Good!!!
Good!!!
Judy, regardless of the War on Drugs, I lived in the Silicon Valley and worked in the hi-tech industry. I wittnessed first hand what was happening. I remember quite well when the company I worked for started requiring drug test. The reason we were told in print was that drugs were being sold on campus. If you had worked for the company longer than a year, you were exempt from taking a drug test. If you had worked for them less than a year or if you were a contractor, you had to take a drug test. From that point on new hires were required to take drug test.
I had friends that got caught up in the drug scene and lost their jobs, home and family. Good people that had it all. I have seen young people start out smoking pot to go on to harder drugs. I am not saying everyone does, but enough to concern me at what will happen now that it is legal.
I know the common trend I have noticed in heavy users of marijuana is the lack of motivation and drive. You just watch after enough people are addicted they then will find health issues from smoking pot and will raise taxes to do medical research, just like they have done on cigarettes.
We've all worked with pot smokers and coke users. We know all about it. We know that lives were ruined because of drug testing that cost them their jobs and got them black-listed. That's why they lost everything. If they were fired over drug testing, it wasn't due to lack of performance or productivity. Otherwise, they would just been fired for lack of performance or productivity. But they weren't fired for that because there wasn't a lack of performance or productivity, they were fired over a drug test. Same with alcohol. I know lots of people who are or were coke users. They take coke not to chill out or relax but to speed them up, they work harder and longer. It' why so many highly successful people use the drug, it speeds up the brain, and your metabolism, and reverses the feeling of being tired so they can keep going. Productivity is actually increased, not decreased. They talk a lot and talk fast, have little patience.
Marijuana relaxes you, removes stress, slows you down, chills you out. And some high performing employees need that from somewhere. But cocaine does the complete opposite. It speeds you up up and away.
2% of the population will become addicted to drugs. That's how many there were in 1913 when the first laws against recreational drugs came into being and the addiction rate in the US is still 2%. There's a certain percentage of our population that has the genetic make-up that causes them to become addicted whereas the other 98% doesn't. The War on Drugs hasn't changed a thing in 103 years except ruin millions and millions of lives and families because of drug testing and incarcerations.
It's time to call a spade a spade and end this travesty against our own people out of unwarranted "fears".
Excerpt:
Symptoms of Cocaine addiction
The list of signs and symptoms mentioned in various sources for Cocaine addictionincludes the 34 symptoms listed below:
- Uncontrollable craving for cocaine
- Obsessive thoughts about cocaine
- Secrecy about cocaine habit
- Excessive amount of money spend on cocaine
- Loss of appetite
- Weight loss
- Nausea
- Headache
- Paranoia
- Dilated pupils
- Hallucinations
- Confusion
- Rapid speech
- Excessive energy
- Anxiety
- Runny nose
- Tremors
- Heart problems
- Mood swings
- Collapsed nasal septum
- Unusual selling of private property
- Social isolation
- Poor work performance
- or school performance
- Neglect of family responsibilities
- Neglect of personal hygiene
- Damage to mucous membranes
- Vomiting
- Insomnia
- Cold sweats
- Bleeding from mucous membranes
- Restlessness
- Damage to lungs
- Auditory hallucinations
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/c/coca...n/symptoms.htm
The thing you are missing about these addiction problems are the ones that depend on criminalization to manifest:
- Uncontrollable craving for cocaine
- Obsessive thoughts about cocaine
- Secrecy about cocaine habit
- Excessive amount of money spend on cocaine
- Loss of appetite
- Weight loss
- Nausea
- Headache
- Paranoia
- Dilated pupils
- Hallucinations
- Confusion
- Rapid speech
- Excessive energy
- Anxiety
- Runny nose
- Tremors
- Heart problems
- Mood swings
- Collapsed nasal septum
- Unusual selling of private property
- Social isolation
- Poor work performance or school performance
- Neglect of family responsibilities
- Neglect of personal hygiene
- Damage to mucous membranes
- Vomiting
- Insomnia
- Cold sweats
- Bleeding from mucous membranes
- Restlessness
- Damage to lungs
- Auditory hallucinations
As for the rest, none of them can be treated if the user is afraid of law enforcement. Once trapped in a condition that the user comes to understand, they have no way out except jail time.
And again you neglect that under criminalization you are more likely to encounter distribution because criminalization increases the profits in distributing by organized crime.
And again, the Prohibition of Alcohol is most instructive here. Good laws focus on criminalizing distribution, not simple possession or use. Alcohol was legal before prohibition, but legalization of cocaine is not necessary to decriminalize its simple possession or use. It is only necessary to criminalize its manufacture and distribution for recreational use.
It is already possible to process and distribute cocaine for medical use under a government license. Coca Cola continues to extract cocaine to keep the active ingredients out of the flavoring of its soda pop.
Judy wrote:
Why would you say that to me? As difficult as this may be for you to believe, you don't know everything. If you have a beef with the article, please contact the writer and his researchers to argue your disagreement. Please don't fling your anger at me for providing a linked article that does not agree with you.Quote:
Poor performance is NOT true for most coke users. Look around, get out of the house, wake the hell up.
I wasn't saying that to you. I was responding to the stupid article that included "poor performance" in it when anyone who knows anyone who uses cocaine, knows that isn't true. Cocaine has bad effects on people, but "poor performance" is NOT one of them for most users which is why you see it used most by very successful people.
When these articles distort the truth, they lose all credibility. It's why when I post on legalization, I stress better education for the "real risks and consequences of using drugs" before they're allowed to purchase. When you lie to drug users, you lose all credibility and whatever accurate information you want to deliver to them is ignored.
Of course I don't know everything, but I know a great deal about the things I post about. I don't prattle about things I don't know anything about.
Judy wrote (excerpt):
Okay, thanks for clarifying that.Quote:
I wasn't saying that to you. I was responding to the stupid article that included "poor performance" in it