Love Without
People Die For It.
People Steal For It.
People Kill For It.
People Sell... Every Fuckin Thang For It.
Love.
Ain't It A Bitch.
Just When Ya Thought Ya Seen It All.
Creepin Slow Slug Motion.
Here.
There.
Every Fuckin Where.
The Words Tied To The Chain Like A Pit Bull Gone Rabid.
Foaming At The Mouth.
Drool. Drool.
Spit. Spit
Run.
Hard.
Fast.
Far.
Keep Your Head Down.
Fade Into The Dark.
Don't Dare Say One Damn Fuckin Word.
You Can't Win.
The Tuffest Men In The World Reduced To Less Than Sniveling Children Beat Up.
Knocked Out.
Thrown Down On Da Ground At Recess.
Lunches Long Ago Stolen.
For This Old Beat Up Warrior.
I'll Walk This Earth Alone.
Free From Everything and All That Can Bring Me Down In A Lickety Quicker Than A 7.62 Round Traveling At 2000 Feet Per Second.
Inflicting Pain Yet Uncalibrated.
Letting Blood Quicker Than A Kat 27 Hurricane Baring Down On Da 305.
For Sure Keepin Maximum Distance From The Most Treacherous Of This Species.
Female Creepin Crawlin Creature From The Way Way Deep.
American White Girlz.
See These Meglo Monsters Smile Smile Wink Wink.
See These Meat Eaters In The Rear View.
Lace Dem Nike Track Shoez Way Da Fuck Tight and Run.
Fast.
Faster.
Fastest.
Far. Far. Far.
Don't Look Back.
Their Radar Sensitive Laser Eyes
Factory Equipped with Dead Eye Accuracy Will Throw A Bolt That Will Put
The Most Powerful Lightening Thrust To Shame.
Love Iz Love and I Fade Away.
Good Luck Baby.
Write When Ya Find Work.
Don't Call Collect.
Stop By Anytime Ya Want.
Make Damn Sure I Ain't Here.
Yeah.
Ain't Love Great?
Now. On To The World.
I find the following article interesting in the sense that Americans on a daily basis, everything being equal hasn't a clue.
While driving a fare this past Saturday night from a bar on 4th Avenue here in the desert we made a stop at a K.
I pulled the cab up to the curb to let my passenger out.
I of course open the doors for my customers.
Standing on the curb was a young man.
Clean cut and Tatted face to legs.
Flying Area Code on one arm and his colors on the other.
The young mans 5.0 Mustang Covertable was parked over at a pump.
My fare was half in the bag, so I
assisted him over to the curb where at this time the young man asked my
fare for $3.00 for gas as his wallet had come up missing.
My fare asked the young man if he drank or did drugs.
I interjected while looking into this handsome White Boyz eyes that this young-man Did Not drink or use Drugs.
I asked my fare if he needed assistance into the K.
His reply was negative.
The young-man asked me for $3.00.
"Regarding Dress Codes, Da B's and Da C's. I say you flyin Da C's".
Tucson South Side Crips
"Thats right Sir".
"Cool. I apologize for my customers
unqualified questions. Cauze I know for sure, Flyin Blue, Drugs and
Alcohol are for The Trickz".
"That's right Sir".
"Yeah. I'm all up into the C's
myself. Got 2pac right here in my ear-buds. My Question young-man is how
did someone of your Elevation and Stature loose your damn ass wallet"?
"Stupid me Sir. One of those things. I'm way South Side Sir. 6th and Drexall. Long way from home".
"I feel Ya young-man. Up in Da North-side tonight all up over some Girl".
"Yes Sir".
"Careful with Da Woo. Shit can get all up and treacherous".
"Got that for sure Sir".
"Here Ya go young-man. Don't have change".
"I'll go in the K and get some Sir".
"Not necessary young-man. We straight".
The young-man shakes my hand in a Gentleman's way and thanks me.
"Not a problem young-man. See the cab name and colors. Lock that and my face. My name is Ryan. We on the same side Son".
"Got Ya Sir. Here's one of my cells.
You need anything Sir. Hit it up.
You for sure OG. Very Cool how you know about no drugs or alcohol.
For sure for the Trickz".
"Take care young-man. Be safe".
"Thank You Sir".
With another handshake we part ways.
The point is that the Peep's you
would think who partakes in drugs are exactly the ones who look upon
drugs as reprehensible failure on every level.
Da Trickz.
It is for sure main stream America all cut up in Da Trickz.
Professionals, Students, The Good Side of The Tracks Throwing it all away for that one time thang that lasts forever.
