Free Yourself
I had this thought, what if, in the future, physical prisons were abolished and replaced with mental ones. You commit a crime and are sentenced. In the physical realm, you're tied to a machine and released in a matter of minutes, but as far as you're concerned you were just locked away and "rehabilitated for the past 5 years in a program designed to hunt down and chase the demons that led you to kill in the first place.
Do you think the designers would populate it with other prisoners like an online game who were being sentenced at the same time, sharing a dream world inception style or would they concentrate on helping you garden your mental faculties to find the root of your problem?
What would this do for our ever increasing criminal population. Only adding mileage to the mind as opposed to the body rotting away behind prison bars, worrying about soap and shanks. Do you think this would encourage a disregard for punishment or would it depend on the effectiveness of the program? Since prisons wouldn't be getting paid to baby sit, now the bidders would go after the highest turn over rate from criminal to productive citizen and still have their human life to exercise and change the world into a brighter image.
Of course the government would abuse such technology should it ever become available. Make perfectly trained soldiers in a matter of minutes. Torture a man for years within the time it takes to blink an eye. Fucken sad don't you think?
Do you believe the people in charge right now really have our best interest? Let's take a vote. If this was available, do you think the government would A) Use it to rehabilitate the criminal population B) Use it to make soldiers torture enemies C) Only allow CEO's to use it when they Enron a bitch or D) All the above but A.
Survey says we'll continue to take the D end of the stick until our A's pull together and make a change G. Washington style. It's not the brits this time, enemies are a little more domestic these days and everything that makes our country great is what the upper management wants to take away. It you believe in a Higher power give it a reason to believe in you.
-DCR
Opium In America
The hottest new craze that is taking the lives of millions of people is a street drug, which in some forms is generally accepted by society.
Opium, a key ingredient in the well-known street drug Heroin, is more accessible than you think. In fact, it is sold out of government-approved pharmacies by the million daily! This “medication” is nothing more than a street drug taking over the lives of many people in America and across the world. It’s very easy to get this drug. Getting “caught up” in the drug world is going to keep the addiction cycle going, change your appearance, and change how people see or think of you. With a low success rate for recovery, the outcome for people with addiction may be rehab, jail, or even life threatening. The idea of addiction is still one that is foreign and hard to understand by many people. It is a real thing though, and possibly one of the strongest, and hardest addictions to cut is the one that is taking over the country today, Opium.
It is very easy for young teens and adolescents to access these drugs. Teens are known to “raid” medicine cabinets and take their parents or grand parents prescriptions. If this becomes a trend an addiction can form very quickly.
Opiates such as Vicodin and Percocet are prescribed to people daily. People with addictions may find several different routes for ingestion.
The first one, obviously, is popping pills. This is a method for people who aren’t too deep into the addiction, yet are somewhat reliant on the drug.
The next step up is snorting, or inhaling. Crushed up painkillers that are snorted through the consumers nose for quicker and stronger effect. Someone that snorts pain killers may be gradually getting more addicted to opiates and popping pills wasn’t working anymore.
The next method is the most dangerous, expensive, and life-threatening way of ingesting opiates without completely switching to Heroin, smoking it. There is a certain way to smoke opiate-based prescription pills. First off, you have to have the right type, which is Roxicodone. Roxicodone, or the street term for it “roxy,” is a 20 mg pill that has no wax coating. The increase in dosage makes this habit more expensive, which can lead to theft and other criminal behavior, we will get into that later. The wax coating that is found on many other prescription pills makes it almost impossible to smoke the pill. Roxy however, does not have that coating, making it virtually effortless to put the pill on tin foil, add heat, and ingest the fumes. This method is the most addictive and unhealthy way of taking opiates. The smell of the burning pill is horrible, the crowd that comes around to smoke it is shady and untrustworthy, and the effect it has on adamant users is life changing if not life threatening.
