Peter Dimaira Writes; Declaration of Independence from “The War on Drugs”
“The War on Drugs” is not even a War; It is just a description of a series of events derived from the fear based application of Gestapo Tactics onto citizens suffering from their governments ignorance.
To whom it may concern,
Where has it gotten us in the 42 years of fighting? To what avail and for what purpose? The war on drugs hasn’t done anything, but give civil and federal law enforcers the right to use gestapo tactics that only benefit the coffers of the government and do absolutely no justice for what has now been deemed a disease of addiction by the same “powers that be” today. If this
was a “war”; where was the battle plan? If you were a country being attacked by weapons being made by the enemy, would you kill the people with the weapons or kill the weapon maker and all blueprints pertaining to the weapons? Now you may be thinking that I mean finding “the big fish” and leaving all the little fish alone, but even that will not stop the pandemic that is ruining our countries children. I will explain further on, but to give a hint it starts with our children.
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In June 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs, and pending review by a commission he appointed led by Republican Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer. In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its recommendations. Please see the explanation of the “War on Drugs” Here
If you are reading this you may or may not know who Nixon was. I can tell you I was born 10 years after this “War on Drugs” and I know enough to know that most of the things that Nixon did leave behind were some of the poorest decisions made by a president in office. Two examples would be changing the gold standard and this declaration of war without a thought process or a plan laid out for the future generations of leaders for the country, but this in fact seems to be a recurring theme of most if not all wars after WWII.
I bring you to our current day of 2014 and since its inception we have seen a lot of action on the front lines like “The Iran Contra”, “The Cocaine Cowboys Era”, and the most Current “The Heroin Pandemic” which followed the Prescription Epidemic that was started by the Pharmaceutical Companies and Doctors that only cared about the money or were just strait crazy due to whatever illness they may have or had. The bottom line is stopping any of these issues may have paused the underlying problem, but they may never have stopped it. There has been some headway along the way but this took about 20-25 years to actually go into action.
One step we made in the right direction was “The D.A.R.E. Program” and the other was “Drug Court” but it still doesn’t look like they were as affective as they thought. I recall my D.A.R.E. program and I was actually the spokesperson of my class and all I can remember was that I would have the ability to hear colors and see sounds and this is true after trying it out for myself. I found that once I was introduced many years after the program, that I was filled with more intrigue and curiosity than fear of actually using the drugs in the first place. In fact: I don’t think that instilling fear will work to get a child to never pick up that first one because you will most likely get the same result you would when you tell them to stop climbing your couch before they bust there head open. I can tell you in my experience I busted my head opened a few times before I learned to stop climbing all over the couch.
We live in a world today that is filled with fear and not enough consciousness of the reality that a teenager or young adult will most definitely face once having to deal with life without his or hers mommy or daddy holding their hands. Now the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program may have changed since I was first in it, I believe it was started only two years prior to me going through the program, but if they showed me what the reality is of drug addiction and that half of my peers parents were going through active addiction at that time, I may have listened. I was in fourth grade at the time; I think that may have been too young for me to digest half of the things I needed to know for high school or after. I think that Drug Abuse Resistance Education should start at middle school level and carry through to 12th grade. The hellions will rebel and then you will see who you need to help most. As I can recall I just saw the hour with the officer as time to relax and not focus on school, but in today’s day and age with the student’s peers and family members dying from Drug Overdoses and falling down drunk they may be more prone to listening if they aren’t a drug addict or alcoholic already.
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I will leave what should be legal and what shouldn’t be legal for another debate, but the answer I am offering is “Awareness” with a subtitle of “The Raw Hard Truth.” The fact is most of what I was told was true growing up. Most of my friends would be in and out of jail and many of them dead by my mid to late twenties. This is also where I have developed a lot of the inspiration to write this, due to the fact that I have a nephew right at that golden age of development and my biggest fear is that he will grow up blind like I was.
Today I reflect and I see nothing but regrets and sorrow for fallen friends from one end of the spectrum to another. I have gone to private school and public school and none of which waged a big difference in combatting the inevitable drug and alcohol introduction made into a person’s everyday life either using or passing it by. The fact is it’s their and it is unavoidable no matter how big the bust was last week where the local police want to look like hero’s, there is always another one ready to take the priors spot and they become smarter and smarter. So then the question becomes what can we do?
First you need to understand your enemy and the enemy to everyone’s shock is not the drug, but the cause for the effect. What I am meaning is what causes people to start using drugs in the first place? There are many answers and not one is better or worse than the other. For some it could be social preference or standing, it could be what your parents did or do, or it could be that you haven’t been provided with the right direction to head in the first place and decided to follow rather than lead due to a lack of knowing better. It’s up to the “Role Models” of children to leave that everlasting “Positive” impression so they can develop a goal to shoot for based on their more positive influence in their early lives. Lets be real most these kids parents wont ever have the ability to give them the positive influence to shoot for due to their own demons and shortcomings, but as teachers, policeman, and the like you have the ability to be a positive 3rd party influence on their lives with the hope of touching their heart just enough so that they mold a positive idea of what the possibilities are for their future aside from combatting the idea that they ever have to be like mom or dad, if mom or dad do not have the capability of being positive role models in the first place
I can tell you after going down the wrong path for many years and changing my ways to the best of my ability, my problem was not the drugs, but a problem within myself. I was broken from a young age and didn’t have the raw hard facts with the evidence placed in front of my face. What I could have used was awareness; my parents should have been trained to be aware and to aid me to be aware of the dangers of drug use and its effects on my future. Parent’s this is not something that comes with one “birds and bee’s” speech, but several conversations throughout the years. A detailed plan should have been put into place, and positive expectations of myself and my growth should have been made clear to me as a child. Once the seed had been planted for me to set goals for myself, it should have been made clear that I will never achieve them hanging out with the other kids who have not had these values instilled in them, or have already started using drugs on a regular basis.
The “Key” thing to remember here is awareness through non forceful though process integration. Teaching children to develop goals for themselves and working towards achieving them builds self-confidence within themselves and further pushing away the need for external gratification from peers who’s opinions would never matter if they were not self-conscious in the first place. The parents are failing and the entire structure is failing as a whole. I have watch as the astute and wealthy have had their children ripped away from them by death, because they failed to heed the warning that drug addiction is a disease. Please see my explanation on drug addiction here. It’s a completely different spin from most others and it fits right in-between the though process of the clinical and the “why can’t you just stop” way of thinking.
There is much more to read, but you will have to read it HERE