Destroying everything and everyone
around them. Lost in the fire of the soul. Never extinguished for that
just one last time that never comes.
American Prisons bursting at the seams, over populated with the Narcissists, Egos and Deviant Perversions.
Absolutely no end in sight.
I hope you find the following article as interesting as I have.
Oh.
My Bad.
Regarding Da Dress Code.
Da B's and Da C's.
Defined;
Da Bloods
Da Crips
Reagrding Dis Old Man
We Flyin Blue Up Here In Da Swamp
To All My Police Friends All Over This Country Who Read This Insane Diatribe.
For Sure Ya All Know.
Nothing But Swamp Love and Prayers Daily To Ya All.
You Can Take Da Boy Out Da Hood.
Just Can't Take Da Hood Out Da Boy.
Peace Ya All.
Stay Safe.
Ryan. Out.
We Try More Drugs Than Anyone Else, and 9 Other Ways Addiction Is Different in America
By Maia Szalavitz •
July 04, 2014 •
12:00 PM
(Photo: Dana Le/Flickr)
Whether it’s
our drug use, our laws, or the treatment options we have on offer, the
U.S. frequently stands out. And that’s not always something to
celebrate.
•
We Americans like to think of
ourselves as exceptional, the land of the free and the home of the
brave, the City on the Hill and all that. When it comes to the politics
and culture of drugs, we are indeed special—or at least dramatically
different from the rest of the Western world. Too often, however, we are
special for the wrong reasons.
01. We Try More Drugs Than Anyone Else
Americans are more likely to try illegal drugs than anyone else in the world, according to global survey data from the World Health Organization.
Forty-two percent of American adults have tried marijuana, for
example, while only 20 percent of the Dutch have done so—despite the
Netherlands’ long-running policy of tolerating sales and possession
without criminal penalties. We’re also number one in terms of the
percentage of our population that has tried cocaine (16 percent), with
most European countries (including Holland) having averages around one
to two percent. In Colombia—a major source country for the drug—only
four percent of the population has taken cocaine.
In terms of lifetime tobacco use—coming in at 74 percent—we’re also a
serious outlier: In most of Europe, only around half the population
tries smoking or other tobacco products.
Not surprisingly, we’re also number one in terms of annual prescription painkiller misuse—with
5.1 percent of the population reporting taking such drugs for
non-medical reasons, compared to one percent in Canada and three percent
in Australia.
We spend nearly $1.5 billion a year, mainly on
basic neuroscience research that, while generating enormous value in
terms of understanding fundamental brain systems, has not yet generated
much that is of direct use in treatment.
But we’re lagging behind on illegal opiate use, which includes drugs like heroin and opium. According to this year’s World Drug Report
from the U.N., in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, 1.25 percent of
the population has taken these drugs at least once in the past year. In
the U.S. and Canada, that number is less than 0.5 percent. Clearly, we
have some work to do!
02. We Incarcerate More People Than Anyone Else
Sadly, we’re not in any threat of losing our dominance in incarceration
any time soon, at least in terms of the raw number of prisoners we
hold. Some 2.2 million Americans are locked up at any given
time—compared to a mere 676,000 in Russia and 385,000 in India.
Seventeen percent of state prisoners and half of all federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes—and this doesn’t count the percentage who committed other crimes linked to addiction problems, which is far higher.
Per capita, the tiny island nation of the Seychelles has matched our rate
of 707 prisoners per 100,000 members of the population—but we are still
far ahead of slackers like the U.K., at 149, and the Netherlands, at
75.
Ya think that maybe incarceration isn’t a good way to stop drug use?
03. We Use More Opioids Medically (But Not for the Reasons You Might Think)
America is actually number two in terms of per capita consumption of
opioid pain medication (measured by dose equivalence between the various
opioids)—contrary to recent CDC claims citing old data; these days Canada wears the crown.
Canadians take 812mg of morphine equivalents per capita, compared to
748 for the U.S. Other high-consuming countries include Denmark and
Australia.
But high per capita consumption for pain treatment doesn’t
automatically translate into high rates of misuse and addiction. Canada
has an annual prevalence of prescription opioid misuse of one percent;
the rate for the U.S., as noted above, is just over five times that,
despite our lower levels of medical use.
Another important fact to note about our elevated levels of medical
opioid use is that it comes in the context of extremely low levels of
use in the rest of the world. Around two-thirds of the world’s population
live in countries where even if you are dying of cancer, strong opioids
are basically unavailable. Only seven percent of the global population
is believed to have adequate access to appropriate pain relief,
according to the World Health Organization. Compare that to the U.S.,
which has only five percent of the world’s population but consumes 80 percent of its opioids.We surely over-prescribe in some cases—but everyone else’s cruel under-prescribing needs to be taken into account, too.
