In the early 1900s, liquor flowed freely in restaurants and bars. Americans could walk into any pharmacy and purchase a gram of pure cocaine for 25 cents because it was prescribed as relief from hemorrhoids, toothaches, and indigestion. Companies began to mix cocaine in their soft drink and wine products, and, according to MentalFloss.com, there were even cocaine-laden cigars for sale. Meanwhile, liquid opium was used for everything from coughs to sleeplessness. And by 1906, the AMA approved heroin for general medical use. It was a time when government treated adults like adults, and took a laissez faire approach when it came to social mores.
All that changed in 1920. That’s when Congress passed the 18th Amendment, making the sale and possession of alcohol a federal crime. Bans on drugs soon followed. Prohibition lasted for 13 disastrous years, during which time organized crime controlled the manufacture and distribution of whiskey and narcotics, and America was introduced to automatic weapons, drive-by shootings, car bombings, and assorted murderous mayhem. Bodies were piling up, yet newly banned substances were readily available in back alleys and speakeasies. Prohibition was an abject failure and caused thousands of collateral deaths. Congress ended Prohibition in 1933 with passage of the 21st Amendment, but legislated temperance would continue to rear its ugly head from time to time, including next month.
On October 1st, the Federal government will reclassify oxycodone as a Schedule II narcotic, making it more difficult for people in pain to get relief. This comes on the heels of other boneheaded decisions, like North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper’s war on Sudafed, which treats sinus sufferers like meth dealers.
It seems that since the dawn of the 21st century, we’ve been living in an era of “Prohibition 2.0”. Remember New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on super-sized soft drinks? Or how about the increasing list of foods that are disappearing from schools, including potato chips and brownies in favor of such delights as gluten-free lemon bars. Then there’s the aforementioned war on sinus medicines, and now the reclassification of oxycodone.
All of these initiatives have one thing in common: politics. For example, elected officials know they’re losing the war against drug lords, so they pass laws that punish and imprison innocent people, just so they’ll look like they’re doing something.
Meanwhile, one group is actually offering substantive solutions. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is comprised of 21 former world leaders, and last week they met in New York City to discuss their new report, which calls for a complete overhaul of drug policies around the world. Their recommendations include legalizing and regulating illicit drugs like marijuana. They also call for every nation to ensure equitable access to essential medicines, in particular opiate-based meds for pain, such as oxycodone. GCDP wants us to offer treatment instead of incarceration for non-violent offenders, and to stop criminalizing the use and possession of recreational drugs.
The GCDP recognizes that the war on drugs has failed and it’s time for the Obama administration to heed that organization’s proposals. Instead, our current President and his predecessors have made the United States the world’s leading jailer, with today’s prison population totaling over 2 million, 50 percent of which are locked up for non-violent, drug-related crimes.
Treatment isn’t just the right moral policy, it’s also the right economic policy. According to the Justice Policy Institute, treatment of a drug user costs taxpayers $20,000 less each year than incarceration. Moreover, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy reports that we save communities $18 for every one dollar spent for treatment.
The FDA claims that reclassifying oxycodone will cut down on deaths caused by overdose, but whom are they kidding? Just as alcoholics were able to obtain spirits during Prohibition, anyone wanting to purchase pain pills will still be able to do so in whatever quantities they can afford. Meanwhile drug-related street violence will only escalate. And then there’s the hypocrisy of it all. People die from alcohol and tobacco use every day. They commit vehicular manslaughter every day. They use guns in commission of violent crimes every day. Yet the federal government won’t ban cigarettes, booze, cars, or guns. Why? Because those items have powerful lobbies behind them.
Oxycodone, on the other hand, is an easy target for grandstanding legislators. Besides, Uncle Sam always knows what’s best for his wards, right? Wrong. Whatever happened to laissez faire? Whatever happened to the time when our elected representatives stayed out of our personal lives, and tended instead to matters of state?
Will Rogers once joked that “Communism is like Prohibition. It’s a good idea, but it won’t work.” If Rogers were alive today, I’m sure he would update his joke to say, “The Drug War is like Prohibition. It’s a good idea, but it won’t work.”
Today, government intrusiveness is more ill advised than ever before, and it pains me to say that. Unfortunately I can’t get any meds to make the pain go away.
Posted September 24, 2014 By Triad TodayNFL Scandal is Everybody’s Problem
Earlier this month, Major League Baseball suspended Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jonathan Papelbon for seven games because he grabbed his crotch and made an obscene gesture to booing fans. That same week, upon learning that Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson had used a large switch to bloody his four-year-old son’s back, legs, buttocks, face, and scrotum, the Vikings suspended their star for just one game. And so, we all learned an important lesson from the world of professional sports: grabbing your crotch is a much more serious offense than abusing someone else’s.
