for 11 MAR 2015 :: Prison Issues :: Legalizing drugs

This seems to be a bad week...  sorry.  I was working on a new listing at my etsy shop and also revising a couple more, and finally renewed one of the revised items.  Slowly, I am building up my "inventory" for income opportunities.  :-)

The topic of Prisons, and all the related issues, hasn't been easy to deal with.  I am writing (again) to one of my sons in an Oregon prison for theft, caused by the demise that drugs produce.

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Back again...it is always hard to deal with the issues that affect you so much.  I haven't found my voice on the prison issues, other than to repeat my ideas about reforming them.  It just does NO good to throw people into prison for any crimes without doing something to change the issues that led them to crime (and prison).

Drugs are the one thing that creates so many of our social problems...and now they are being legalized.  Where will this lead?  Not to anyplace good.  I remember reading how people stop maturing at the age they become involved in drugs (addicted, most likely)...no matter how old they become, as long as they are actively drugging, they never fully mature.  That may be why we keep living the 1960's over and over and over again.

Who is going to benefit when more and more people lose their mental capacities because of their drug use?  Will a handicapped society be easy to control?  Will they cease to fight against the government's rules and regulations?  What happened to all the warnings about short-term memory loss associated with marijuana use?  Will an industry that benefits from your consuming their product really tell you the truth about the damage it causes?  How many of our prison inmates are there because of some form of addiction?

My sons have been affected by the drug culture.  It leads to a whole different group of "friends" who are happy to share with you until you need their drugs more than anything else in the world, or you become more trouble than they can handle. 

Who is able to work when they are "high" on something that affects your brain, your muscles, your heart, your goals, your choices, and your family?  It turns people into something that can't be recognized...and can lead to death, their own or someone else's.

Drugs have never been a step up, only a lot of steps down.  It can be a slow path or a fast slide, but it only leads to the gutter. 

People just "dry out" in jail (sometimes), but they think they are cured... the forced sobriety gives them the idea they can control the drug use the next time around.  Some think they will be able to use a different drug, maybe just alcohol instead of marijuana, prescriptions, or hard drugs. 

All these people fighting so hard to legalize marijuana are users that don't see the damage it does... they just want to use it, like alcohol, to numb their lives for a while.  Are they the ones who should be making this decision? 

It is going to be very hard, if not impossible, to retreat from the damage that has already been done.  I am near my time to leave this world.  I won't have to endure the consequences of this change in attitudes toward drugs... but someone will.   It is like the national debt.  Our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great, great grandchildren.... will pay for our mistakes.