Prompted by “Using science for a positive rather than a destructive force”: http://www.drugwarrant.com/2015/06/using-science-for-a-positive-rather-than-a-destructive-force/
I noticed this call for papers from NIDA:
Harnessing Insights from other Disciplines to Advance Drug Abuse and Addiction Research
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is seeking submission of ideas from the general public on how to leverage specialized knowledge, methods, and tools from other disciplines to inform new directions in drug use and addiction research.
I can (and even will below) make a brief-but-seriously-dramatic contribution to honor that NIDA request.
In the NIDA request title (the above “blockquoted” link) — oh, and I’m actually addressing the NIDA here (given their purely prohibitionist agenda driven, junk scientific past — including publishing Dr. Albert Hoffman’s ‘bad trip’ statement from his first accidental use of LSD, while ignoring righteously equally publishing consequent positive LSD statements made by the great doctor — I wouldn’t waste my time honoring their request any other way).
See the words “Drug Abuse and Addiction”?
Okay, now we look at the first sentence of the NIDA request and find “directions in drug use and addiction”.
The terrible essence of the ‘certain drug’ prohibitionist cause is the unethical (and certainly unscientific) swapping of use and abuse merely to prohibitionist convenience (the above example is only one among the roughly countless number of them throughout their propaganda spanning decades of publications).
So here’s my submission of an idea from the general public (formalize it anyway you want, NIDA)…
Stop equating use and abuse. They are not the same word, and use demonstrably crushes abuse in terms of illicit drug experiences to a degree negating any righteousness in having Certain Drug Prohibition to pretend to do something positive about what is obviously fundamentally (scientifically speaking) a health issue (not a criminal one).
If an organization called the National Institute on Drug Abuse cannot get that unbearably fundamental scientific point right (such highly publicly embarrassing failure at enormous taxpayer expense — resources that could be used to work against the unhealthy stress actually encouraging drug abuse — and a serious blow against national credibility), then all bets are off.
Anyone at the NIDA can and should feel free to send at least part of the $25,000 taxpayer-wasted reward money this way, so I can direct that money to help society address the actual problem…
After all, NIDA, you were the ones (way back in 1995) who published the following true statement:
“Researchers have long recognized the strong correlation between stress and substance abuse…” [emphasis mine]
Two decades later (and billions, if not over a trillion, of taxpayer dollars doing absolutely nothing against drug abuse by any concrete measure), is it finally time to ‘confess your terrible sin’ (scientifically speaking) and make amends by promoting a ‘war’ (actually a mature educational and actual scientific approach) on unhealthy stress?
At least for the sake of the millions (if not billions) of non-violent (so actually innocent) Americans victimized by the perpetual war on some drugs (for several decades and counting), I hope so — and am doing my part to ensure the public righteously understands the distinction between use and abuse (involving drugs, and among all other abusable acts — law).
I apologize for the negative (so at least arguably unhelpful) tone here, but the mass suffering combined with the unbearably obvious evil (war on some drugs) continuing to fuel that suffering with no end in sight leaves me highly agitated (to put it mildly).
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