Sunday, February 26, 2012

Another good idea whose time has come.

This world sucks, and if someone can't face it, they just can't face it.  It's up to the individual how they interact and react with the world.  A lot of people dive into celebrity gossip.  Others dive into music to the exclusion of all else.  Still others dive into the extremely narrow realm of academic research (myself included, to a point--I enjoy researching and learning new things, but don't care about publishing my ideas and gaining acclaim and publication accreditation from it.  I'd far rather teach.)  Others turn to alcohol, and still others turn to drugs, legal psychotropics and otherwise. 

So, this bill, up for discussion and votes in several states, makes me smile.  I don't have a problem with aid being temporary, and directed at families with children--so long as Mom and/or Dad is not on "illegal" drugs or alcohol. 

Personally, I don't care if an individual wants to use drugs.  I think this whole "war on drugs" b.s. harks back to the 18th amendment--and anyone who passed history in high school should know how that worked out.   I do, however, deeply resent being forced to pay for the habits of an addict of either drugs or alcohol through taxes applied and income redistributed through the welfare system.
 
So yeah: set up everyone on the public dole with random drug tests.  Sounds like a good start to me.  Especially if that includes the welfare recipients who hold public office (i.e., politicians).

6 comments:

  1. Drug tests for our politicians?

    Egad!

    File that under "Questions I probably don't really want to know the answer to."

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  2. Considering that the conditions-for-employment of many (and if I read our policies and procedures manual right, TPTB here would have the "right" to drug test me if they saw fit - they never have), includes random drug tests...I don't have that great of a problem with this.

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  3. It's my life and don't you dare tell me how to live it, as long as I don't impact another living "creature"!!!!!!

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  4. M Sgt B--I don't necessarily want to know the answer, I just want them fired if they test at all positive.

    Ricki--Exactly. If those of us who make the money are subject to the possibility of random drug tests, then those who take the money should be, too.

    OCM--I'd make an exception for those who medically need it. Otherwise, once again, I don't care what you do so long as I don't have to pay for it.

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  5. I admit that I go back and forth on drug legalization. I'd be all for it if we could be guaranteed not to have any more meth-heads under a legal drugs regime, but I'm fearful that we'd get more dysfunctional people running around in the grocery stores and on the roads when the rest of us were trying to have a life. (Meth in particular scares me. Your friendly neighborhood pothead I don't care so much about, but I've seen what can happen when someone's seriously tweaking.)

    I don't care what anyone else does with their lives as long as it doesn't directly endanger me, or sharply lower the quality of my life.

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  6. Ricki--we'd just start treating drugs like we do alcohol: don't drive while under the influence or you go away for a long time. Same with any other crime.

    As for making drug use more or less common...I couldn't tell you that it wouldn't make it more common. It might--rates of drinking spiked briefly after the end of Prohibition. On the other hand, there'd likely be a segment of users that quit in disgust that they're no longer breaking laws using.

    As for your "friendly neighborhood pothead"--they often don't like the tweakers, either. And how much of the "paranoid" behavior is because they know they're doing something wrong, and are convinced that they're about to be caught? That's one of the things I'd like to know. Would they be as violent if it was legal and they knew it?

    (and as a stay-at-home mom, sometimes I understand the urge to use uppers...I usually completely run out of energy around the time Odysseus leaves for his pizza delivery job)

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