On Apr 10, 1:39=A0pm, M_P <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/369995.html
>
> ELISE PATKOTAK
>
> Published: April 8th, 2008 11:17 PM
>
> Every once in a while, I am forced to face the fact that the war on
> drugs is an abject failure, yet lack of a spine in way too many
> politicians has made a rational, national discussion of this issue
> practically impossible. Which is just pathetically sad because the
> billions of dollars and thousands of lives lost to this hopeless war
> could have been much better spent in treating people with a problem,
> to say nothing of how much we'd save if we emptied our jails of people
> whose only crime was pot.
>
> This issue comes to the forefront again in my life because of its
> impact on the work I do with children. It is apparently OK under state
> law to adopt children out to parents who drink so long as their
> drinking is not a problem. So if they have a glass of wine with dinner
> or a cocktail before a play, the state deems them acceptable adoptive
> parents. But if a person smokes pot at all, even once, even away from
> the child, the law considers them unsuitable and they are asked to get
> substance abuse evaluations.
>
> Considering that alcohol is a gazillion times more likely to be the
> problem causing children to be removed from their homes, this simply
> doesn't make sense. It makes even less sense when the assumption is
> that anyone who smokes pot has a debilitating addiction but anyone who
> drinks is considered healthy unless proven otherwise.
>
> There are a lot of people in this state with a severe drinking
> problem. Whether we like it or not, many of them overcome that
> addiction by replacing it with pot. That might not be the ideal
> solution, but as someone who has worked with abused kids for over
> thirty years, if that's what it takes to make a home where kids are
> safe, fed and allowed to sleep through the night without blood
> spattering their bedding from Dad beating Mom, then I say give them
> all the pot they want. Most people on pot do not get violent, rape
> their children or forget to feed them. Maybe not the ideal situation,
> but I've been around long enough to know that people rarely achieve
> perfection.
>
> I have been to more than one meeting on abused children where
> participants go off to dinner after a full day of workshops and order
> a cocktail or glass of wine to help them unwind from the day. They see
> no irony in sipping that beverage while discussing the problems that
> drug abuse causes in our state and nation. Yet alcohol is a drug,
> albeit a legal one.
>
> If we can so easily accept alcohol as a regulated drug acceptable for
> adult use and only a problem when abused, why is it so hard to start a
> real discussion about pot use? Seriously, when was the last time you
> picked up the paper or watched the evening news and heard about
> someone going nuts on just pot and committing a heinous crime? If an
> honest discussion were ever allowed about pot in this country, we'd
> all have to admit that one of the most violent drugs in our society is
> the one that is legal -- alcohol.
>
> I find it amusing that at this late stage in my life I am writing a
> column in defense of pot. It feels like something I should have
> written in the '60s. The truth is that in an ideal world, all parents
> would raise their children in safe, sober homes where the strongest
> substance used was caffeine. But Ozzie and Harriet don't exist anymore
> and no home is ever really as perfect as the one they ****trayed.
>
> So we go with the best possible homes we can create to raise our
> children. In some cases, that's a home where parents might smoke pot.
> In my experience with troubled families in this state, if forced to
> choose, I find it highly preferable to alcohol. If we could have an
> honest discussion about drug use in our society, alcohol would
> probably end up banned and pot use would be legal.
>
> =A9 Copyright 2008, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The
> McClatchy Company
Well, no kidding! I grew up in the 60s when everybody did drugs. I
knew five people who got addicted and three who died from overdoses.
I've known more alcoholics that I can begin to count, including at
least three who drank themselves to death. Friends, family, wife's
family, co-workers...alcoholics are everywhere. We're all so used to
alcoholism that we don't really think about it anymore. But it's
probably more damaging to society that drug abuse.
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