Trust, yes, but one must remain watchful. I had an experience a few days
ago that was disappointing. Called 911 because someone left two large
dogs in a small car in the full sun. When the driver didn't return after
10mins and the dogs started to obviously suffer I called. The deputy
came and qizzed me. How I could come to the conclusion that they suffer
and so on. WHAT?
I mean in a general sense. What "makes a functioning gov't"
has a great deal to do with trust. We "trust" that when we
go to court, that we have at least _some_ chance of justice.
We don't expect perfection. We don't expect a great deal, in
fact... we know there are uncontrollable factors. But we
_choose_ to allow a legal system to prosecute the man who
raped our daughter, for example, rather than go over and take
matters into our own hands because .... although we don't
actually believe what we _want_ will be the result, we do
accept that we have to trust in a system that on balance is
better than the alternative -- complete anarchy.
This is what is so difficult to create in places like Iraq,
for example. You start with a situation where some groups do
not trust other groups, at all. The legal system, if run
mostly by one side, is not at all trusted by the other side.
So they don't go to court, because they have zero faith in
it. Not 100% faith -- no one asks for that or demands it.
But 0% faith. So, because there is no redress and no belief
in even the possibility of it, people instead are "forced" by
that belief to choose among what few alternatives they feel
exist -- generally speaking, violence and mayhem, or else
walking away with hatred in their hearts and no chance or
hope for redress. If it happens at all, it will take a long
time to build those bridges. There will need to be actual
evidence that groups in control make decisions that go
against their own groups' interests enough times and in
enough difficult situations that _evidence_ exists that there
is some chance for justice. Time. Time. And hopefully in
the interim, nothing that lights off another series of
violence.
Trust is rarely given away and usually only won slowly and
over time and given evidence during times where it is proven
out. It takes only a few minutes to destroy. One must
protect it like the flame of a candle in the wind, once you
have it.
We don't often, as US citizens born in a place that is often
so far from such places as Iraq, realize just how hard it was
to build up our legal system. And it didn't just start here,
either. And we don't realize what life might be like without
trusting it. At least a little bit.
For those born black, those older now at least, they do know
what I'm talking about because they DIDN'T trust the police
or the legal system to provide that measure of justice. It's
part of why the Black Panthers were started. (I know a
little something about this and specific events in Chicago
over the years, since my wife was an active part of this bit
of history when she was younger.) It's part of why they
would try and take themselves (unarmed, of course, but in a
special uniform that would be recognized) and cameras into
the streets when a policeman was seen in their neighborhoods.
Did you know that Leonard Bernstein (yes, the composer and
conductor guy) supported the actively?
Short story. My wife was all 'gung ho' about challenging the
"powers that be" at the time. Demonstrations of various
kinds -- for example, a "kiss in" in a public park where
girls would kiss girls, guys would kiss guys, because of the
laws against gays. And other issues of the day, of course.
One evening, she was out at night with two black friends and
the police drove over to "talk with them." My wife was
ignorant at the time of just what it means to not trust
police or legal systems. She lived with "white privilege"
but didn't realize it. So when the police came over to
hassle her friends, she had no idea just how fearful they
really were. They litterally groveled. And my wife was mad,
she was thinking "Come on! Don't act like a black toady!
Face them with pride!" She had no idea what it was like to
know that an aunt was dead because of facing down a policeman
without groveling. She had no idea what it was like to know
that not one, not two, but say five or six close relatives
were now dead and buried because of not groveling. She lived
with white privilege. A feeling of justice, knowing that in
some vague way the court systems and police would somehow in
the end not kill you or torture you. But blacks didn't know
that. In fact, they knew the opposite. It would be in all
their recent memories, some close family member who had died
for just being in the wrong place or acting with an
assumption that they had 'rights' -- that some police would
then make sure they realized they didn't actually have.
She grew to understand all this as those relationships grew
and she got to know a little bit better what it was like to
be black in that time and place. We are lucky today that
many black children may not actually know a close family
member killed in such ways and that this memory is now fading
.... though it isn't something to ignore as yet since there
remain many sources of racism in the US today and it remains
a presence in all their lives... the job situation is only
one earmark... the prison situation another... and so on. But
at least the sheer lethality of it has diminished.
Oregon's governor in 1926 was an active member of the KKK and
in 1926 the last known case of a black lynching took place in
Oregon, just to put a fine point on it. Even out here in the
west it's not that long ago and it was nothing here like it
was in the south east. Oregon didn't see a significant black
population until WW II, when they were brought in as laborers
to build ships in the docks here.
We whites live with a hidden sense of privilege and we aren't
really aware, so much, of how long we've had it "good" in
this country, how difficult it is to create a legal system
that is worthy of being trusted when there isn't one before,
and how little it takes to break that trust and crush it.
