Lee's Blog

Drugs - enlightening, fun, addictive and illegal

Thought this would appropriate to post on 4/20.

Last week I moderated a panel at the Conference on World Affairs on drugs. The title was Drugs: enlightening, illegal, fun and addictive. I had about 15 extremely interesting topics to choose from, and I usually moderate panels on immigration, but I wanted to mix it up this year and the title captivated me because I’ve known people who’ve had good experiences with them and others who’ve had very bad experiences.

The first speaker was Dr. Glenn Treisman, who is world-renown for his work with HIV and an expert on addiction. He explained how and why people get addicted. He basically said that any of us could become addicts given the right circumstances. He mentioned a study where there was a rat that was heavily addicted to cocaine. They left the rat in a gym inside the cage with cocaine, but they opened the cage to see if it would leave or stay near the supply of drugs. The rat left the cage and never returned.

He explained the difference between a real coffee addict and people who claim to be coffee addicts. He mentioned how 1 in 20 to 40 people become addicted to marijuana, 1 in 8 to heroine, and 1 in 3 to cocaine. I thought about the meth commercials they have, where they powerfully and graphically portray meth as a really bad thing that will ruin your life. Someone told me that while those commercials may discourage people from trying meth in the first place, they may actually encourage meth addicts to use because they show meth in the commercial, and physically seeing it on the TV, even in a negative light, stimulates craving.

He talked about a patient to whom he once prescribed pain killers. He warned her of the addictive nature, and when she came to him and claimed that she had lost a bottle of pills, he immediately knew that she became addicted and had to work with her on a plan to overcome it. I discussed with him the importance of doctors sufficiently forewarning patients about the addictive qualities of drugs they prescribe. He talked about how we are so quick to try to eliminate pain, but that sometimes temporary pain, as long as it’s not too severe, may be a better alternative.

He discussed how addicts always relapse at least once, because they always think they have their addiction under control and can have just a little bit, but true addicts can’t use in moderation.

Sanho Tree talked about the policy aspect, and how the war on drugs has put way too many non-violent offenders in prison. The cost to treat an addict is around $7-8K, while the cost to incarcerate them is way more. The prohibition of drugs keeps costs up and high profits for the drug dealers. He mentioned how prices of opium soared when the Taliban made it illegal for people to grow it in their backyards. Who profited when the prices soared? The Taliban.

They argued a bit about which drugs should be legal, but they all concurred that at least marijuana should be legal. They also agreed that we should invest more in treatment than incarceration.

Opportunities for good kids

Just got back from a great dance class with some live drumming, which I hope happens again soon.  Tomorrow I give a presentation on the "Faces of Dancing", in a format where I have 20 seconds for 20 slides, and all my slides are great shots of peoples' faces while dancing. 

I usually don't get political, at least not on my blog, but the issue of higher education for undocumented youth (the Dream Act) is simply a no-brainer that Republicans and some Democrats continue to shoot down.  Why prevent innocent kids from furthering their education?  These kids aren’t going back to their native country, nor do many of them even know their native country because they were so young when they moved here. 

I'd rather they go to school after high school instead of putting up walls and saying good luck with life without higher education.  I've heard some of them speak and it's heartbreaking to hear that they've worked so hard and done so well, but they can't achieve their dream of being the first person in their family to go to college because they don't have a number.  These walls around education isn’t good for our long-term progress and it limits the number of people who can do great things for our country. 

I don't buy what's pretty much the only argument against these initiatives that it'd encourage more illegal immigration.  I don't think throngs of people would come here now if this passed given the increased violence along the border and the harsher atmosphere and laws around immigration.  More people are getting deported (sometime they're own fault because they break laws, but sometimes for very minor offenses).  A majority of the U.S. supported the Dream Act, but they weren’t listened to.

ASSET is Colorado's local initiative to grant in-state tuition that is currently being discussed in the legislature, and you can read about specifics and ways to help at HEAA's website here.

Educate yourself more about this (including argumenrs from the other side too) and talk about it with your friends.  Like many other issues which I feel are no-brainers like permitting gay marriage, it's just a matter of time before the Dream Act passes, but it's going to take more people telling their stories and more people sharing these stories with folks who need to hear them. 

While I'm on the topic of immigration, I want to address the unbelievable anti-Muslim sentiment from so many people.  Yes it’s great to fight terrorism, but we need to recognize the fact that not everyone from any one religion or race is bad.  Not everyone who wears a head scarf is a suicide bomber. 

We need to be able to expect all humans to stop hating certain groups of people now.  They can hate members of those groupswho are doing bad things, but don't hate the whole group.  That’s just stupid.  There are people out there who would hate me without knowing me because I’m Jewish.  There are people who hate you because you are American, or black , or Mexican, or whatever you are. Shouldn't that change now?

