<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">"I think of cocaine as more along the lines of coffee."--Garrett<br><br>Sorry, but that statement is so outlandish it is hard to take anything else you say seriously.<br>Most everything else you said, I could see myself agreeing with, to certain extent. <br><br>In high school, more people died of alcohol than cocaine, because alcohol is legal, and cocaine is not. <br><br>Best Regards,<br><br>Donovan<br><br>--- On <b>Mon, 3/2/09, Garrett Clevenger <i><garrettmc@verizon.net></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;">From: Garrett Clevenger <garrettmc@verizon.net><br>Subject: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush<br>To: vision2020@moscow.com<br>Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 3:10 PM<br><br><pre>Donovan writes:<br><br>"First, there is HUGE difference between alcohol
and cocaine. So comparing<br>them is ridiculous. I think you know that."<br><br><br>>From my limited exposure to alcoholics and coke heads, I would say there is<br>a difference, but not as big as some make it out to be. Alcohol tends to dull<br>the senses, whereas cocaine tends to make people more active. I had friends in<br>highschool kill and be killed due to alcohol, a legal drug. I had friends go to<br>rehab for cocaine addiction. The cokeheads weren't violent, just wasting<br>their money.<br><br>Any drug changes your perception of reality, but alcohol seems to be more<br>dangerous, especially in it's ability to make people do stupid things. <br><br>I think of cocaine as more along the lines of coffee. It may give you energy at<br>the expense of taking care of yourself, but probably not much more than other<br>stimulents. It may be more addictive, but probaly not much more than nicotine. <br><br>I think you need to be careful believing what you
read about the affects of<br>drugs. It's easy to dramaticize their affects to scare people in an attempt<br>to keep them away. The problem is, if people realize those over-blown affects<br>aren't as bad as they are said to be, they tend to be skeptical of the real<br>affects. If you lose trust based on over-exageration, than people won't<br>believe anything you say. That is counter-productive.<br><br>I think the temperance movement was good at scaring people. They tried to make<br>alcohol illegal for decades, and they were able to finally do it by taking real<br>examples, and then exagerating the overall affects. They did that with<br>"Refer Madness" and the affect of marijuana. You can see that with the<br>supposed meth "epidemic." People think meth is this new drug that is<br>sweeping the nation, when in fact, this "epidemic" was called such in<br>the 1920's. That indicates to me that there will always be<br>"epidemics", and people exagerting that
"epidemic", in an<br>attempt to garner resources and support to temper peoples abuse of drugs.<br><br>The ironic thing is, by creating a black market, you create a crime syndicate,<br>and drugs that are probably tainted with really dangerous substances, all while<br>apparently not really reducing overall consumption. It's a waste of<br>resources that could be used for treatment for addicts, education for kids, or<br>other things that don't seem like its just money being burned.<br><br>Legalize, regulate, and tax to raise money to educate and treat. That seems<br>like the best way to reduce the affects of drug use, to reduce the need to build<br>more prisons, and reduce the violent crime consequences.<br><br>gclev<br><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet, <br> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <br> http://www.fsr.net <br>
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<br>=======================================================<br></pre></blockquote></td></tr></table><br>