Now, remember how I said that smoking pills is the more expensive method of ingestion? The 20 mg Roxies are a 400% increase in dosage from the normally prescribed 5 mg pills. Anyone who is an avid 5 mg Percocet pill popper with that exact tolerance would only need to take a quarter of the Roxy to get the same effect, or high. However, those people are not who I’m referring to. Who I’m talking about is someone who has been popping pills or snorting pills for so long that maybe they’ve began popping or snorting more than one for a while now and it’s just not doing it for them. They aren’t as high as desired and are looking for a new outlet to get on the level they are addicted to, somewhat deeply addicted at this point. So what happens? Well, here’s my story:
I was living in an apartment with two of my best friends in Broomfield. We were loving it! I had the master bedroom, of course. They made their slightly smaller rooms and shared bathroom work. We were partying all the time, drinkin, maybe experimenting here and there, whatever! A couple of months roll by, still partyin, still having fun! Yeah, one of my room mates used to steal his grandpa’s pain killers from his medicine cabinet, we will call him Joe. Joe’s grandpa passed away about 2 years before we moved in to this apartment together; yeah, he occasionally found a dealer in the area to get him a fix here and there. At this point in time he was snorting it. He started off popping it when he first discovered his grandpa’s very large collection of prescription pills, including morphine and Percocet, but time passed, he was snorting them, and I didn’t think too much of it at the time. We all have our problems right? Until one day, Joe’s “good friend,” Taylor, that Joe used to snort and pop pills with came over to the apartment. He said, “check this out.” Joe, myself, our other roommate Devin, and 2 more of my best friends were on the couch watching Jay and Silent Bob. I think it was a Sunday, we all partied at the apt. the night before and were way too hung over to do anything but watch movies. Anyways, Taylor pulled out a bag with about 5 roxies in it. He said, “look what I just bought, Joe, you gotta try it.” He also convinced my 3 other best friends, that it would kill their hang over. I said “hell no” and went to my room. They all sat around the kitchen table, smoked a pill (which I might add smells HORRIBLE, like burnt cotton candy and tar), they got high as a kite, and were HOOKED ever since.
Last, but not least, is Heroin. According to John Wiley and Sons, Inc., “When their supply of prescription opioids dries up, or becomes too costly, some addicts are turning to heroin in a phenomenon which is as yet unstudied but increasingly reported by local law enforcement anecdotally from across the country.” (Wiley, 3).
Basically what he is saying, is that Heroin, the opium based street drug that has been around since mid evil china and Russia, is more accessible and cheaper than prescription painkillers. Sure, the name is enough to scare some people away from the idea, but there is the other population that is willing to try at least smoking Heroin to get the feeling they have become very strongly addicted to at this point.
As said by Dr. Elinore F. McCance-Katz, “Opioid abuse and dependence is a problem of growing concern in the United States. Heroin was cited as the leading illicit drug among substance abuse treatment admissions in the year 2000. Of 1.6 million substance abuse treatment admissions, 15% reported heroin as the drug of choice. Heroin is increasing in purity, and the forms available in the United States are highly potent and addictive. Heroin addiction is an increasing problem among young people as well. The proportion of new heroin users entering substance abuse treatment who were younger than 25 years old increased from 30% to 41% between 1992 and 2000.” (McCance-Katz 321)
DRUG WORLD
Opiate use is reportedly becoming an issue among our nation at rapid speeds. People are getting addicted through the easy access pharmacies and street dealers have provided with them. It isn’t long before the addiction takes over and the idea of graduating to Heroin comes in to play. However, moving up to heroin involves more than just the desire to do so. It requires people to have the inside connect with in the drug world.
Joe discovered Heroin about a year and a half after he smoked his first Roxy. He knew a lot of street dealers, and definitely a lot of users. He quickly became acquainted with the idea of stealing if he was not able to afford his very expensive habit. His physical appearance was changing. He got skinny, his bone structure in his face looked like it was literally deteriorating or melting, and he was constantly scratching his back (like so). With all these significant signs of addiction, you can imagine that Joe’s old straight edge friends, including myself, limited if not completely cut off contact with Joe. He was upset yeah, but even more concerned about feeding his addiction. So he continued to lie and steal for a drug that has taken over his life and initiated him into the drug world.
The outcome for a lot of addicts may be rehab. Rehab may be court ordered, persuaded by loved ones, or voluntary. The success rate for recovery to opiate addiction is very very low. Joe, for example, has been in and out of rehab 3 times since his addiction took over. One of those times, it was funded by his family. Costing thousands of dollars and even more tear shed, Joe did not complete rehab successfully.