Let's end on a happy note.  I'm planning to go to Peru in a month for Vicky's wedding.  Vicky worked with Intercambio for 4 years for those who don't know her.  As part of my performance evaluation from Intercambio's Board of Directors (who are essentially my bosses) they wanted to force me to take a vacation.  I guess they're right.  Now I need some sleep, so goodnight and thanks for reading!   

Can't stop thinking about immigration

There was an article today about a law that fingerprints and essentially deports undocumented immigrants who are convicted of crimes.  I am a radical pro-immigrant, but I think the concept of enforcing the law when it comes to serious criminals is good.  There are a lot of immigrants here, and we should keep the ones who follow the rules and send back those who don't.  We can afford to have high standards and be picky since so many people want to be here.  It's not that hard to follow laws and avoid committing serious crimes.

The ones who break serious laws ruin it for those who are here to help themselves and the community.  I've seen undocumented immigrants break laws such as drinking and driving and become separated from their children.  They need to understand the potential consequences and avoid drinking and driving.  Period.  Granted it seems like there are glitches in the fingerprint system, but glitches aside the concept is okay as long as it is really targeting serious criminals.  Let's start with them before focusing on people at random and minor traffic violators like AZ will start doing. 

Deciding to all of the sudden enforce a law that will deport illegals at random is inhumane.   We can't turn a blind eye and essentially ignore the law for so long for whatever reason, allow people to establish their lives and their families here, and then start random deportations.  We need to give those people here who have clean records documents so they can be above the radar, do things like get a driver's license legally including passing the driving test (which most of them would love to be able to do legally), start businesses, buy homes, and stop living in fear.  At the same time we grant amnesty we should temporarily close the borders until we figure out reasonable long-term solutions and strategies.  If the undocumented people here could travel freely back to Mexico or wherever it would alleviate some of the pressure to try to bring other family members here because at least they'd be able to see them. 

We also need the e-verify system to start working well and make finding jobs impossible for people who come in illegally following the amnesty.  We should have enough labor (not including the visas for people coming here with special skills) with the people already here.  We don't need a fence if we just provide documentation for everyone here who is following the laws, implement a good e-verify system, and increase penalties for employers who hire under the table to avoid paying taxes.  I don't understand what's so hard about this and why it's taking years to figure out.  Hurry it up already House, Senate and Obama.  Thanks :) 

Scary times

A lot has happened in the last 2 months.  Politically, the economy tanked and we had a monumental presidential election.  The global reaction to the election of Obama has been extremely positive, and it was amazing to witness the election at my house with a bunch of Latino friends who recognize that they have something in common with Obama.  Other countries have increased their faith in our country, not just because a majority of people were able to look beyond Obama's skin color, but because he is intelligent and he realizes that we need to communicate with other world leaders if we want to improve foreign relations. I'm excited to travel outside the country and the for the first time in a while feel proud to be American.

So now Obama has a tough job.  I just read that in November over 500,000 jobs were lost.  In addition to reading about loss of jobs, I've talked to lots of people who are at companies that are laying off people.  Where are all these jobless folks going to work?  Are people going to downgrade from middle-class jobs to lower-class ones?  I don't think so, but what other options are out there?  Most companies that are going through layoffs aren't in a position to hire.  And it's not exactly an easy time to start up a new business, so we won't see a lot of new jobs popping up other than federal efforts to reconstruct our roads, schools and to make things more energy efficient.  That is one solution that will help, but it will still leave many people unemployed, needing to cut down their expenses, which trickles down to industries at every level.  So unfortunately I think the economy looks bleak.  I hope I'm wrong, but I just don't see how it's going to start rebounding within the next 5 years or less.  I'm very curious to see what happens.

At Intercambio we just sent out our year-end appeal, which usually brings in a good chunk of our annual revenue from individuals.  This will be indicative of the impact on us.  Some nonprofits will thrive because they truly need it immediately, such as shelters and food banks.  But how will nonprofits that provide more sustainable, long-term services like Intercambio fare?  We've already had one major foundation freeze their funding for everyone (a $30K grant to us) and another small foundation cease their funding of us because of a shrinking portfolio.  However, some individuals are recognizing that now is the time to be as generous as possible. 

What will happen with immigration?  Now would be a great time to implement an amnesty and collect money from the millions of undocumented immigrants who would be more than happy to pay fines of a couple thousand dollars in order to receive documents.  That could provide tens of billions of dollars during a time of need.  Should that money go to bail out companies that pay their CEO's $40M a year?  That's a whole other question, and that kind of crap needs to change soon.  Our social security system might be hurt by an amnesty though because now many immigrants are paying into SS and never receiving a dime because they're working under a different name or #.  We'd have to actually pay them this money that they earned.  But more importantly it seems that the government just hasn't figured out the logistics for how an amnesty would actually work and set forth reasonable quotas for the future.  I hope Obama and McCain work together to make something happen soon, because this is one issue where McCain actually has good ideas.  Or at least he did a few years ago when the McCain-Kennedy bill was proposed. 

I'll keep doing my part and just wait and see what happens.