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Title: Jeff Sessions' Terrible Truth About Drugs Is a Lie
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/archives/2017/03 ... ons-terrible-truth-about-drugs
Published: Mar 22, 2017
Author: Jacob Sullum
Post Date: 2017-03-23 06:22:19 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 3056
Comments: 32
"Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life," Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared last week. The main problem with that message: It isn't true. Yes, using drugs, both legal and illegal ones, can destroy your life, but typically it doesn't. By arguing that drug education should proceed from a false premise, Sessions reminds us what was wrong with the Just Say No propaganda he would like to revive. Sessions, a former senator who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama in the 1980s, looks back proudly at his efforts, alongside Nancy Reagan, to "create a hostility to drug use." For Sessions as for Reagan, tolerance is a dirty word. "We must create an atmosphere of intolerance for drug use in this country," the first lady wrote in a 1986 Washington Post op-ed piece. "Each of us has a responsibility to be intolerant of drug use anywhere, anytime, by anybody." Sessions likewise emphasizes the importance of "preventing people from ever taking drugs in the first place," even if "this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use." The "prevention" Sessions favors is not simply unfashionable; it is fundamentally dishonest. Among other things, Sessions said at a Senate hearing last April, prevention aims to teach teenagers that "good people don't smoke marijuana." According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, something like 118 million Americans have used marijuana, 36 million of them in the last year. Does Sessions honestly think all those people are bad, or that anyone would believe they are? "Educating people and telling them the terrible truth about drugs and addiction will result in better choices," Sessions says. But his terrible truth sounds a lot like a lie. Sessions claims marijuana is "only slightly less awful" than heroin, and in 2014 he strenuously objected after President Obama conceded that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. "I'm heartbroken," Sessions said. "It's stunning to me. I find it beyond comprehension." Judging from his response, Sessions literally did not comprehend Obama's point. Sessions tried to rebut Obama's statement about the relative hazards of marijuana and alcohol by declaring that "Lady Gaga says she's addicted to [marijuana] and it is not harmless." Let's put aside the merits of treating Lady Gaga as an expert on the effects of marijuana, or of extrapolating from this sample of one to the experiences of cannabis consumers generally. The most disturbing aspect of Sessions' argument was his failure to grasp that one substance can be less dangerous than another without being harmless. Saying marijuana is less hazardous than alcohol by several important measures—including impairment of driving ability, the risk of a fatal overdose, and the long-term damage caused by heavy use—is not the same as saying marijuana is 100 percent safe. Sessions not only has no patience for such nuance; he considers it a menace to the youth of America. Sessions is especially offended by the suggestion that marijuana legalization could reduce opioid-related harm by providing a safer alternative. "Give me a break," he said in a recent speech to the National Association of Attorneys General. "It's just almost a desperate attempt to defend the harmlessness of marijuana or even its benefits." Uncharacteristically, Sessions conceded that "maybe science will prove I'm wrong." If he bothered to research the subject, he would discover that several studies have found an association between medical marijuana laws and reductions in opioid prescriptions, opioid-related deaths, and fatally injured drivers testing positive for opioids. Sessions plainly is not interested in what the evidence shows. Although he says law enforcement officials have a duty to "speak truth as best we can," he seems to view truth as the enemy in the war on drugs. Nancy Reagan, who said drug use "isn't fun" and insisted "you cannot separate drug use that 'doesn't hurt anybody' from drug use that kills," would have been proud. The attorney general stages a revival of the "Just Say No" show.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Reason, the libertarian magazine is at it again where yet another of their so called “drug experts” says that “using drugs, both legal and illegal ones, doesn’t typically destroy your life,” and there is nothing to worry about here folks. While the analysis from the National Safety Council, a nonprofit and nongovernmental agency promoting safety in the workplace, declares that America’s prescription drug epidemic is a growing problem at work causing workers with substance use disorders to miss nearly 50% more days than their peers and up to six weeks of work annually. Furthermore, it is important to carefully consider that drug overdoses has eclipsed car crashes as the leading cause of preventable deaths among adults and also killed more people than guns and falling. But these facts are relegated to being unimportant by Reason since “using legal and illegal drugs typically doesn’t destroy your life.” And, good old Reason promotes that ”prohibition kills” and ”drugs are made more dangerous by banning them.”
Can't handle the truth, can you? Drug warriors such as yourself refuse to learn that lesson from alcohol prohibition in the 20's and early 30's.
There is no such thing as a drug warrior. There really are losers though. You promote a loser philisophy. The drugs we talk about don't make you better they make you a worse person. If people take your advice we will have more losers, more addicts under control of a substance. You do know that the reptilian brought these drugs to earth so that they could weaken our minds and conquer earth. You are probably a reptilian or on their payroll.
#13. To: A K A Stone (#6)
Seriously? Sure thing psycho. You promote a loser philisophy. Right - because after the trillions spent on the War on Drugs, nothing has changed, other than more rights (of non-drug users as well) are being eviscerated every day. How many non-drug users have been SWAT-teamed in wrong house raids or because cops thought they had drugs or relied on a lying confidential informant? Too frigging many. How many motorists have had their cash siezed by badged highway robbers - because they could?. Your drug war insanity has done nothing to stop drug usage and in addition has enabled the police state even more so, targeting innocent citizens in their zeal to catch some kid with a joint. What we have been doing is the very definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Seems to me we should try a new approach.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest "Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life," Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared last week. The main problem with that message: It isn't true. Yes, using drugs, both legal and illegal ones, can destroy your life, but typically it doesn't.
#2. To: Gatlin (#1)
(Edited)
And, good old Reason promotes that ”prohibition kills” and ”drugs are made more dangerous by banning them.”
#6. To: Deckard (#2)
Replies to Comment # 6. You do know that the reptilian brought these drugs to earth so that they could weaken our minds and conquer earth.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 6.
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