Drugs

We don’t like to feel bad. We like to feel good.

We like things that make us feel good.

We are trained to go to doctors to make us feel good. Sometimes we are put in a truck and shipped to an office building full of doctors and nurses.

Their job is to make us feel good.

We get a piece of paper with some sort of scribbled code and give it to a pharmacist.

Their job is to give us come concoctions or capsules or a potion or a shot to make us feel good.

There is an entire industry of researchers and medical scientist finding new mixtures of drugs to make us feel good.

How many pills did you take this morning? If you get a headache, what do you do? If you get a stomachache, what do you take to feel good?

We like to feel good.

When we take a drug and it makes us feel good, we are happy.

Then we want to take more of a drug to feel even better.

Just like binge watching and overeating, we abuse our chemistry.

We take too much and then we feel bad.

There is a ‘War On Drugs’.

The war on drugs is a largely unsuccessful campaign, led by the U.S. federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim being the reduction of the illegal drug trade in the United States.

The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments and the UN have made illegal.

The term was popularized by the media shortly after a press conference given on June 18, 1971, by President Richard Nixon—the day after publication of a special message from President Nixon to the ‘Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control’—during which he declared drug abuse ‘public enemy number one’.

That message to the Congress included text about devoting more federal resources to the ‘prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted’, but that part did not receive the same public attention as the term ‘War On Drugs’.

However, two years prior to this, Nixon had formally declared a ‘War On Drugs’ that would be directed toward eradication, interdiction, and incarceration.

Today, the ‘Drug Policy Alliance’, which advocates for an end to the ‘War on Drugs’, estimates that the United States spends $51 billion annually on these initiatives.

On May 13, 2009, Gil Kerlikowske—the Director of the ‘Office of National Drug Control Policy’ (ONDCP)—signaled that the Obama administration did not plan to significantly alter drug enforcement policy, but also that the administration would not use the term ‘War on Drugs’, because Kerlikowske considers the term to be ‘counter-productive’. ONDCP’s view is that ‘drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated... making drugs more available will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe’.

In June 2011, the ‘Global Commission on Drug Policy’ released a critical report on the ‘War on Drugs’, declaring: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the ‘UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs’, and years after President Nixon launched the US government's war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”

The report was criticized by organizations that oppose a general legalization of drugs.

Drugs are depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, anesthetics, analgesics, inhalants and cannabis. Drugs come in all sorts of names, sizes, materials and potency.

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.

During the 19th century, alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption prompted prohibitionists, led by pietistic Protestants, to end the alcoholic beverage trade to cure the ill society and weaken the political opposition.

One result was that many communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries introduced alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called ‘drys’, presented it as a victory for public morals and health.

Promoted by the ‘dry’ crusaders, the movement was led by pietistic Protestants and social Progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic, and Republican parties. It gained a national grassroots base through the ‘Woman's Christian Temperance Union’. After 1900, the ‘Anti-Saloon League’ coordinated prohibition.

Opposition from the beer industry mobilized ‘wet’ supporters from the Catholic and German Lutheran communities. They had funding to fight back, but by 1917–18, the German community had been marginalized by the US entry into the First World War against Germany.

The brewing industry was shut down by a succession of state legislatures and finally nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. Enabling legislation, known as the ‘Volstead Act’, set down the rules for enforcing the federal ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. For example, religious use of wine was allowed. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol were not made illegal under federal law, but local laws were stricter in many areas, with some states banning possession outright.

The legal ban led to criminal gangs gaining control of the beer and liquor supply of many cities.

By the late 1920s, a new opposition to prohibition mobilized nationwide.

Prohibition ended with the ratification of the ‘Twenty-first Amendment’, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.

Now on every corner there is a craft brewery. The shelves of spirits are constantly being restocked especially on weekends. Every party has a bar and festivals have trucks pouring out the yellow sudsy potion.

Today there are shelves full of pills and potions with space names and tiny print explaining the dosage. Generic drugs range from a few cents to prescriptions costing hundreds.

Open anyone’s medicine cabinet and look at the variety little yellow plastic tubes with the childproof tops that when empty must be refilled at the pharmacy.

Serious drugs applications may have to be performed by a medical professional.

Vicodin (hydrocodone/acetaminophen), Simvastatin (Generic for Zocor), Lisinopril (Generic for Prinivil or Zestril), Levothyroxine (generic for Synthroid), Azithromycin (generic for Zithromax, Z-PAK), Metformin (generic for Glucophage), Lipitor (atorvastatin), Amlodipine (generic for Norvasc), Amoxicillin, and Hydrochlorothiazide are the most popular of prescription drugs. States are legalizing cannabis even though it is still a Federal Schedule I drug (legal recreationally in 11 states & DC; medically legal in 33 states).

 There are still plenty of drug laws for driving under the influence or distribution.

So raise a glass to the season’s cheer. It will make you feel good.