Prompted by “Just because the court says you can, doesn’t mean you should”: http://www.drugwarrant.com/2015/06/just-because-the-court-says-you-can-doesnt-mean-you-should/
The prompting piece makes a solid point regarding the foolishness of employee drug testing. Memory serving, even the FBI had to loosen its ‘no marijuana’ policy due to recruitment challenges otherwise.
However, there’s one serious problem with drug testing left out of that piece and worth echoing.
People wanting to avoid drug testing problems too often turn to drugs negating a condemning positive.
For prime example, cannabis is negated in favor of synthetic alternatives (e.g. spice — legally sold as potpourri). I never tried any such synthetic (and never will), but published information condemns such synthetics by comparison. For example, from the Wikipedia entry for “Synthetic cannabis”…
Compared to cannabis and its active cannabinoid THC, the adverse effects are often much more severe and can include hypertension, tachycardia, myocardial infarction,[33] agitation, vomiting, hallucinations, psychoses, seizures, convulsions[34] and panic attacks.[35][36][37][38][39] Among individuals who need emergency treatment after using synthetic cannabis, the most common symptoms are accelerated heartbeat, high blood pressure, nausea, blurred vision, hallucination and agitation.[40] Other symptoms included epileptic seizures, acute psychosis, and heart attacks.[40]
At least one death has been linked to overdose of synthetic cannabinoids[41] and in Colorado three deaths in September 2013 have been investigated for being linked to synthetic cannabinoids.[42]
These more severe adverse effects in contrast to use of marijuana are believed to stem from the fact that many of the synthetic cannabinoids are full agonists to the cannabinoid receptors, CB1R and CB2R, compared to THC which is only a partial agonist and thus not able to saturate and activate all of the receptor population no matter of dose and resulting concentration.
A net reduction against public safety, the prohibition mindset is not limited to rerouting demand in cannabis land, but also other questionably illegal drugs.
LSD, according to Dr. Albert Hoffman who accidentally discovered the drug during legitimate pharmaceutical research, is non-toxic (noting the great doctor passed away after exceeding the century mark in age, despite his LSD use). 25I (an LSD alternative), however in accordance with its Wikipedia entry…
Reports of deaths and significant injuries have been attributed to the use of 25I-NBOMe…
As it was for Alcohol Prohibition, leaving the black market to supply drug demand is a serious danger against public safety.
Certain Drug Prohibition not only clearly fails to solidly prove any worth against drug abuse, but that prohibition is also actively destructive. Proponents of that prohibition (while making a lot of money for themselves against public safety) favor criminalizing non-violent people exercising a demand for perception alteration — a demand that has existed for thousands of years, and shows no sign of anything but solid continuance.
There simply is no doubt that Certain Drug Prohibition needs to end, but there are two roads for society to travel.
The one we’re on now drags out this process for several decades, while many millions of good people suffer to varying degrees. It results in highly tortured law by outrageous hypocrisy, so continues to discredit the rule-of-law against national stability. After four such decades, cannabis legality has gained momentum, but a lot of work remains. Any legal support for LSD use (among all other examples) remains absent. By this torturous path, the new generation of perception altering drugs will likely mix in at least from nanotechnology and biocomputing. Moreover, as virtual reality continues improving (a major breakthrough recently occurred), its ability to provide illicit-drug-like experiences will crash into this nightmarish mess.
There is another road — the one reinforcing the original intent of our nation against law abuse — as any good scientific constitutionalist also wants to strongly echo.
The only enemy of corruption is sufficient public exposure.
We can launch a perpetual entertainment/education campaign to sufficiently publicly expose the fact that our Supreme Court illegally redefined the Commerce Clause from “regulate commerce” to ‘regulate any activity having a substantial effect on commerce’, so continuously amply pressure our judicial branch to immediately remedy that outright treason, and by necessity render the Controlled Substances Act illegal (at least in terms of possession, but scientific constitutionalism righteously presses even harder against even the original clause).
We can add the need to restore amendment nine (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”) to its obvious original intent, so end all state and local laws against non-rights-infringing drug use (federal law trumps state and local law).
We can finally also leverage this campaign to powerfully warn parents and their children of the actual risks and rewards of drug use, without vagueness and fear-mongering disastrously provided by the demonstrably failed prohibition mindset. This area starts with pressing against prohibition by way of hindrance against drug users (while allowing tried-and-failed fear-mongering by past drug abusers) credibly providing that education. In other words, get prohibition out of our way, so experienced users (nonetheless unhindered and unbiased scientists) can deliver credible education on the matter without fear of prosecution.
Whatever road “We the people” (and ultimately our international friends) choose to travel, one thing is certainly clear…
Prohibition fails the ultimate drug test (again).
We must pass that test now for the sake of serious public safety for all impacted generations. Yes?
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
Leave a Reply