Prompted by “2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health” (PDF): http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-FRR1-2014/NSDUH-FRR1-2014.pdf
That survey annually published by the U.S. government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is apparently the best statistical reporting with respect to illicit drug use. That survey has even been cited by relevant prohibitionists (albeit in a deceitful manner — e.g. falsely claiming the relatively low usage rate is due to prohibition).
Since our Respect Cannabis campaign (leveraging cannabis popularity to grow into the basics of intentional perception alteration itself) focuses upon current illicit drug users, I only focus upon one table called “Past Month Illicit Drug Use among People Aged 12 or Older”, which presses maximally close to current usage in that survey.
There’s an increase in overall usage to 10.2% (roughly up 1% from 2013), despite the highly expensive, destructive, blatantly unconstitutional (“elephant in the room” ignored by everyone else involved in drug policy), and — at least in the case of cannabis, scientifically speaking — unwarranted result I prefer to call Certain Drug Prohibition (a.k.a. the war on some drugs).
No doubt that relevant prohibitionists will abuse this usage increase to justify putting more money in their wallets to continue the obscenely obvious failure that can’t even produce a “drug free” prison system. No doubt that the mainstream media will continue to bypass their journalism code of ethics to ignore sending the powerfully righteous message to the American people regarding the outright scam that is Certain Drug Prohibition.
Heroin use went up from .1% to .2% in 2014, so when you (likely constantly) hear about the heroin epidemic — that .1% increase is apparently what you’re actually hearing about. In a nation with roughly 300,000,000 people, 435,000 of them are heroin users, according to a “Drug Use” survey. If we factor in the dependency rate of heroin from the Institute of Medicine’s dependency rate comparison table in a report commissioned by the prohibitionist White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (23%), and then we basically have 100,000 people dependent on heroin, so can be reasonably classified as heroin abusers.
Don’t get me wrong. Heroin (and any other form of) abuse is worth addressing as a health (not criminal) issue with the assumption that no direct rights infringement (i.e. objectively proven harm) occurred prompting judicial legitimacy.
However, tens of billions of taxpayer dollars are spent annually towards Certain Drug Prohibition grounded entirely in distortions of reason (including the obscenely popular and scientifically baseless ‘use equals abuse’ meme, and the ridiculous ‘alcohol and drugs’ meme upon considering that alcohol is scientifically a drug).
While the drug addiction problem is relatively minimal in destructive terms, literally millions of non-violent people have been (and right now are being) harmed to varying degrees (including deadly ones) by what can only be sanely described as drug prohibition addiction. That’s the true epidemic that comes from powerfully selfish and abusive self-interest groups lying and effectively stealing taxpayer money to get their prohibition fix. That epidemic is exacerbated by a mainstream media looking the other way due to favoritism against public safety, so the mainstream media can get their tragic news fix. The government — especially law enforcement (serious financial beneficiaries from Certain Drug Prohibition forming the vast majority of those groups) — is effectively their dealer, because the government is consistently the sole source of the freshest newsworthy information regarding tragic events, so the mainstream media refuses to righteously bite the hand that feeds (leaving our nation with essentially state-run media, so not an actual free press).
I’ll update that modest usage increase in our Respect Cannabis informational roots, but the likely reason (at least imho) for the 1% increased percentage in overall use comes from an increase in unhealthy stress (the true source of drug abuse, as even essentially confirmed by the prohibitionist U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse statement in a 1995 bulletin — “Researchers have long recognized the strong correlation between stress and substance abuse…”)
Reason abuse (what this issue is actually all about) is wildly out of control, and the damage is monstrous with essentially no sign of care (because way too many people idiotically believe they can get away with leveraging reason abuse, despite mainstream science concluding the contrary). There’s a solution to address that mass mental illness, but it requires honesty, which sadly is treated as pathetic (like a buzzkill at a party). I won’t go into the details here, but our Liberty Shield informational roots provides that honest societal fix (the healthy kind of fix) in the form of scientific constitutionalism.
Meanwhile, without a prohibition, teen alcohol and tobacco use declined, and the only reason that makes sense can be expressed in one word… education.
Education (formal and otherwise — e.g. casual word-of-mouth) is the only right prevention tool against abuse — not law — which (ironically by law) can only be applied after rights infringement has occurred (another nationally fundamental “elephant in the room”).
If people are abusing drugs (including the arbitrarily legal drug called alcohol), that means there’s an educational problem that requires the healthy kind of fix. Responsible entertainers (the best educators) should be leveraging the power of the Internet to find cool and interesting ways (not lame parental finger pointing ways) to get the message out regarding the true risks of any given drug use (nonetheless any other activity — e.g. sports).
Most people (okay, everyone else to the best of my knowledge) tackles problems by taking the current situation and trying to massage it towards their agenda goals. The result is hideous, even despite modest progress usually treated these days as optimally righteous. That’s because the problems are so severe, they’re equal to a house off of its foundation. Doing things to the house (aside from securing it to an actual foundation) obviously has no truly positive impact with respect to the integrity of the house. Such things are equal to kicking the can down the road to the next generations.
As a grounded logician, I work thoroughly to find the fundamental certainty that cannot be undermined by spin, and then grow (and refine) a fully honest logical construct to form an actual societal foundation that (upon popular acceptance) would finally form a metaphorical wall against people abusing reason to form abusive law for their own selfish desires (e.g. Certain Drug Prohibition).
I keep practicing my writing here, while slowly but surely working to bring Respect Cannabis to the public surface for public safety in interesting ways. There are many projects filling up my plate these days (including some interesting audio and video work that I look forward to sharing with you all), but my passion still remains firm with respect to filling in the unfortunately existing serious gaps necessary (despite the enormous challenge) to greatly expedite the public’s understanding towards the firm need to immediately remove Certain Drug Prohibition as the utterly destructive entity it has always (f)actually been.
I keep hoping that I receive constructive feedback from you here, so we can together healthily (including honestly) grow the public force needed to put a firm stop to this blatant law madness from reason madness continuously ruining countless lives.
History demonstrates the only way to take out a powerfully organized force is with gorilla warfare tactics (perhaps combined with another competing powerfully organized force). For example, American revolutionaries relied heavily upon those tactics (that’s even when the sniper role was established), but joining forces with the strong French military towards the end of that revolution greatly helped pushed American independence into actuality.
However, instead of a militaristic revolution (which I prefer to prevent), I’m talking purely about a lawful (and solely honest — no reason abuse necessary) informational campaign using similar tactics and possibly forming powerful alliances with organizations to strongly uproot this outrageously widespread and deep corruption, so instead of the torturous path to repealing Certain Drug Prohibition as the demonstrable abomination it most certainly is, we publicly press fundamentally key points that seriously expedite that repeal to the honest, severe, and lawful humiliation otherwise of anyone standing in the way (corrupt “law” enforcement, “tough on crime” politicians, etc.)
For the sake of us all (including ethical journalists and actual members of our judicial community taking our Constitution seriously to serve and protect the public — not their wallets), there’s much more to come.
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 
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