Cocaine: Hidden in Plain Sight

[High Plains]

From today's New York Times fashion section:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/fashion/10cocaine.html?ref=fashion

SKIING on the beach tomorrow?”

“Late-night ski lift looking for a snow bunny.”

“Where are the cool Brooklyn ski bums? I’ve got tons to share.”

“Take a ride on the snow train.”

The come-ons in the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist last week — or any week — are as plentiful as they are obvious (and cheesy). Using a variety of euphemisms that have been around since Jay McInerney wrote about Bolivian Marching Powder, posters invite others to join them for a line or a lost weekend fueled by cocaine.

The cheeky openness of these ads is hardly anomalous. While cocaine and drug abuse seem to have faded from the headlines, with coverage limited to the not-so-veiled references surrounding the exploits of waifish celebrities, it is still very much a part of the social scene, especially in New York.

Evidence of that is popping up in music, television and even theater. Indeed, for a generation that has not had its John Belushi to drive home the dangers of drug abuse, references and even use are open, casual, even blatant.

<snip>

[Warren DeMontague]

1. All the more reason that the drug war is a fucking waste of time.

My tax dollars have far better things to do than monitor what consenting adults do with their own bodies and bloodstreams.

[BikeWriter]

22. That's cool, until they rob or kill you so they can score.

[Webster Green]

28. Ending the drug war and legalizing would solve that problem..

Get rid of the black market and you get rid of the theft and violence it creates.

[BikeWriter]

29. It would still cost money and more would be using.

[Webster Green]

32. Most things do cost money..

But the price would be no where near what the black market brings.

The worst problems with drugs are created by the laws against them.

It's not the business of the government to monitor our use of the herbs we find growing all around us.

We could have whole new industries employing people and a great new tax base.

[High Plains]

2. But, but, but, but THESE PEOPLE ARE BREAKING THE LAW!

The question is: What should we do about it?

What do we do with laws that are so widely ignored? Should we enforce them more toughly or should we send them to the dustbin of history?

Check out my sig line for my opinion.

[Psephos]

5. The problem is that addiction to coke affects all the people who depend on the addict

I know this from the grimmest personal experience you can imagine.

Peace.

[MNDemNY]

9. addictions should be treeted, not punished.

[High Plains]

10. Should we punish cocaine users because some of them have problems?

Of course, if we shifted our priorities in drug policy, we might have some money for treatment. As it is now, treatment is largely an afterthought.

[Psephos]

27. I don't support punishing addicts at all. My point was that addicts punish others.

The addict is the last to suffer.

I don't know the answers, but to group all drugs together and say one approach to them all is ideological, foolish, and guarantees a never-ending supply of misery to innocents.

On the scale of severity of social damage, I'd put marijuana at the nearly-harmless end, opiates in the middle, alcohol nearer the major problem end, and cocaine/crack/meth at the catastrophic tip of the scale. I'd like our treatment efforts as well as our law enforcement efforts to reflect that reality. It's silly to target users. It's not silly to target criminals who operate the supply chain. I'd love to see an overhaul of laws (and cultural attitudes) that excised the morality aspects of drug law, and focused instead on the public health threats.

Of course law enforcers will never "win" against the supply chain - it's a misleading use of a metaphor, a framing problem. I do not expect to "win" the war against weeds in my garden, either - but that doesn't mean I shouldn't keep weeding. I also don't expect to "win" the war against aging and death - but that doesn't mean I shouldn't eat a healthy diet, work out regularly, and avoid becoming addicting to meth or coke. Quite the opposite

Some people can deal with cocaine, but as with all drugs, denial of usage problems is actually a diagnostic symptom of usage problems. Unfortunately, as with alcohol, there's only one way to find out whether one's neurochemistry fates them to a struggle. Meanwhile, the potential addict's family and friends are unwittingly along for a hard ride.

Peace.

[Warren DeMontague]

37. I think the $40 Billion we spend on the drug war AND the billions we spend incarcerating

drug offenders could go a long way towards paying for treatment on demand for anyone who needs it.

I agree, there are no easy answers, and addiction is devastating. But I don't believe locking people up for the chemicals they choose to ingest is any sort of a "solution".

[Warren DeMontague]

13. So does addiction to alcohol, which can be extremely detrimental.

You think bringing back prohibition would change any of that? How about throwing everyone who has a martini on the weekend or carries a flask of jack daniels in jail for 5-10 years.

[Webster Green]

33. Coke isn't even addicting..

Compelling perhaps, but not addicting.

