Since the discussion has gone on for several posts regarding the ruination of people’s lives over a fucking prescription, I hope no one will mind if I weigh in with my opinion on the matter. It is a sad commentary on our society, and I believe that future man will look back on the War on Americans I Mean Drugs in much the same way that we, today, look at the witch-hunt era.
What about avoision?
God, I hope you are 100% correct. I keep thinking someday we will wake up, but I am not sure the country ever will.
Jim
Indeed. Even some of the authors who are pretty much unanimously vilified by the SDMB, and who are considered little more than Bush’s lackeys agree.
From the Author’s Notes of Michael Crichton’s most recent novel, Next:
Hello All,
After reading your comments, I have decided to rephrase my original post on common things that can get you a positive drug test. I will pass it to a moderator, most likely Xash, before posting it.
In response to the last few posts about the current state of the War on Drugs being a witch hunt, I partly agree with you guys. Although drug testing and the judicial process in sports is practically a witch hunt, I don’t hold the same view for drug use outside of the world of sport. This is because I haven’t heard of many cases of the police doing drugs busts without supporting evidence or the proper judicial process.
If you guys are familiar with what happened in Operacion Puerto in the cycling world last year, you will understand why I say the War on Drugs in sports is a witch hunt. Essentially, early last year many top athletes in the cycling world were banned from competing in top events, notably the Tour de France. This was all based on a sting conducted by the Spanish police called Operacion Puerto. Word was leaked to the press that the Spanish police had bags of blood from many athletes and would be sending damning evidence to the national cycling federations that explicitly showed drug use by many top cyclists. Without so much as seeing this evidence or even a hearing by the cycling federations, cyclists like Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Allan Davis, and others were immediately banned from competition. This was the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in cycling. The only way it could have gotten any bigger was if Lance Armstrong was named.
Fast forward six months and the cycling federations have not even read the damning evidence they were suppose to receive from the Spanish police. Even worse, a Spanish judge ruled that the evidence from the police could not be used to prosecute anybody until he cleared up exactly what is going on and who is actually implicated. Meanwhile, many of the cyclists that were initially banned from competition were found to be innocent by their respective federations because there wasn’t any evidence against them to begin with. This meant that there were some innocent riders who missed out on a half year of competition all because of “evidence” leaked to the press. Allan Davis even volunteered to submit himself for DNA testing to clear his name but nobody took him up on his offer.
Although at times, the War on Drugs may appear to be farcical, I still don’t support the idea that banning drugs is a bad or unworkable idea. In the world of sport, the most important thing that needs to be done is to rework the judicial process. In the rest of the world, there needs to be an understanding that illegal drug use leads to crime, violence, and a degradation of the health of the people. What kind of world would it be if everyone was high on heroine?
You make good points, but only a small portion of humanity would throw their lives away on Heroin. Meanwhile why are so many lives being ruined over innocuous drugs like pot, acid and shrooms. By ruined, I mean the thousands that have been sent to jail for possession. The thousands that have been killed in the illegal drug distribution. The billions of Dollars the US has wasted on drug enforcement. A perpetually losing battle that just causes many young people* to scoff at laws and law enforcement agents.
Jim {I do not use illegal drugs, I do not smoke and I drink only lightly}
- and these days many middle age and old people.