Tag Archives: harm reduction

Drug Policy

National Press Club Event Challenges Current Drug Policy

TAKE BACK AMERICA CAMPAIGN ANNOUNCES 
CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS NATIONAL DRUG POLICY
Monday, May 20, 2024 from 0800 to 1100

Between 700 and 1,100 people die every day on American soil owing to drug-related causes.  No war or acts of terror in history even compares to the human or economic cost, which is estimated to be $3.73 trillion.  While the government has the responsibility to protect the people, they have failed to do so.

During the biggest drug epidemic in our history, the government proposes moving marijuana to a Schedule III status which is counterintuitive.

For the last 15 years “Harm Reduction” has been the national drug strategy, with catastrophic results.  This strategy encourages drug use by downplaying the harms, legalizing some drugs and elimina-ting penalties for criminal activity.  The result has been a 300% increase in overdose deaths, a crisis of mental health and addiction, record levels of suicide, a huge homeless problem, mass shootings and homicides, elevated traffic fatalities and rampant crime. America has become a narco-nation, no longer safe, according to organizer Roger Morgan.  If there is any hope for the future, national drug policy must change, and those responsible to protect this nation must do so.

As a country, we must switch back to a strategy of drug prevention over harm reduction. Between 1979 and 1992, the parents movement provided a prevention framework. As a result, teen drug use went from 39% down to 14%.

Panel of experts

A panel of experts on drugs and policy will candidly discuss the problem, and refute the Administration’s unfounded call to reschedule marijuana.  They will discuss what must be done to return America to the rule of law. 

 The panel consists of Roger Morgan, 30-year drug prevention activist; David Evans, Senior Attorney regarding Cannabis Industry Victims; Robert Charles, Attorney Asst Secretary of State for Colin Powell, White House staff, Naval Intelligence officer and expert on narcotics. 

Special guests and speakers are coming from around the country, including California. These include Heidi Swan and Bryn Spejcher, both of whom have experienced cannabis-induced psychosis from marijuana. In Bryn’s case the results were tragic.  She stabbed her date 108 times, stabbed her dog, and was trying to kill herself when the police arrived.  She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter as she was unaware of her actions and received 100 hours of community service. Spejcher and Swan will be available after the conference for interviews. Spejcher’s case is not unique, as many other violent crimes have been committed under cannabis-induced psychosis.

The conference room holds forty people. To secure a seat and receive a security code required to enter, please email [email protected]. 

Addiction, Drug Policy, Reviews

Raising Lazarus Describes Continuing Overdose Crisis

Beth Macy’s Raising Lazarus is the latest book on the overdose crisis.  Unfortunately, this insightful journalist who wrote Dopesick, made into a series on Hulu, is a harm reductionist who doesn’t put too much stock in primary drug prevention.    

Drug policy should have three prongs: Prevention, Recovery and Harm Reduction.

Instead of tirelessly stating “Let’s stop stigmatizing addiction,” why can’t we say, “Let’s celebrate recovery”?  

We need to incentivize recovery.  

The drug epidemic has been running for more than 20 years now, and today the primary driver is fentanyl, an opioid sold on the black market. An estimated 107,000 died of overdose last year.  Why is it only getting worse? Perhaps it’s because we’re addressing the problem with harm reduction only and not spending much money on drug prevention. In the case of fentanyl, youths are going right from marijuana use to buying pills that are laced with fentanyl and dying immediately.  In pot legalization states out west, it currently is happening to those as young as 13 and 14.

Macy’s view of marijuana is a blindspot

Macy scorns Nancy Reagan and her “cabal of marijuana-hating moms” on p. 77.  But does she realize that the parents movement of 1979-1992 brought down drugs use from 39% of all teens to 14%?   The parent movement, which included black activists, was an exceptional achievement.  We could do the same now, if only  harm reduction were not the primary leg of drug policy. Continue reading Raising Lazarus Describes Continuing Overdose Crisis →

Drug Policy

Drug Policy Alliance should have no influence over policy

The normalization and continued promotion of drug use kills people, harms individuals and harms society. The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) turned people against the “War on Drugs,” a term the government stop using in 2009. The DPA aims for legalizing all drugs, but now uses the term “decriminalization,” disguising their true goals.

DPA wishes to protect drug dealers so that they may never be charged with homicide if a person dies. A press release of November 2017, staked out DPA’s position against drug-induced homicide laws, claiming that “An Overdose Death is not Murder.”

For parents, whose children died after buying pills through dealers, friends or acquaintances, it’s a bitter pill to swallow: the DPA claims their children were already drug users, and no one should be held responsible for death.

Continue reading Drug Policy Alliance should have no influence over policy →

Drug Policy, Politics

Response to legalization in four states

In response to the four states that passed ballots to legalize marijuana, we send our condolences to residents of those states.  It’s not a good, science-based policy, or a good economic one. We won’t stop doing what we do, supporting families who lost or are losing loved ones to this drug. Marijuana is the starter drug for our addiction crisis, a foundation drug and often the first relapse drug for those who struggle with addiction.

We’re sad because the public have lost special protective factors for public health and safety. Keeping drugs illegal is a vital harm reduction policy. With more marijuana use comes more loss of life from addiction, mental illness and car crashes. It also brings work place incidents, psychotic behaviors, violence related to drug dealing and deaths from child abuse or neglect. Continue reading Response to legalization in four states →