[Psephos]

35. That's not true - the evidence is overwhelming

"A common myth is that cocaine is not addictive because it lacks the physical withdrawal symptoms seen in alcohol or heroin addiction. Cocaine has powerful psychological addictive properties. As more than one user has reflected, 'If it is not addictive, then why can't I stop?' "

From the article cited below; there are plenty more if you look around a little. Not trying to bust your chops, but I worked seven years in an Emergency Room, and saw what that shit does every day. Pure evil. I also lost my fiance to coke. As in dead. As in she believed the same myth, then too late tried to take her life back, but couldn't. She went from being a star scholarship PhD student to expulsion to being a stripper, and then it got worse.

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/cocaine_abuse/article_em.htm

[Mojorabbit]

36. I say that is not true

being married for a time to a coke addict.

[hobbit709]

3. People that advertise like that

deserve to get busted just for general stupidity.

[High Plains]

4. Hmmm, maybe NYPD has higher priorities...

...than arresting well-to-do night lifers.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. If general stupidity was a crime, the 58 million people who voted for Bush in 2004

would be in jail.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. most of the kids around here are on coke,

it is cheaper than half decent weed around here,

[High Plains]

8. Yes, despite the US spending $5 billion to eradicate coca plants...

...since 1999, coca production is stable and prices are declining and purity rising.

In fact, Colombian coca production has increased 27% since 1999, despite massive aerial eradication campaigns using glyphosate.

Who benefits from drug prohibition?

[jmowreader]

25. Glyphosate is no longer a weapon in the war on coca

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2004/RoundupReady-Coca27aug04.htm

You guys have heard of Roundup Ready soy, I assume; Colombian coca farmers have developed--WITHOUT the massive infusion of Monsanto cash that created all the frankenfood plants--a variety of coca that does three things for the farmer:

it gets bigger than a regular coke plant--over twice the size with many more leaves.

its leaves develop higher amounts of cocaine alkaloid, which lets the processor get more drug from the same amount of leaf

and it resists Roundup spraying operations.

Next thing you know they'll be back to Agent Orange.

[porphyrian]

7. All "drug abuse" is NOT created equal.

Belushi did heroin and cocaine at the same time. He had to have known that would probably kill him in the shape he was in. He did it anyway. That was his choice. But to suggest that all recreational drug use is somehow as dangerous as what killed Belushi is ignorant at best and propagandistic bullshit at worst. Most of you reading this have done drugs recreationally. Most of your children have, or will, as well. Let's stop lying about drugs so that people can make informed choices about them.

[hobbit709]

11. In my case, it was a lot more than recreationally

It was practically a full-time occupation.:rofl:

[porphyrian]

12. Heh, you are not alone.

But that's kind of my point - with so many first-hand accounts of drug use, we should be sharing all of the facts, not just the worst cases. Once a kid learns they've been lied to, they're more likely to make some really dumb decisions. And many of us, like myself, don't need any help making dumb decisions.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. DARE tells kids that smoking pot is going to get them date raped or make their testicles fall off

is it any wonder they don't believe anyone about truly bad and dangerous drugs, like meth?

[porphyrian]

18. Exactly! Once they find out one thing is a lie...

...they wonder what else they've been lied to about. THAT is the gateway, not pot.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. The primary focus of the "drug war" is marijuana, anyway.

I say legalize, regulate and tax pot, use a "harm reduction" approach to hard drugs like they do in the Netherlands; treat 'em as a health issue and not a law enforcement one.

[porphyrian]

17. I can get behind that, but we've got the entire prison industrial complex to conquer.

Make no mistake - the "drug war" is a business at every step, and those that profit are just as rabid in guarding their money as the dealers they vilify.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Oh, yeah, it's a huge gravy train.

That's why they need to keep pot on the list; it's far and away the most popular "illegal" drug, it's never going away, it gives them a massive "enemy" they can keep throwing resources and time and effort at.

[porphyrian]

23. Maybe if we bust a few more Paris Hiltons, we can get rid of prohibition once and for all.

Or some judges' kids. Or the Bush daughters.

[hobbit709]

20. The reason that they go after pot is simple

When you're stoned, you realize the total absurdity of the system and the powers that be can't have that.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I guess I smoked so much in my youth, I permanently altered my brain chemistry.

'Cuz I've been clean & sober for years, and I STILL think the system is totally absurd!

[hobbit709]

24. There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke-Dylan

[MilesColtrane]

26. The definition of a loser-You're holding and you still can't get laid.

...so you take out a personal ad.
These people need to be busted just for being fucking stupid.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

30. I've always associated cocaine with Republicans and DLCers

I don't know why. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous I guess.

[Xenotime]

31. Just make it legal then they can tax and regulate it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

34. What's the penalty for powder cocaine these days?

Probation?