[social_share style=”bar” align=”horizontal” heading_align=”inline” text=”” heading=”” facebook=”1″ twitter=”1″ google_plus=”1″ linkedin=”1″ pinterest=”1″ link=”” /]From the age of 13 my life has been a battle. I honestly believe if I never found drugs I WOULD have killed myself. I believe this with all my heart. I saw glimpses of this struggle to live in my sweet daughter who is no longer with me. She died a few months ago to an overdose of opiates —-. That is not why she really died though. She died because of the SHAM of our mental health system in America. She died because drug users are not treated like people but more
like societies throw aways. She died because policy makers care only about votes, nothing about truth, and our delicate ears prevent us from actually listening to a person like me-a felon. Well, here is my truth. A truth that is so difficult to hear that most people will write it off as sick—or discredit me as high- or some other such nonsense.
Most people that love someone who has struggled with chaotic drug use and addiction are angry. They are angry at the drugs. They are angry that “drugs have stolen their child” This is NOT my story. I am angry, but the drugs, they are not what I am angry at.
My drug use, while it is considered illegal in nature, is no different than the drugs psychiatrists have fed me for years. My drug use caused terrible problems namely because it was illegal. It is illegal because in 1914 lawmakers passed the Harrison Narcotics Act. They decided that cocaine gave black men super powers made them crazed and dangerous to white women! The morphine was lulling white women into opium dens and heaven forbid we let anyone of color put their hands on our white women.
Drugs have tempered my emotional insanity —-calmed me, stayed with me, and kept me feeling safe in a world of hypocrisy and bullshit. No one becomes a drug addict because everything is working out well. The story I hear more than any other from people like myself is that without the drugs the emotional upheaval feels insurmountable. They chaos and pain people like myself endure on a day to day basis is in explainable and intolerable.
The drugs made it possible for me to live. If not for the absolutely insane policy, the drugs would not have destroyed me and everyone I love.
I ask you this, do people that use drugs have drug problems, or drug policy problems? And which ones are the ones ruining the lives of so many people?
If cigarettes were made illegal today peoples lives would become out of control and insane because cigarette prices would go through the roof. Every smoker in America would become a felon. People would loose jobs, families, everything!
The insane overdose rates are not just something to expect when loads of people are doing heroin or taking opiates. Heroin addicts pay tons of money for little bits of drugs, they often don’t have enough money or dope to do test shots, or try little bits to see how strong it is. Many don’t even know this is important because we don’t offer real drug education.
Lots of people are overdosing leaving jails and rehabs, this is because jails and rehabs refuse to acknowledge that people who use drugs will use them after they leave their facilities and their chances of dying increase dramatically due to tolerance changes.
Naloxone is essential to have around but the local news around here reports overdoses one after another with no mention of the overdose reversal drug NALOXONE.
Health—well yes, you have me there. Drugs are not great for peoples health, but neither is trans fat. Adulterated drugs that people buy on the street from people are often very harmful, but this is another function of drug policy.
As I have grown older I have learned to cope without drugs. I am able to deal with life better. My emotional insanity has either lessened or I have learned to cope better. I have essentially aged out! The drugs were never my biggest problem. The deadly policies around them……well, those are dangerous.
http://www.substance.com/most-people-with-addiction-simply-grow-out-of-it-why-is-this-widely-denied/13017/
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