[Vision2020] Drunks, drugs, and the empathy factor

[David M. Budge]

Joan, Joan, Joan, you insufferable hyperbolist (now don't choke on your 
snuff. I'm joking here.  I never met a hyperbolist I didn't like - you 
can think of me as the Will Rogers of all things vitriolic and 
vituperative.)

But, having said that, you said:

" I can see, however, that one very rich user escaped the consequences 
of his actions because of his last name, his family fortune, and his 
lucky, lucky connections.  I can see that a powerful white guy can snort 
until he's forty and rise to the highest office in the land."

Proof? Have you been spending too much time reading Atrios or The 
Democratic Underground?  Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. Is it 
possible he was just a casual or infrequent user? At this point, as far 
as I know, only Bush (well maybe a potential dealer or two) and his 
maker have the definitive answer.

Then you continued:

"And I can see that he does not use this experience and the bully pulpit 
he inherited to argue that users can be redeemed; he has not used it to 
insist that drug treatment programs work better than incarceration; and, 
finally, he has not used his experience and his power to call an end to 
the wasteful, pointless, destructive War on Drugs"

So no level of political expediency is tolerated?  Did you give a pass, 
at least with your vote, to John Kerry when he said he was against gay 
marriage but that the states should decide it?  Do you deny a 
politician's need for coalition building? Conversely, did you award any 
credit to Dick Cheney when he disagreed with the president about gay 
marriage and said "Freedom belongs to everyone." Does a politician's 
zeitgeist completely affirm or discredit all other virtues? Do you deny 
that a president needs to pick his fights as only one or two reforms 
will ever become law?

Just askin'.

Secondly, I meticulously ran through Mark Solomon's list and I can't 
seem to find the cuts in drug treatment programs you mentioned.  Perhaps 
I missed it due to my moderate dyslexia (it's true... the reason that I 
cannot proof my own work, spell, and I read at an agonizingly slow pace.)
What I noted were the reductions I outlined in Safe Schools (Safe and 
Drug Free Schools State Grants) and research for Alcohol Abuse 
Reduction.  Correct me if I'm wrong. I got the budget info I used from 
the ODCP web site.

Now I love Penn & Teller (libertarian brother's in arms and all) but, 
I'll defer to the 15% figure I used from my history with the National 
Mental Health Association.  It's true that AA does not track diddly.  
Referring to AA as a faith based program however, is much like referring 
to Unitarians as Christians (you know, Moses and the 10 suggestions.)  
True, the construct of a higher power is the overriding tenet, but they 
provide no definition of what a higher power is.  But hey, it's also 
estimated that some 30 million people worldwide think the program 
works.  Who am I to criticize?

I am however, completely against the whole faith based initiative.  It's 
not that I am anywhere close to being an ideologue on the separation of 
church and state, I just understand the well chronicled history of the 
government "helping."  Sure enough it will soon become not an 
"initiative", but another government run set of programs.  I'll let 
charity do charity's work and leave governance up to the morons we put 
in office.

Last, I  so enjoy that, on the issue of legalizing drugs, you have much 
in common with William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, Milton Friedman and 
George Schultz (I've always admired his tattoo.) I truly hope that in 
pointing this out I've not set off your gag reflex into an chronic 
cadence resembling something like the last stanza of God Bless America.  
If I did, I'm sorry... very sorry.

db

Joan Opyr wrote:

> Hello, Dave,
>  
> You won't get any argument from me re: the legalization of drugs.  
> Let's legalize them, tax them, and start selling them out of the 
> liquor store next door to Howard Hughes and the laundromat.  I would 
> say that we could then dedicate the revenues raised to treatment, but 
> we see how well that worked with the tobacco settlements.  The money 
> went largely to balance bloated state budgets. 
>  
> I would add one caveat to your lecture, Dave (or possibly two).  We 
> can trace the so-called War on Drugs back much further than Reagan.  
> Nixon signed into law several bills that criminalized use, and he, in 
> turn, was simply following in the footsteps of the late twenties', 
> early thirties' crackdown on cocaine.  The War on Drugs has worked 
> about as well as Prohibition.  A lot of users in jail; a lot of 
> organized crime lords with billion dollar fortunes.  And still, crack, 
> and coke, and heroin, and Ecstasy, and meth as far as the eye can 
> see.  There's nothing you can't get right here in little Moscow, 
> ID.  Hell, there's nothing you can't get in jail.
>  
> Now, as to my other caveat -- you declare that what Bush has or has 
> not learned from his experience is beyond my ability to know.  With 
> all due respect, Dave, I call bullshit.  Actions speak louder than 
> words, and if you'll take a look at the Bush budget cuts that Mark 
> Solomon posted to this list a week or so ago, you'll find that drug 
> treatment programs are scheduled for a very nasty hit  Now, can I see 
> inside Bush's heart?  No.  (That skill, it would seem, belongs to Bush 
> alone.  Remember how he looked into Vladimir Putin's heart and saw 
> that it was pure, sweet, and on the level?  Works well, doesn't it, 
> this cardiac, Oval Office, X-Ray business?)  I can see, however, that 
> one very rich user escaped the consequences of his actions because 
> of his last name, his family fortune, and his lucky, lucky 
> connections.  I can see that a powerful white guy can snort until he's 
> forty and rise to the highest office in the land.  And I can see that 
> he does not use this experience and the bully pulpit he inherited to 
> argue that users can be redeemed; he has not used it to insist that 
> drug treatment programs work better than incarceration; and, 
> finally, he has not used his experience and his power to call an end 
> to the wasteful, pointless, destructive War on Drugs.  I don't see any 
> difference, in fact, between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton on this 
> issue.  As Mr. Bush is both a reformed user and a born-again 
> Christian, I think there ought to be a difference.  A big, 
> compassionate (if not conservative) difference. 
>  
> Now, just an FYI that might be of general interest: Alcoholics 
> Anonymous -- one of the first faith-based treatment programs -- 
> doesn't have a 15% success rate.  No one knows for certain what their 
> success rate is because they don't publish statistics.  An internal 
> memo (acquired by none other than Penn & Teller for their HBO show, 
> Bullshit) suggests that AA's success rate is about 5%, exactly the 
> same rate as no treatment at all.  And yet this is the program that is 
> most often mandated by the courts.  I think that's a problem  A big, 
> faith-based initiative kind of problem.
>  
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
>  
> PS: Whatever is in Mr. Bush's heart, I'm just glad I'm not Laura.  My 
> pretzel bill would be through the roof. 
>
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