The weight of a trillion dollar business in the US, the
illicit drug industry here, weighs down hard on the legal
system. It buys police. It buys judges. I can tell you
specific cases, in Congressional Record by the way, where
entire barges of drugs would be brought into a dock at night,
cut up and taken to different storage facilities under the
watch of the police all along the way, cut up and sold in the
market and protected by a cadre of judges also bought and
paid for. I'm not talking about 5 or 6 people. I'm talking
about hundreds of police and hundreds of judges in this one
system that was discussed in open hearings. It was a
business machine that corrupted every thing around it. And
that corruption affected everyone.
A trillion dollars a year, Joerg. Imagine what that buys and
corrupts. Not to mention the fact that the US incarcerates a
higher percentage of its population than any other place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate
The cost on society isn't just all the money. You have no
idea, it appears, just what these numbers mean... just how
deeply all this pervades everything here and all the lives of
us. Unlike some drugged out person you talk about, I'm
talking about this affecting the lives of all of us -- 100%
of us. Not one out of a million or one out of a hundred
thousand. Every single one of us is paying every single day.
And in many cases, we are talking about life and death and
the unjust taking of so many lives... and not just those
trillion dollars of direct purchases. The indirect costs are
immense and affect all of us every day.
Alcohol being illegal here in the US literally created the
Mafia in the US. Literally. And it killed lots and lots of
people. Ultimately, despite the benefits from having alcohol
illegal, people in the US finally had their belly-full of
murder and mayhem and corrupt police and corrupt judges and
changed the laws. And we live with the costs of alcoholism
because we aren't willing to return to the other condition,
which was worse.
What we haven't yet grappled with, what YOU haven't yet
grappled with, is that the drug war has similar costs and
creates similar "businesses" like the Mafia and funds them
fully. Just as with alcohol, there will be costs of
legalization. But the vast and powerful funding of illicit
drugs in the US is killing tens of thousands of people in
Mexico, killing people in the US, too. And it is a continual
corrupting influence on ALL OF OUR GOV'T systems. ALL of
them. If infects everything. And it leads to huge costs of
incarceration and the highest rates of it in the world.
I know you don't like high taxes. One good way to help
reduce that burden is to stop this insane war. One in five
of every prisoner in a State system is there for drug use.
One half of all those in the federal system.... And for
example, in the first 5 years after the Anti_drug Abuse Act
was passed, from 1986 and 1991, just the incarceration of
black women alone, in state prisons for drug offenses only,
increased nearly 9-fold. These are just women, Joerg. Not
hardened murders like Felix Rodriguez who reported to Donald
Gregg, senior advisor to George Bush as VP back then.
This whole thing is insane. And if you care about where your
tax money goes, ... well, you'd want it changed. It's a
waste of money and resources, it corrupts everything it
touches and that includes our police and legal system, and
the costs are immense.
And just as you make this personal, by telling of a few
people you personally know.... I can make this just as
personal, too. Lives I've personally seen destroyed not by
drugs at all but crushed under the war machine that exists on
both sides now -- a well funded machine.
Jon, I don't have anything against a (very carefully) prescribed medical
use.
But it's NOT carefully prescribed. Sadly. Our stupid legal
system doesn't permit that. Instead, the stupid way our
system has to work right now is that a doctor "authorizes" me
to grow the stuff. I don't have the tools to verify what I'm
making, nor the training. I have no idea exactly what I'm
giving my daughter. Because it is illegal, still, for
doctors to prescribe it. It is a Schedule 1 drug:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Schedule_I_drugs_(US)
In order for it to be placed there, it must be the case that:
1. The drug or other substance has a high potential
for abuse.
2. The drug or other substance has no currently
accepted medical use in treatment in the United
States.
3. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the
drug or other substance under medical supervision.
However, 2 is wrong in the case of marijuana. The word
"accepted" is twisted in its meaning, no viable research is
even permitted here, and the clause excludes any data
garnered elsewhere in the world. The whole system is closed
so that they can maintain the facade. Only one location in
the US is permitted to grow for research and no research
actually occurs -- there is a court case right now from a
large university suing the gov't so that they can gain access
for legitimate research purposes. And today, with more than
a dozen states with medical marijuana laws, there is hardly a
more important time than now for that research to take place.
My doctors cannot prescribe it. There is no legal source of
it where the quantities are analyzed and compounded
accurately and probably no illegal source, either. And the
laws don't put the medical professional at risk -- instead,
they just say the doctor can write a piece of paper that says
they believe it would be appropriate, if _I_ decide to act.
And then the State laws are arranged so that the State laws
can't incarcerate me if I am acting in accordance with State
laws in growing it.
But I've no idea what I'm giving her. I can't record the
chemical quantities. I can't document them. I don't know
what next week will be like vs this last week. And there is
no one I can go to to produce this information, to help my
doctors develop a track record of information that may help
others or help better guide the situation for my daughter.
We are operating in the dark, Joerg.
And it is disgusting.