04. We’re in the Middle of the Road on Alcohol
America’s multicultural society means that we aren’t as extreme on
alcohol as you might expect. Sociologists who have compared drinking
patterns cross-culturally tend to find two broad patterns. The first is a
“Northern” style of drinking where alcohol is seen as an intoxicant and
heavy drinking is associated with masculinity and tends to take place
in bars. Binging is the standard pattern of use here; daily drinking is
seen as a sign of alcoholism. Countries with this pattern include the
U.K., Ireland, Russia, and the Scandinavian ones.
In contrast, “Southern”-style drinking cultures see alcohol as a
food, and drinking takes place daily with meals and is associated with
family. Celebrations can include excess consumption, but drunkenness,
not daily drinking, is seen as aberrant. This style has historically
been associated with reduced harm in terms of violence, accidents, and
alcoholism (but not always cirrhosis). France and Italy are the
exemplars here.
The U.S. is primarily a Northern drinking culture, but it is not at the extreme end. Russia, for example, consumes 15 liters of alcohol per capita and has a nine percent alcoholism rate (based on the DSM-IV diagnosis). Americans, however, consume only 9.2 liters per capita and have a past-year alcoholism rate of 4.7 percent. Contrast this with Italy, where a mere 6.7 liters per capita are consumed and alcoholism affects only 0.5 percent of the population annually.
05. We Have the World’s Highest Legal Drinking Age
Although Kazakhstan, Japan, Iceland, and several other countries also
have a legal age of 21, most countries that set a legal drinking age
choose 18.
Advocates of America’s high drinking age have argued that it has
reduced accident deaths and high school binge drinking, which, contrary
to media headlines, has actually declined substantially since the early
1980s. In 1983, 41 percent of 12th graders reported having had five or
more drinks on one occasion in the past two weeks; the number for 2013
was 22 percent, a drop of nearly half. Drunk driving deaths have also plummeted, falling from some 21,000 in 1983 to around 10,000 in 2013.
But it’s not clear that the actual drinking age is the main factor
here. Canada, with a drinking age of 19, has seen the same kind of
declines and now has fewer lives lost to drunk driving in an
age-adjusted measure, when compared to the U.S., 11.0 for them to 19 for us.
Reduction in drunk driving deaths may have had more to do with
setting a uniform national drinking age so that people don’t drive to
states with a lower drinking age to get drunk—rather than the age
itself.
If a higher drinking age actually did prompt drinkers to begin
boozing at later ages, it might reduce alcoholism risk, which increases
with younger ages of initiation. It’s not clear that 21 age limits do
so, however—and younger ages of initiation are also linked with things
like growing up in an alcoholic family, which can independently affect
risk, so postponing initiation might not help that much.
06. Our Treatment System Is Dominated by 12-Step Programs
Ninety-five percent of American addiction treatment programs refer
patients to 12-step meetings as a matter of course and 90 percent base a
good portion of their treatment on 12-step principles. Fundamental to
treatment in this system is the idea that complete abstinence from all
“mind and mood altering” substances is the basis of recovery, though
some programs are changing to allow maintenance drugs like Suboxone to
be seen as part of recovery. People who recover on their own are viewed
with skepticism (possibly as “dry drunks”) and the idea that one can
stay sober without meeting attendance is seen as “denial.”
This is not the case in many other countries, where treatment,
particularly for alcohol, is more varied and can include attempts at
moderation. In the U.K., for example, the majority of treatment for
alcohol problems consists of talk therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy.
07. Coercion Is a Common Route to Treatment
The majority of addiction treatment in the U.S. is now outpatient—and
49 percent of all patients in these programs are referred to them
(typically as an alternative to incarceration) by the criminal justice system.
In long-term residential treatment, criminal justice referrals are also
the main source of patients, accounting for 36 percent of all
participants. Twenty-nine percent of residents in long-term treatment
make the choice for themselves, while the rest are primarily referred by
other treatment or health care providers.
It is not clear how this percentage compares to that seen in the rest
of the world, although the U.S. does arrest far more people for drug
crimes than other countries do, so it is likely that this proportion is
higher.
08. We Spend the Most Money on Addiction Research
The National Institute on Drug Abuse is the world’s largest funder of
research on psychoactive drugs and addiction. In fiscal year 2012, its
budget was $1.05 billion. But that’s not the only major federal funder
of addiction research in the U.S.: We have another national institute
that covers addiction, the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol
Abuse, whose 2012 budget was $459 million.
