether you call it cognitive dissonance or denial, now, more than 10 years into the AIDS epidemic, it seems that smart women are making foolish choices when it comes to AIDS prevention."113What is interesting about this charge of "denial" is that the author elsewhere in the same article notes that most women accurately perceive little risk of getting the disease. Yet Nelson displays little self-consciousness; somehow she believes herself to be better able to gauge the risk of the disease than most women who are inextricably stuck in "denial." Yet, based on what we now know about the virus as well as on surveys concerning the perceived dangers of AIDS throughout the 1980s,114 the public at times seems to have more accurately gauged the disease than the experts. Indeed, the latter may have engaged in considerable misstatement about the disease.'115The New Temperance, 1997, David Wagner, pp.97-98http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813325692/Cannabisnews/ Read this little Gogek gem again:If we set them free first and then offer treatment, most will refuse it. But by keeping our drug laws strict, providing enough drug treatment in prison and for parolees and probationers, we can coerce criminal addicts into finally getting the help they need.Like earlier processes of stigmatization and the discriminatory legislation based upon them -- such as those authorizing the persecution of witches and Jews -- statutes discriminating against psychiatric minorities are not imposed on an unwilling public by a few scheming tyrants. On the contrary, the people and their leaders feel equally caught up in an "irresistible" historical and social demand for certain kinds of "protective" laws. In every one of these situations, the leading crusaders, and the masses, whom, by turns, they appease, deceive, and dominate, have the same two-pronged explanation for their actions. First, they deny that the affected minority is seriously mistreated, and defend the "mild" repression they acknowledge by stressing the need for social protection from malefactors. Second, they proudly proclaim their aim to destroy the accused minority, and justify it on the grounds of self-defense against a diabolically dangerous and vastly powerful adversary bent on undermining the fabric of existing society. . .As for the so-called addict, he is the target of a major "war on addiction," fought by powerful troops on many fronts. In New York State, a new antiaddiction law, enacted in 1967, authorizes the incarceration, for up to five years, not only of proven addicts, but also of persons "in imminent danger of becoming dependent upon narcotics."3 This far-reaching repression of the addict is again justified on the grounds that addicts are "physically and emotionally sick ... [and] must be treated as if they were the victims of a contagious and virulent disease."4There is a fundamental similarity between the persecution of individuals who engage in consenting homosexual activity in private, or who ingest, inject, or smoke various substances that affect their feelings and thoughts -- and the traditional persecution of men for their religion, as Jews, or for their skin-color, as Negroes. What all of these persecutions have in common is that the victims are harassed by the majority not because they engage in overtly aggressive or destructive acts, like theft or murder, but because their conduct or appearance offends a group intolerant to and threatened by human differences.Thomas Szasz, The Manufacture of Madness, 196, pp.208-209http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0815604610/Cannabisnews/ FYI: a few other Gogek goodies...Gogek, Jim, and Gogek, Ed. "Congress Shouldn't Point Fingers on Drug Abuse." The San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 October 1996. Jim Gogek and Ed Gogek, HMOs vs. psychotherapy. San Diego Union-Tribune, May 22, 1997, B-9. October 29, 1999COURSE 2: HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERSDirector: Edward B. Gogek, M.D.http://www.psych.org/sched_events/ips99/cme.html
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Comment #7 posted by MikeEEEEE on August 10, 2000 at 18:02:26 PT
Dieing Bread
The dogs bark and cry, they're ignorant and prejudice - that's worst crime known to humanity. When these dogs have power, they're the dogs of war, mean ugly dogs of the drug war. But my friends there's hope, they're a dieing bread and will be put in their place, these happy free moments of peace happen slowly, that how justice works.
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Comment #6 posted by Lehder on August 10, 2000 at 15:10:00 PT
pathetic ignorance
  I think it's about the third circle of Hell that Dante reserves for sowers of discord, and this slob will spend eternity there preaching that the brain is an egg. Really, destructive people like the Gogek twins need confinement, at least disenfranchisement, and should undergo mandatory treatment for ignorance.  You can find the link, but obnoxious federal forest rangers were recently driven from a small Nevada town when locals spurned and shunned them, denied them motel rooms, restaurant service and simple civilities. That is how I have begun treating people in my community who would be as obtusely stupid as these journalists. Yup, I'm sowing a little discord myself, because I think any way of polarizing the community and intensifying the animosity between sides in this war can only be for the good: make drug wars the first thought on everyone's mind every day. VietNam-styled, daily Television news scenes of body piles and crashing helicopters would help too, so I support Clinton's meddling in Colombia and will cheer my congressmen on with every escalation. At least those helicopters won't be looking through my walls to make sure I'm living right.  Whether the objects of people's hatred are Blacks, Mexicans, Jews, communists, hippies, draft dodgers or "drug addicts", the fundamental problem is always the same: bigoty grown of ignorance. As soon as one pogrom is halted, these sinners find someonelse to hate, and in a big way. I think, besides winning the current war, we need a more basic change of government and culture that precludes the rise of scum to the top.
