This is the wave we need to use in our fight. We need to accept the fact that pain patients won’t work together, and use other organizations to get the job done.  The current wave of acceptance of marijuana and cannabis is one such wave.

This election, Oregon passed one of the most radical drug-law overhauls in the nation’s history and became the first state to decriminalize small amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other hard drugs. This makes possession of small amounts a violation similar to a traffic ticket, and no longer punishable by jail time.  Decriminalization is NOT legalization. Possession of larger amounts that rise to what is considered a commercial level could still be charged as felonies. The law also funds drug addiction treatment from marijuana sales taxes. Passage of the measure shows that voters are interested in a new approach on drug policy to handle it as a health issue and prioritize treatment. Other states are expected to follow suit, such as California, Vermont and Washington. Separately, Oregon voters also legalized psilocybin, known as magic mushrooms, for people age 21 and older. Proponents said the move would allow the drug to be used to treat depression, anxiety and other conditions. The citizens of Washington, D.C., also voted to decriminalize psilocybin.

In New Jersey, South Dakota, Montana and Arizona, voters decisively passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana. Mississippi and South Dakota made medical marijuana legal, bringing the total number of states to 35. If all of the marijuana measures pass, marijuana will be legal for medical use in three dozen states and recreational use will be allowed in 15. National groups that have long dreamed of a federal overhaul of drug laws say that success in those states could bring Republican elected officials into Congress with constituents who have said yes to legalization, potentially tipping the balance in Washington. We need to help them, and we hold the key!

As Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance, which pushes for criminal justice reform on drugs, stated,

“This is like taking a sledgehammer to the cornerstone of the drug war.”  “Twenty years ago, no one thought a night like this would be possible.”  The passage of the measures, particularly in Montana and South Dakota are “a resounding mandate that it is time for us to end the drug war and that decriminalization is politically viable.”

Now is the Time to End the Drug War

The coronavirus pandemic, as well as the wave of social unrest over race, policing and incarceration — have highlighted a need for top-to-bottom change.

Money is an undercurrent everywhere, as many state budgets face big shortfalls as a result of the drop-off in consumer spending during the pandemic, forcing a search for alternative tax sources. The pandemic has highlighted and intensified the need for new options. Legalizing recreational marijuana in Montana, for example, could contribute 4,000 or 5,000 new jobs to the state. The increasingly powerful cannabis industry could fill the state coffers. Investment services in New York has quoted that the marijuana market should expand to more than $34 billion by 2025, given the success of the various ballot initiatives.

If we can do away with the CSA, we will save billions of dollars of federal tax dollars per year in ineffective legislation, prosecuting people for drug use, as well as prosecuting doctors doing their job. Reform advocates, have said for decades that imprisonment, federal mandatory minimum sentences and prohibitive cash bail for drug charges ruin lives and communities, particularly those of Black Americans.

Decriminalization is becoming popular, as more Americans believe that too many people are in jails and prisons.  Also, more Americans are beginning to see addiction as a disease instead of a moral failing or criminal act. The war on drugs has lost its political allure for many conservatives. John A. Boehner, the former Republican speaker of the House, was once a staunch opponent of marijuana legalization. He is now the chairman of the National Cannabis Roundtable, a lobbying group.

“When cannabis is on the ballot, it wins,” Mr. Boehner said of Tuesday’s results. “Even with hyper-partisanship everywhere else, people of all stripes agree about cannabis reform.”

How Propaganda Works

In 1969 as President Nixon started the war on drugs, 84 percent of Americans thought marijuana should be illegal. But by 2019, 91 percent of Americans supported its legalization, for both medical use, recreational use or both. The drug war grew increasingly draconian during the Reagan administration, as President Reagan signed a series of punitive measures into law — measures shaped in part by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then a senator. In 1986 Congress passed a law mandating severe prison sentences for users of crack, who were disproportionately Black. As crack cocaine became the MJ substitute in the mid-1980s, its impacts were overblown and the policing was racist. Now, through using the CSA against legitimate physicians to confiscate their assets, they have moved from the “Drug War” to the “Opioid War”, still blaming opioids and doctors for the fake opioid epidemic. Broadcasting 48,000 deaths from opioid overdoses in 2019 has also helped contextualize marijuana as a significantly less dangerous drug. And of course, the drug manufacturers’ pleas of guilt won’t help matters. What we have to show the American people is that this propaganda mill simply substitutes one drug for another, and there is no basis for any of them being blamed for addiction.  That is what we, at DoctorsofCourage, can show. But the word has to get out.

The Drug War is Purely Racist

Even as public opinion has changed, law enforcement still aggressively polices the possession of drugs — even legal drugs — by Black people, who, according to an American Civil Liberties Union report, are more than 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. As of March of this year, 20 percent of the more than two million incarcerated people in the United States were imprisoned because of drug offenses. Many of those people have not been convicted of any crime, and are held in local jails after arrest.

What Comes Next?

We hold the key on DoC. The only hurdle left in this 100 year old fake, political, racist war against drugs is the realization that drugs are being blamed for something they are not the cause of. And the REAL cause of addiction and drug abuse can be explained.  Conventional medicine jumps from one idea to another. The latest is that addiction is a “brain disease”. This just goes to show how archaic conventional medicine is, but that is another post entirely.  Addiction isn’t explained by any conventional medicine concept. And MAT is not the answer.  It will expand addiction into the next 4 generations of any reproductive-age person put on it. We will only start making a headway when we chuck the whole conventional medicine approach and look to the 300 year old, time-proved, most scientifically based medicine there is.