roseanne barr's deep thought

[wook77]

I was watching Leno last night (and I never watch Leno as I cannot help myself but to stare continuously at his horrible horrible chin. Seriously, I just stare at the chin and don't hear a word he's saying. It's a really bad habit.) Anyway, I was watching Leno and his first guest, after some stupid men versus women thing that was rigged to make Leno feel better about being a man, was Roseanne Barr. First off, let me just tell you, she's looking good. She's lost quite a bit of weight and her hair color was lightened. She's quite pretty now and looks all-around happier and healthier. She starts off telling some bad jokes and I'm not laughing. I feel bad because the audience is only laughing to humor her.

Then, like a bolt of lightening from the sky, the following phrase pops out of her mouth -


"The war on drugs is a war waged on poor people on street drugs by rich people on prescription drugs."


This thought blew me away. Sure, she was trying to tie the line into a joke about drugging her son and creepy old men on Viagra. However, this struck a chord. Prescription drugs really are for the rich. Half the prescription drugs seem to do the same thing as street drugs. There are uppers and downers of street drugs and uppers and downers of prescriptions. As someone who was once diagnosed borderline bi-polar (as if you couldn't tell from the blogging), I can tell you, I've taken uppers and downers to control my moods, all completely legal prescriptions made out to me. This makes me better than Rush Limbaugh, who took the same drugs but did it under false prescriptions. I also did not become addicted (again, better than Rush). I now regulate my chemicals naturally, more due to the fact that I can't afford to go to a psychiatrist and whine about all the bad things "evil-doers" have done to me. That's what this blog is for, right? Right?

Where am I going with this, you might ask? I'm all for legalizing most drugs including pot, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. Why? Am I an addict or dealer? A communist? An amoral evil little toad? Nope, just a greedy person. I see, with legalization the possibility of regulation and taxation. If the quality of street drugs were regulated, then there would be less of a chance of someone getting a "bad batch" and dying. I also see taxation so that the US government has more income so that we can offer better social services for people who really feel the need to escape into a drug induced haze. Let's face it, the war on drugs has been a failure since day 1, just like Prohibition before it. When there's a will, there's a way. At least regulating quality and financing treatment through tax revenue is a better plan than dumping our money in the international toilet of the war on drugs and shitting on it.

Comments

[rissyboo.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you!!! I think that, not only do prescription drugs sometimes have similar effects that street drugs do, but they're way expensive. So if the government made street drugs way expensive, not only would they have a new source of taxation, like you suggest, but, it's my theory that less people will be doing them. Thus, this may eliminate a lot of the addiction problems people have. I think if you take away the deception that comes with being illegal, people don't want it as much. Underage kids drink because they know they're not supposed to. But those same kids might grow up and never drink again. What's the point? Now you can walk in and buy the stuff. That takes to danger out of it. So if a druggie could go into Wallgreens and buy crack, would it still have the same value? I might be contradicting myself at this point, but either way, I think you have a great argument!

[wook77.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this one! When I was 17, I went off to college. In Mexico, the legal drinking age is 18 and I started drinking as soon as I hit 18. I stopped really drinking a few weeks after I turned 21 because it lost its allure.

Did you know that over 1/3 the cost of prescription drugs nowadays is for the cost of advertising? Friends of mine in Britain find it amazing that you can see drug commercials on television. It simply isn't done over there. I'm appalled that prescription drugs are so expensive.

Then, you look at the cost of hospitalization and that's shocking too. There was a news story in Tucson about a guy who was charged 100 bucks for a "cast sleeve". What's a cast sleeve? A Hanes T-shirt... that's right, he was charged $100 for a Hanes T-shirt that he could have gotten for 2 or 3 bucks. Medicine is just ridiculously priced anymore.

I'll step off the soapbox now...