According to www.thegooddrugsguide.com, the six most addictive substances are: Marijuana, Caffeine, Alcohol, Cocaine, Herion, and Nicotene. Suprisingly enough, half of these substances (Nicotene, Alcohol, and Caffeine) are legal here in the United States. Of those legally sold, they have significant health consequences that are just as bad if not worse than their counterparts also ranked in this top six list of addictive substances. With this in mind, and using the information gathered by the referenced website, I would like to identify how these legal substances will provide more medical attention than the tabooed "illegal substances" that we wage this War on Drugs against. By the way, the war against drugs, is it not interesting how Health Management Organizations (HMOs) also began during this 1968-1971 period...I wonder why they chose the drugs they did to ban and keep legal?
Upon locating this information, I learned that some of the "harmful" effects of Marijuana include: increased appetite, feelings of relaxation, feeling like time has slowed, and low blood pressure. Also, the two remaining banned addictive substances of Cocaine and Heroin, shared the same effects (aside from confidence and pleasure that you feel "high") of aching muscles, back pain, vomitting and diarrhea. Now, lets look at how these compare to their legal counterparts.
Caffeine, such as tea, sodas, and coffee is readily available, to all age groups, at every corner. This substance is linked to insomnia and high blood pressure. Nicotene (available to you once you have turned 18) supplies the user lung cancer, as well as putting non-smokers at risk by the secondhand smoke. Nicotene also is responsible for oral cancers, heart disease, strokes, and emphysema. Finally, on our list of six substances, Alcohol (available to you legally at the age of 21) will damage your liver, pancrease, and can provide heart disease.
This information bothers me and it makes me think, why did we choose the drugs that we did to wage war on? So I looked into when the Drug Wars began and I found the website with an article titled, "Nixon's 'war on drugs' began 40 years ago, and the battle is still raging" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/24/war-on-drugs-40-years)
So, now I know that it was acted upon by President Richard Nixon. I decided to get to know my former president a little better, besides "Watergate", so I looked into his accomplishments during his term. In 1973, President Nixon signed into law the ``Health Maintenance Organization and Resources Development Act,'' which created HMOs, and the deregulated the American health-care system. Are you starting to put the pieces together?
In one term, this administration expertly banned substances with less or equal health side effects than the legally allowed addictive substances such as caffeine, nicotene, and alcohol. We truly thought as Americans that we had accomplished something. We had the false impression that we banned terrible, body damaging substances when in fact we had allowed some of the worst ones to stay legal. While they remained legal, they began taking there toll on our bodies just as they always had, silently and steadily, with our morning cup of coffee to our cigarette breaks. As we developed a biased mindset to which substances were "morally wrong" our HMO's were cashing in on the legal damage that we, to this day, still do to our bodies.
What do we do now? Can we as a nation keep this closed mind on Marijuana and Cocaine like we have for the past 40 years? Should we regulate this substances like we currently do with Alcohol, Caffeine, and Nicotene, therefore collecting the revenue in taxes which could provide an increase in our ability to pull ourselves out of debt? Ultimately, the choice is ours to let our representatives know how we feel and what we want so these true issues can make it to Washington. I am here to just get the word out, because the taboo of this topic does not scare me away from enlightening you.
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