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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on August 10, 2000 at 12:32:31 PT:
A pathetic attempt at class warfare
But, then, that's what the DrugWar has always been about, hasn't it?Notice the authors' attempt to segregate people:'Proponents don't see the downside of decriminalization because they look at their own *middle-class* (emphasis mine) lives and their own experience with drugs, and assume people in prison are just like them.'A truly disingenuous attempt at divide and conquer, performed by a bit player. The assumption is that only the truly wretched examples of humanity wind up in prison; the rest of 'us' don't, because we are the good people. Good people don't wind up in prison, only bad ones do. Hmmm. So only bad people go to prison. So what does that make of all the people who've come from exactly the same middle class background, possessing the same middle class virtues they tacitly laud, but wound up in the GrayBar Motel for weed possession, anyway? Weren't they, by the authors simpleminded definition of middle class = good, undeserving of having their lives ruined for their responsible weekend toking? Even more to the point: What about those who desperately need the weed to stay alive? By the authors definition, Todd McCormack should not be imprisoned, as he is not addicted, and he was not engaging any dangerous activities such as... ' snorting crystal meth every day for three weeks, smoking pot and drinking a gallon of cheap wine each day to take the edge off, and in the meantime robbing a gas station, driving while extremely intoxicated and beating up his girlfriend.'I doubt very seriously that either Mr. McCormack or the late lamented Mr. McWilliams were guilty of such social infractions. Yet they are jailed... while murderers are set loose amongst us to make room for the likes of cannabis users. So, was McWilliams 'bad'? Is McCormack?There will always be elements of society for whom the word 'moderation' is a meaningless noise. There will always be those who, lacking the sense God gave a rock, will do stupid things. No amount of work can turn a lump of mud into an apple pie... or a fool into an genius. Sadly, there will always be 'career criminals' from whom society requires protection. But when society defines a sizable proportion of its own middle class as criminals - as it has you and me, friends - then society has a choice to make. Because we are the 'bad' people, by the authors's definition. There aren't enough prisons for all of us - unless we make an entire nation into one.Which I suspect, would suit these guys just fine.
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Comment #4 posted by aaa on August 10, 2000 at 12:13:56 PT
debunking
Do a search for "logical fallacies" and apply the principlesto writings like this one.Almost every category of logical fallacy is included in this piece of work.In science, the presence of even a single logical fallacy should bring the work into question.This piece of writing is absolutely riddledwith faulty logic.It amazes me that anyone can be persuaded by such nonsense. 
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Comment #3 posted by r.earing on August 10, 2000 at 11:32:40 PT:
Pushing therapy
Ok, His premise is that only hard core serious addicts are sent to jail,probably in relation to other crimes.National crime statistics however, indicate that a hefty percentage of inmates are in jail for drug offenses,particularily simple possesion.He wants to provide "enough " drug treatment to prevent further use.With 2 million in jail,how many full time drug counselors is that?How much treatment is "enough".Consider a weekend pothead on a simple possesion rap,how much "therapy" would it take to convince her/him that mj is bad and the justice system is good?I would say a one on one, three month 24/7 therapy program (might) begin to work.Just multiply this by 2 million and you have an idea of what this might cost. Isn't this idiotic overkill compared to what harm reduction would accomplish?Let's COERCE everyone into treatment or force them to be a counselor.
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Comment #2 posted by Kanabys on August 10, 2000 at 11:16:19 PT
Just like I said before
Punish the ones who infringe on others rights, but leave the ones that mind their own business ALONE!! And for your info Mr. gogek, the fact is that about 1% or less of all drug users are considered addicts. Of course, we could raise that number greatly by throwing the occasional user in with true addicts. They could learn alot from them. So many idiots!
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Comment #1 posted by greenfox on August 10, 2000 at 10:57:56 PT
I hate this man
This guy is a f***ing idiot. Seriously. He has vested interests, of course. Trying to make drug users look like criminals and when a "baby boomer" gets caught and tries to explain that h/she smokes only once or twice a year, do you think that judge is really going to give a sh*t? Doubtful. He'll be treated just like the rest of the "criminals". Pathetic....
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