In these times of economic difficulty for the the USA and Europe and the whole world really, I take some comfort in knowing that we still have an untapped resource that can profit all of the civilized world.
If we allow the medical community to prescribe controlled amounts of the naturally occurring plants which illegal drugs are made from we could safely stabilize the drug issue and profit from it and simultaneously diminish the illegal industry and the violence and terrorism it supports.
The Coca, Poppy and Marijuana plant's leaves and flowers are naturally satisfying to the user of the illegal and dangerously highly refined versions of these drugs.
The Coca leaf could be prescribed to cocaine users and they would make a tea from it as they do where it presently grows in South American countries. This would be a medically controlled amount to prevent abuse. Likewise the poppy plant's sap can be cooked into a wafer or given in its natural form to be swallowed as older people do for pain in Afghanistan and Iran. Again, in controlled amounts the user would not be tempted to distill the plant further into heroin. The rare user who disobeys these guidelines will still be a user who is interacting with the medical community and therefore in the system. This even would be a big improvement cost wise. Marijuana which has been genetically bred for great potency would be controlled relative to levels of strength and prescribed thusly.
The income from this new system would be great, but would still be dwarfed by the social gains in lowering crime and prison incarceration rates. That gain would be truly priceless for the whole world.
We must make these naturally occurring plants which have existed throughout history along with human race available again to the human race with medical supervision. These plants were part of the lifestyles and culture of all civilizations for thousands of years until this past century when we have tried to eliminate them. That farm has bore bitter fruit. We need to go back to the old way and let our medical community have access to these most natural of drugs which are produced simply by planting a seed. Poppy, Coca and Marijuana can be civilization's best friend or worst enemy. It's up to us and the Food ad Drug Administration.
So, I will be writing about this more in the future. It is my great hope for the next Obama administration.
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I've heard that every culture allows certain drugs and condemns others. WE okay alcohol and condemn marijuana while the middle east okays marijuana and condemns alcohol.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably too culturally entrenched to change. But go ahead and try -- humans have never been all that rational though.
by the way, I gather poppies can be made into tea also, as I have heard that my great grandmother, in the "old country" gave the kids poppy tea to calm a cough. (All narcotics are cough suppressants.)
Hey Kim...for some reason my google account has focused on my work ip address as my main one and I can only comment here from home as 'anonymous' on my own blog! Go figure. It's not easy to get Google on the phone for tech support! Anyhoo, thanks for the comment and the poppy story reference. Even here in the US we've only enforced our ban of these plants since the start of the Drug War in the late 60's. I really think that it is the pharmaceutical industry who rules over the FDA to make these things off limits for any legal use and I think it is because that they aren't allowed to get patents/profits from naturally occurring plants. It's a shame, most especially for the countries where most of this stuff comes to the US from. Our money supports organized crime there that threatens their democracies.
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