The Peterson case followed the discovery of a surveillance video showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching out his fiancée in an elevator, and it immediately preceded news of Arizona Cardinals RB Jonathan Dwyer head-butting his wife, and throwing a shoe at his 17-month-old baby. Meanwhile Greg Hardy and Ray MacDonald were still allowed to play for the Panthers and the 49ers respectively, even though both men had been involved in assaulting women. It has been a bad month for the NFL, whose management and team owners demonstrated a total lack of sensitivity about domestic violence, and an unwillingness to do anything about the problem. The Ravens eventually fired Rice, while the Vikings and Cardinals finally got around to telling their abusive running backs to stay home and collect millions of dollars for doing nothing.
Aside from the disturbing nature of spousal and child abuse in and unto itself, there are a number of collateral issues which should be of concern as well, because they only serve to delay, impede, and prevent any short-term punitive action or long term substantive reform. Those are: greed, denial, and enabling. First is greed. In the beginning, Vikings owners appeared to be taking the appropriate action by sitting Peterson for their game against the New England Patriots. But when the Pats gave Minnesota a severe beating, those same owners reversed field and said Peterson could return for the next game. Former NFL player and coach, now ESPN analyst Herm Edwards said it best, “Winning games has become more important than doing the right thing.” In addition, most of the teams involved with the scandals only did the right thing under threat of losing corporate sponsors. That kind of greedy mentality defies common decency, and reveals an operating procedure that is devoid of empathy for victims of abuse.
Next is denial. For decades now, both league and team officials have acted as though domestic violence didn’t exist. During NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s first eight years in office, there have been nearly 60 cases of proven domestic violence, yet those offenses netted a total of only 13 suspended games. Meanwhile, Vikings owners were in a different kind of denial. During one press conference last week, they suggested that what Peterson did might not qualify as child abuse, so they were waiting to see what the courts ruled. The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart responded to that kind of arrogance and ignorance by offering one piece of simple advice, “You can’t do to a four-year-old child what you’re not allowed to do to a 300-pound lineman.”
Of course, society has been in denial about domestic abuse too. When we all saw the first video of Ray Rice dragging his fiancée out of the elevator, there was no public outcry. That changed when the complete video surfaced, showing Rice’s knockout punch. Same with Adrian Peterson’s crime. There was no uproar over his admission of corporally punishing his toddler, but then photos were made public, showing the bloody and bruised body of the little boy, and all of a sudden, everyone was appalled. In this viral video world of ours, it seems that we have to see a problem before we will admit that there IS a problem.
Finally, we as a society are guilty of enabling abusers, especially athletes who commit violent acts. After serving only a year in prison for torturing, burning, and murdering dogs, Michael Vick was hailed as a reformed hero, and paid millions of dollars to throw a football. His jersey became the biggest seller in the country, and most people forgave and forgot. Why? Because poor Michael revealed that he grew up with dog fighting and didn’t know any better.
Fast forward to Peterson who last week said that one of his high school coaches used to paddle him with a board. Translation? Adrian’s actions toward his son are understandable. Meanwhile, former NFL coach Tony Dungy excused Peterson’s abusive behavior as a cultural phenomena. And NBA legend Charles Barkley played the race card by implying that if what Peterson did is a crime, then every southern black parent should be in jail because they all hit their children. Newsflash Sir Charles, child abuse is a pervasive, racially blind problem.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, over 550,000 children are physically or sexually abused every year, and the Tennyson Center for Children says 80 percent of kids who die from abuse are under the age of four. Moreover, of those who survive their beatings, 30 percent of abused children will go on to abuse their own children. “Excusing this abuse as regional and cultural is how other Americans used to defend having eight-year old boys working in coal mines six days a week, or how people in the South used to defend slavery and lynching,” said ESPN’s Keith Olbermann.
The question is, why are so many infants and children beaten by their parents? Perhaps the answer lies in a 2013 Nielsen survey that showed that four out of five parents believe spanking is appropriate. Another reason is that corporal punishment is legal in all 50 states. Of course, each state has its own threshold for what constitutes abuse, but their guidelines are open to interpretation and tough to enforce. According to TIME.com, in Texas, abuse only exists when punishment “results in substantive harm to the child.” In Louisiana you can beat your child, so long as you don’t “seriously endanger their health.” And the state of Maine allows beatings so long as it results in “no more than transient discomfort.”
It’s easy to see why 39 other countries have banned all forms of corporal punishment, which begs the question, why does America still allow it?
We need to push for a federal ban on corporal punishment while the NFL scandals are still fresh in our easily distracted minds. Meanwhile, the league must work closely with colleges to require sensitivity training for all male athletes, so that there are no excuses for violence against women. Finally, punishment for collegiate and pro athletes who commit domestic violence must be swift and severe. No more one-game suspensions for punching a woman unconscious, or for bloodying a toddler.
Athletes are not the only men who physically abuse family members, but right now their crimes are front and center of a debate that must give rise to reform.
Football is still a beloved sport, but we can’t play games with domestic violence any longer.