And I am sure it is a very valuable medicine in your daughter's
case because only parents can really tell what works and what doesn't.
I'm always conscious of the possibility of biases, known and
unknown, and I worry a lot about whether or not I'm trying to
convince myself of something. As parents, we really _are_
desperate. And it is easy to imagine something existing
where nothing really is there. Hope and despair can make you
do things, make you believe things. Which is why we keep
daily records. It's not just for her or her doctors. It's
for us, to observe ourselves. To watch and see what the
details _actually_ say, and not what our poor memories try
and tell us. We go back through the records periodically and
plot the events, etc. It helps us a lot.
I have to say I'm increasingly convinced in this case. So
far, anyway.
I just wish I knew what I was giving her. I don't. And my
doctors would _like_ to be able to prescribe dosages. But
they can't. And they can't even help me. To do that would
put them at risk. All they can do is say "okay" so that the
State of Oregon doesn't put me away for trying to help my
daughter suffer a little less.
This is a bastard of a legal system, Joerg. I hate what all
this has done and forced ME to do. Do you have any idea!?
You have stories of others. I have a personal story. One
that I live each and every single day. As I said, this is
personal to me, Joerg. Not vague. Not distant. Not someone
else's life. It's my every single day.
There are lots of other drugs that are regularly used as hallucinogens
illegally but have very legitimate med uses, such as Oxycontin. If a
medical doctor and not some self-declared "practitioner" prescribes it,
by all means. What I do not like and am squarely against is this: There
was a pot fest somewhere near here. TV came, interviews. "Oh, the fenced
in area is so people can get high" ... "But you need a medical
permission to get in there, right?" ... "Oh, yeah, if you don't have one
yet you go over there, talk to the people and then get it. Doesn't take
long". That makes me sick.
I can't help the twisted, bizarre world that is created by
these insane laws. I know the pictures you are talking
about. But this system is insane, right now. One one side
we have a federal legal system that states that there is NO
MEDICAL USE of marijuana. Yet that is a lie. There is. And
there are a large and growing number of doctors who are
willing to stand in and monitor the situation and act as they
do with other legal drugs. But they aren't permitted to do
so, because it is insanely put on Schedule I.
Reschedule it. That would help me, immediately. I don't
care about the rest, really. But this placement on Schedule
I is a consdtant reminder and monument to the insanity of all
this. The stuff is fairly safe -- far, far safer than many
of the drugs (legal) that we gave our daughter before. In
some cases, we are asked to check her liver and kidneys every
3 months! Can you believe it?
As long as it remains on Schedule I, there is nothing my
doctors can do. It's that simple.
Now, in terms of my opinion? I'm not at all mad that some
folks are _using_ the silly laws in California to get high on
marijuana. Frankly, I think the stuff is about as safe, and
I'm speaking only about the chemistry here, as drugs get. I
don't much care if a few stoners use the laws and flaunt
their smoking. I don't care, actually. Because I don't
think they are hurting themselves. The stuff is safe. So,
so what? So they make you mad because they are getting what
they want and flaunting it under some policeman's nose. I'd
rather it were just legalized and then who would care? It
would be like me drinking a shot of scotch in front of you
(only less harmful, I suspect.) You wouldn't have a right to
care.
But while I politically believe it should be legalized, as a
matter of taking care of my daughter and performing my legal
guardianship responsibilities, I care most immediately about
rescheduling it so that our team of doctors can do their job.
Get that much done and some insanity disappears. I might
still be put at risk of someone invading my home and killing
us to gain access to legally prescribed medications, so long
as it remains an illicit drug. But at least rescheduling
means I can get proper compounds, my medical team can do a
proper job of adjusting dosages through experience, and the
quantites I have around here don't need to last a year at a
time. Which means LESS risk to my life, less need for hand
guns (if you saw an earlier post of mine, you know I carry
one) around here and less need of my regular training in
using them well and correctly.
Do you imagine I _like_ being in this position of being
prepared for an invasion and a shoot out? Or what risk that
places all of us at, should the police come here for entirely
different reasons (say, chasing some criminal through
backyards and coming to our property only to find plants
being grown and me carrying a weapon as a side arm?) I'm not
only at risk by criminals, but my own police may be
frightened into killing me on sight just to protect
themselves.
This is insane, Joerg. Insane. I just want my daughter to
suffer less. My medical team wants to help. The laws are
insane.
And _you_ are bothered by a few stoners sticking it up your
nose that they get to smoke some pot in front of you without
getting arrested?
Live my life for a few months. You'd change your priorities.
But what really made me sad was what I saw while living in the
Netherlands. You, promising people. Then one day I met them again and
their brain was fried, permanently. Some could only babble, some could
not talk at all anymore.
That more likely was due to poisons because there is no
oversight of illegal drugs, no control over their
compounding, and it is easy to substitute poisons.
Jon
No-one I know directly