So we spend nearly $1.5 billion a year, mainly on basic neuroscience
research that, while generating enormous value in terms of understanding
fundamental brain systems, has not yet generated much that is of direct use in treatment.
09. We Determine What Is and What Isn’t Legal Worldwide (But for No Rational Reason)
Ever wonder why marijuana is illegal but alcohol and tobacco are
legal? It has nothing to do with the relative risks of the drugs—both
legal drugs kill and addict larger proportions of their users than the
illegal one does.
So why was marijuana prohibition retained while alcohol prohibition
was ended? And why, for that matter, are heroin, MDMA, cocaine, and LSD
illegal? Drugs are made illegal based on who is perceived to take them
and on racial politics—science is rarely considered in these decisions.
If a drug’s perceived primary users are not white, the drug tends to
be banned—and stay that way. The U.S. and Europe have legalized their
own preferred drugs and banned those of all other nations—and those
perceived as “corrupters of youth”—for the past century.
However, that may be changing. Since Colorado and Washington state
have legalized marijuana, the U.S. can no longer impose international
prohibition with the vehemence it previously exhibited. With the world
conventions governing the legality of drugs up for review at the U.N.
next year, changes that would allow countries to experiment with a wider
range of drug policies are more likely than ever before.
10. We’re Not Very Good at Measuring Addiction
I was going to conclude by comparing rates of addiction to various
drugs in the U.S. and other countries and how they’ve changed over time.
However, while we’re pretty decent at tracking the percentage of people
who try and who use drugs, we don’t look very hard at the proportion
who actually develop the most serious problems with their drug
use. Nor do we look too closely at cross-addiction, such as what
percentage of those we’ve labeled as having cocaine addiction are also
addicted to heroin or alcohol (and vice versa).
Seventeen percent of state prisoners and half of
all federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes—and this doesn’t
count the percentage who committed other crimes linked to addiction
problems, which is far higher.
This may be because the rates of problem use are actually quite low
compared to the rate of overall use, which is an inconvenient truth for
drug warriors.
To be fair, it’s also somewhat hard to measure: Addicted people can
be hard to find and survey accurately because of stigma and also because
definitions of addiction have changed over time and are culturally
sensitive. For example, if one country arrests a large proportion of
drug users while another doesn’t, the group in the harsher country may
have greater “addiction” rates because there are more negative
consequences associated with their drug use—but that doesn’t mean the
drug is causing those problems.
Nonetheless, here are the statistics
I could find. New Zealand has the world’s highest rate of marijuana
addiction, with nine percent of its population meeting “cannabis
dependence” criteria under DSM-IV, at least as measured in
2000. Canada and the U.K. come in second, with three percent annual
dependence rates for cannabis, measured in 2000 and 2007 respectively.
The U.S. rate is one percent—or was in 2007.
Iran is the record holder for opioid addiction, with a whopping 8.8
percent of its population having an addiction in the past year as of
2003. The current U.S. rate
for opioids is between 0.2 percent and 0.7 percent, depending on if you
include prescription drug dependence or just heroin and depending on
where on the scale of severity, based on DSM-IV, you define the diagnosis.
We beat Iran on cocaine addiction, however, with 0.5 percent annual
prevalence compared to their 0.07 percent. But meaningfulness of these
comparisons and the accuracy of these statistics is dubious, given that
they were collected in different years and include somewhat different
population age ranges.
If you want to count the percentage of Americans overall with some
type of substance problem, including alcohol, the latest figures from
the National Institute on Drug Abuse show a rate of nine percent in the
past year, including both abuse and dependence. But good luck finding
genuinely comparable international statistics!
What we can say for sure is that there’s no relationship between the
harshness of a country’s drug policy and its rate of addiction—or if
there is one, it may be inverse. Iran, for example, with its enormously
high opioid addiction rate, executes people for drug crimes—and the U.S.
holds the world’s record on both the rate of many types of drug use and
on incarceration of users.
As we celebrate the Fourth of July and our much-ballyhooed love of
freedom and family, we should pause for a moment to reconsider our role
both as the world’s largest jailer—and as the country in which children
are most likely to try illegal drugs.
This post originally appeared on Substance, a Pacific Standard partner site, as “Ten Ways Addiction Is Different in America.”
Maia Szalavitz is a health writer for TIME.com and the author of the forthcoming book Unbroken Brain: A New Way to Think About Addiction and Other Compulsive Behaviors.