According to Sherbaum and Shecka, “Comparisons between treatment-seeking opiate addicts and those not seeking treatment has revealed similarities with respect to age, use patterns, length of heroin use, legal problems, and lifetime psychiatric symptoms.” (Scherbaum & Shecka, S41). They are reiterating the fact that a lot of factors come into play when seeking treatment, meaning that there are a lot of factors to work around for success, decreasing success rate in recovery for this specific drug.
Jail is another option for addicts. Being involved in the drug world, theft is a very common act for these people to ensure they can buy their drugs. Even just possession of 1 single unit of a prescription drug that is not prescribed to you is a felony. Possession of more than one, is an additional felony for distribution. It is very risky business being involved in the drug world or drug trade. Most people wind up in rehab or jail because they were caught slipping or someone might have anonymously informed someone of their spiraling downfall.
Lastly, death is definitely a potential outcome for a lot of these users. Whether it’s an overdose, a faulty batch, or the most traumatizing way of death, suicide.
So let’s say you have a very strong addiction, you lost your friends because they don’t want to be around you, and you can’t help it because rehab was unsuccessful. Suicidal Ideation may cross your mind from time to time, and being as high and upset as you are, you might just go through with it. This scenario is exactly what happened to my friend Joe. And I hope it never happens to someone you care about.
Opiates can be found in virtually any painkiller prescribed by pharmacies. People who take these painkillers at moderate doses for legitimate reasons should be cautious as to how accessible they are making it for other people. It could be the leading cause for a person to build an addiction, get initiated into the drug world, wind up in jail or rehab, and possibly even take the life of that person you care about. I warn and advise everyone to stay away from prescription drugs and to try to help the people who have already formed a habit and are somewhere along the line of addiction.
-Zach Landis
September 27, 2013
The Sparrow Sonnet
Silently struggling between earth and sky,
She focused on a cerulean world
Analyzing it with her studious eye,
A wind flower in her hair was whirled.
Melancholy seeped through the mask
Abandoning the philosophy of society
Her smile blossomed like the pasque
Her flight broke all bounds of piety.
Secretly remaining the crippled bird,
She suffered the cruelty of oppression
Her silence spoke a single word,
Flight to freedom was her confession.
Breaking the strains of depravity,
The sparrow sang her defiance against gravity.
-Seraphine The Poet
Marijuana, not medicine?
Federal Government Supplies Own Patients but Prosecutes State Approved Patients
Marijuana is currently classified as a Schedule I narcotic under federal law. What constitutes classifying a drug as a Schedule I narcotic? The federal government follows guidelines that were established in the Substance Control Act of 1970. (Bloom) What are these guidelines? The Cornell University of law cites the Substance Control Act of 1970 and provides this definition for a Schedule I narcotic, “(A) the drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.” (Cornell University Law School) This category includes other drugs like heroin, LSD, meth and its derivatives along with many other drugs that are known to produce serious side effects. The Substance Control Act of 1970 not only lists narcotics based on their various harmful qualities, but also gives the legal framework for punishing those who possess these illegal substances. Under federal law, it is illegal to possess these substances unless it is for medical research or they have been found to already possess qualitative medical value and have been prescribed to treat a medical ailment. This reasoning exempts all of the substances found on the list of Schedule I narcotics because as the definition above shows, a Schedule I narcotic possesses no accepted medical value. The problem with this is that the federal government currently supplies four patients with 25.5 pounds of medical marijuana a year directly negating their own law. (ProCon.org) From 1996 to 2010, 13 states have passed legislation allowing the use of marijuana as medicine for treatment of many different serious ailments. (Bloom) In 1997, the federal government began to seek out state approved medical marijuana providers and their patients and prosecute them under federal law for being involved in the distribution and possession of a Schedule I narcotic. (Americans for Safe Access) This would suggest that the federal government views marijuana as medicine when it prescribes the narcotic to patients but not when state governments do the same thing for their citizens. This poses the ethical question of how the federal government expects state governments to follow a law that they do not follow and a moral question of when compassionate care should be provided to those suffering from severe illnesses.
