RE: The Failed Drug War

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The Failed Drug War

in drugs •  7 years ago 

If there is a drug task force operating in your state, city or county, participate in its hearings or meetings. Find out what they are advocating and whether or not they are taking a balanced approach. The focus now is typically on opioid overdose and the focus is often on treatment and making naloxone more available. You can influence the effort by informing the task force of the harms caused by prohibition and get goals and strategies related to reducing those harms added to the task force recommendations. Here is a link to the Milwaukee City-County Heroin, Opioid and Cocaine Task Force, which I am trying to influence.

https://milwaukee.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2965576&GUID=0563F682-215F-46EF-B751-663D43F417EC&Options=ID%7CText%7C&Search=161554

Another way to fight the drug war is to counter the addiction as brain disease metaphor. The Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) theory is used as a justification for the search for a genetic cause for addiction. Please see my article at https://steemit.com/disease/@paulmozina/is-freedom-a-disease. Characterizing a person’s choice to consume a substance as a disease, possibly one with a genetic origin, forms a building block or justification for continuing and expanding the war on drugs, albeit, from a more humane perspective. This approach typically advertises destigmatization of the substance abuser, but rarely if ever include decriminalization of their actions — an important contradiction that needs to be pointed out.

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