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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I cannot understand why this stuff keeps coming up. Dubya
said from the first if your looking for bad stuff you will find it. Changed
lives is what Jesus is all about. It is what Bush said from day one. He drank,
he probably did do drugs, he did a lot of things he isn't proud of as have we
all. He admited it and wants to move on. Can we all be understanding and move on
or are we going to keep hearing this stuff forever??</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=auntiestablishment@hotmail.com
href="mailto:auntiestablishment@hotmail.com">Joan Opyr</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020 Moscow</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, February 22, 2005 5:30
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] Drunks, drugs,
and the empathy factor</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Dear Dave and other Visionaries:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>About the Bush budget cuts -- it could be that I was thinking not of Mark
Solomon's list but of a piece I read in some left-wing rag entitled:
<STRONG>Bush Budget Kills Drug-Free Schools Program, Maintains Block
Grant</STRONG>. (Sorry, I didn't copy the URL, but I did print out the
article, so it must have made quite an impression on me as I'm generally cheap
with the toner. The journal is called <STRONG>Fighting Back</STRONG>, so
that should tell you something about its slant; you're free, if you like,
to go ahead now and dismiss it. I won't take offense. Hell, I
won't know, will I?) My understanding of the matter, however, is that
Bush's 2006 Budget calls for $441 million in funding for the Safe and
Drug-Free Schools & Communities Program, a reduction, though not a
draconian one; it calls for "level funding" of the nearly $2
billion-dollar Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment block grant program;
and a $270 million decrease in funding for demand reduction
programs.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>To quote that damned liberal rag, <STRONG>Fighting
Back</STRONG>:<BR><BR>"After years of sustained, stratospheric budget
increases, funding for addiction research would come back to earth under
Bush's 2006 plan. The National Institute on Drug Abuse would get a
modest $4- million dollar increase to its $1-billion budget, while the
$438-million National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism would rise by
just $2 million." </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Does this keep pace with inflation? Does this keep pace with
use? Damned if I know. I'd need to do a lot more research than I'm
willing to do for the sake of fussing with you, Dave Budge. (It's
nothing personal; I have a neck-ache. Poor ergonomics here at my
computer desk.) I will note however (and I will say a
sarcastic hoorah!) that the Bush administration is expanding funding for the
Access to Recovery program, which allows individuals to choose faith-based
recovery programs like AA, I assume, only with even more God stuff. Will
this work? Is it Constitutional? Will this sort of rehab get
you off of horse and onto the Pauline donkey? Sorry -- I'm answering
your questions with questions again. I have a bad habit of doing
that. I think it's a Jewish trait; Jesus did it
<STRONG><U>all</U></STRONG> the time. Drove his followers crazy.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Now, Dave, you are quite right to point out that I do not have direct,
first-hand, signed affidavit knowledge of George W. Bush's illegal
drug use. I was way too young to get into the Texas version of Studio 54
back when Mr. Bush was in his twenties and thirties. He's acknowledged
that he abused alcohol until he was forty (though he has never admitted to
being an alcoholic). Others -- and who knows how reliable they are --
have attested to his use of other substances. Mr Doug Wead (what a great
name) has come forward with tapes of then-Governor Bush talking implicitly, if
not explicitly, about his marijuana use, and discussing his strategy
for dealing with questions about other drugs that he may or may not
have toked upon. I suppose I could rely on Kitty Kelley . . . but then I
would catch hell, wouldn't I? The Bushes have neither sued her
nor had her assassinated, so I guess that puts her credibility at
about 50/50. Nope -- I can never be 100% sure that Mr. Bush snorted
coke. I am forced to rely not, as you suggest, on Democratic
imitators of The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but on grotesque
hearsay, stories put about by Mr. Bush's old friends and fraternity
brothers, Larry Flynt's <STRONG>Penthouse</STRONG>, and the rumors regarding
said drug use that have swirled about Texas for the past thirty
years. I have to rely on all of that
<U><STRONG>and</STRONG></U> my own
unverifiable-but-never-let-me-down-before experience and judgment at
spotting a user. That's what tells me that Mr. Bush was a
snort-a-roosky. He had the money, the connections, the time, and
the inclination. Dismiss that if you must, but I'm going with it.
Call it woman's intuition. Or not. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>[BTW, if I were Jennifer McFarland, I'd pull the Presidential limo and
search it with the sniffer dogs the very next time Mr. Bush drives
through Moscow. You can thank me for the tip later, Jennifer. When
60 Minutes interviews you, you can plug my book!]</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There. That's it for me. Mr. Bush's unproven use
aside, Dave, are we or are we not in general accord on this issue?
Treatment and not incarceration. Stop use with the user and not by
bombing poppie fields in Afghanistan or coca leaf growers in
Columbia? Stop with the DEA and make with the funding for
the REHAB.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment</DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.auntie-establishment.com">www.auntie-establishment.com</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>PS: If you're a glutton for punishment, Google "Bush Budget 2006" and
"drug treatment" and you'll find five thousand sources, opinions, and
commentary on what will happen re: treatment versus incarceration over the
next four years. If you're not a glutton for punishment, then please
allow me to summarize: it's not good.</DIV><BR clear=all>
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