How is it possible that the federal government can insist that it has no medical value and then allow four people to use and possess marijuana? The federal government circumvented their own law in 1976 by initiating the Investigational New Drug compassionate access research program allowing patients suffering from severe illnesses to obtain up to nine pounds of marijuana a year. (Americans for Safe Access) Since it’s initiation, in 1976, the federal government allowed ten Americans to receive medical marijuana for ailments including glaucoma, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and two rare diseases multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses and nail patella syndrome. (ProCon.org) The federal government has failed to provide any reasoning why the patients who suffer from these ailments deserve medicinal marijuana more than state approved patients who suffer from the same ailments. The Investigational New Drug program was discontinued in 1991 after receiving an enormous influx of requests from patients diagnosed with HIV and AIDS who also sought legal exemption to use marijuana as medicine because it was seen as a violation of federal prohibition. (Americans for Safe Access) Instead of admitting the medicinal qualities that had been exhibited for the past fifteen years the federal government chose to end a successful program. You would then logically assume that they would stop providing medical marijuana to the patients that participated in the program but they didn’t. Why? The only reasonable explanation is that the patients were receiving some kind of beneficial side effect that the federal government couldn’t morally justify cancelling the patient’s treatment. Surely, there are more than ten people in the United States that suffer from some of the same ailments as those that participated in the federal program. States took notice of this and felt that the same compassion should be extended to their residents suffering from these ailments in their states.
The citizens of many states mobilized and utilized the democratic process voting for state legislation that provided for the use of medical marijuana. The first and probably the most famous state that did this was California which passed PROP 215 in 1996. (Bloom) Taking a cue from California, New Mexico became one of the states that allows for medical use of marijuana by passing SB523, in 2007. (New Mexico State Senate) When the Substance Control Act was passed in the 70’s the states adopted its format and applied it as state law. This meant that they followed the schedule classifications for narcotics that were contained in it. After the states ratified medical marijuana legislation, they went back and amended their laws declassifying marijuana from a Schedule I narcotic when it was possessed by persons who were legally registered to use it for medicinal purposes. (New Mexico State Senate) States initially registered patients for medicinal marijuana based on severe illnesses but as new research emerged they began to broaden the accepted illnesses to include things like debilitating arthritis and post-traumatic stress disorder. (NORML) Things have progressed since 2010 and there are currently 17 states that offer their residents medical marijuana including Washington D.C. (Graves) There are seven more states that have bills on their November ballots to decriminalize medical marijuana. (Dodrill) That means that potentially almost half of the country recognizes that marijuana has some form of medicinal value and that American citizens want it to be used as medicine at the very least. The federal government still wants to deny this as fact even though they are hypocrites and still provide four American citizens with 22.5 pounds of marijuana a year. They refuse to explain why these four citizens are more worthy to receive medicinal marijuana than the rest of the American population.
What can Americans in favor of this reform do to see that compassion is distributed fairly? The answer should be to vote in your state’s election but that doesn’t affect the whole in relation to the population of the United States. The only effects seen are localized to their state and then the federal government steps in and hypocritically says that it is wrong. How can we change the law on a federal level? Voting in your state is definitely the start to the change because it will take a majority of state representatives to get a bill before congress. That same majority will be necessary to pass that bill. We also need to elect a president that understands this issue and will at the very least not intervene and waste federal tax dollars on what should be seen as a state rights issue. President Obama took office and vowed that he would not waste tax dollars on unnecessary raids and prosecution of state approved medical marijuana providers operating within state law. That has not been the case. He as actually done just the opposite of what he said he would not do. In April of 2012, one of the most popular medical marijuana providers, Oaksterdam University, in Oakland was raided at the expense of American taxpayers. Recently, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, threatened to seize another provider, Harborside, which is regarded as one of the most reputable providers in the country. (Schwartz) What’s the next step? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exercised civil disobedience to protest a law that was unjust. He defined what an unjust law was in his Letter From Birmingham Jail, as quote, “a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding to itself.” (King Jr.) The federal government is definitely a power majority and they believe that marijuana has no qualitative medical value yet it supplies patients that they approved with marijuana for medical treatment. This is completely analogous to what Dr. King wrote. The time to act is now and that is what California residents are doing. On Monday, July 23, 2012, President Obama visited Oakland to raise funds for his campaign and rally supporters. He was met by hundreds of protesters in support of medical marijuana. Shop owners, around Oakland’s City Hall, flew green flags to show support as well. These providers in question paid the federal government taxes on their transactions and contributed to the $100 million dollar tax revenue that California generates from medical marijuana. (Schwartz)
In summation, the federal government currently provides patients that it approved with medicinal marijuana to treat serious illnesses. Some of these illnesses are rare but others are widespread and affect many Americans. Despite the fact that the federal government stopped the program to allow patients exemption from federal prosecution for using a Schedule I narcotic as medicine they still provide the narcotic as medicine. President Obama claimed his administration would be different and allow states to enforce their own laws and regulations but has in fact done the opposite and has allowed his representatives to intervene undermining the powers that states possess. It is unethical to instruct states to do what the federal government says and not what the federal government does. It is immoral to deny the sick a form of effective treatment in the name of being right. When the democratic process fails it becomes time to exercise direct action in the form of civil disobedience. We must ask ourselves is medical marijuana illegal because it is wrong or is it wrong because it is illegal. Dr. King reminds us in his Letter From Birmingham Jail, “that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.” (King Jr.) Apparently, it is illegal to aid and comfort a sick person in our America unless the federal government approves it first.
-Phillip Tomlin
Author of Afro-Twigg
Sex Slaves
When asked about slavery most people have a point of view based on the American slave trade up to the Emancipation Proclamation some 150 years or so ago.
Like most people, my point of view (when I was somewhat of a yob in the UK) of slavery was limited to showings of ‘Roots’ on the T.V. I was woefully ignorant to many things including slavery.
Modern slavery is alive and well.
Let’s take the shining monument to Freedom and Democracy, the good old USA as an example.
There are an estimated 293,000 girls (from FBI statistics ) from the USA who are currently (figures as of October 2012) in the human trafficking/ slave trading system. That is just the USA!
Most of these girls are between the ages of 12-14, they are primarily bought and sold for sex/ prostitution. These girls are runaways, come from a broken home which is abusive or even more commonly they come from the foster care system.
An even more shocking statistic is that human trafficking is more lucrative than drug trafficking. The venerable United States government spends three hundred (300) times the amount on trying to stop illegal drugs than it does on trying to protect some of societies most vulnerable.
Which group of fucktards thought of that stroke of genius?
Part of the reason is the social stigmas attached to the sex trade regardless of who the victims are. The girls are ‘whores’ no matter their personal backgrounds. The sex slave markets out here are the same as they are in countries such as India, Cambodia, Africa etc. So what makes us any better?
American exceptionalism and capitalism at it’s finest.
-TDB.
XX
I feel like the more I turn up my headphones I can drown all the bullshit out. I am sure this is how most of us feel. A real dope poet, One Truth—Thomas Parish, performed a poem about escapism at the 806 in 2008. I don’t remember what it’s called but—I have never felt more understood and connected to someone else’s words put together than that day. He spoke of times of Pharaoh’s, warriors, poets, transcendence of souls that most people do not care to conceptualize or ponder upon. Sometimes I think that magical thinking has its purposes, but the separation of meaning that we possess from out of this world feeling is another thing. I feel my best when I cut of the extra chatter, still my mind—and focus. Shutting others out is the last thing that I want to do, so I socialize. How come we become so possessive of one another—like—why is the illusion of my time apart of yours? I like to get back to myself to collect pieces of me that I feel have gotten lost somewhere in the wreckage.
I can come back to the surface to play and talk about real life things, but I really don’t care to. Human beings are doing things that I am tired of hearing about, and the struggle for power and control of different schools of thought is a joke. They are performing very serious acts, but the illusion of some people’s idea of power and the killing in the name of XYZ is surreal to me most of the time. I don’t know why, but I have some relentless faith in human beings. My hope and positivity is bringing me down because I feel like it is pointless, meaningless, and most of all—not true—and cannot possibly be fulfilled. I have been experiencing an existential crisis and depression since I could write myself out of too much thinking…but—in reality—it is all a form of escapism. We isolate and alienate ourselves from the human qualities that we possess to make up for some—other—part of us that we tend to ‘mask’. I have reached a pinnacle of apathy that is a good place to be. Because now, I can obtain some perspective and choose what matters. By doing this, I can live a life that I want to and that I am truly satisfied with regardless of what I lack control in. Why else do you think that impoverished countries prove to be happier than Americans? We are overstimulated caged animals with higher psychological developments than other primates. I feel out of touch with what it truly means to live the human experience, and my solution is to get in touch with creative side and just express it. I think we all thrive of how we connect and relate to one another. I am starving for the universe to provide me a spark.
Sunny