...are prohibitionists now there for all the non-violent drug offenders languishing for decades and longer in federal and state prisons? Are the making up for the fact that children are left without a father or mother; that parents and grandparents, and sometimes even children die in the years when these "criminals" are incarcerated?

Do prohibitionists know that many if not most users at some point or other fit the legal definition of "dealer," and that it isn't necessary to even exchange $$-- simply giving some to a pal will do? Or that social networks of users who are also friends sell -- which is to say, deal -- to one another, thus making them eligible for truly life-destroying prison sentences?

Who among the prohibitionists is going to pick up the damage done to the lives and families of users and "dealers" sent to our archipelago of a prison system? Once they have felony convictions, how many of the disproportionately minority drug=crime ex-cons are going to get even that not-so-great job? Y'all are going to hire them all when they get out, right?

That'll be "Merry Christmas," you warrior on Xmas, you. ;)

But seriously, yes Happy Holidays to all here. I just don't start mine until tomorrow early a.m. when I'll be offline for 24 delighting in kids and grand-kids.

Cliff Schaffer's drug library is the best drug resource on the planet. Cliff taught me, over a decade ago, how to argue effectively with prohibitionists -- he is the best there is.

If one arms oneself with his data and debating strategy, it is impossible to not send prohibitionists into paroxysms of frustrated defeat, and the primary weapon is simple truth. (But also, always, bring the issue back to PRISON and its reality; The First Rule of Schaffer.)

I can tell you that some people seem to have a genetic predisposition to habituation, addiction and abuse while others do not. I can also tell you that in such cases, a source for the substance in question, be it a neighborhood dealer or a drug company or corporation, can end up owning that addict's home and first born children inside of a year. Things to think about.

My deceased son (deceased from a garden-variety motor vehicle accident in which substances were not implicated), had me pulling out my hair, not even so much for his excessive interest in mood-altering substances (tho I was very concerned about that), but because he and his friends sold to each other. At the time, we lived in Michigan, whose dealing laws were viciously draconian. My greatest fear was losing him to the prison system for decades before I could watch him hit a bottom and then help him with the resolve to quit. (He had actually quit coke before he died, telling me it was "dangerous" and he had a new respect for its danger.)

Myself, I have in the distant past used several illicit substances recreationally, and never became close to being addicted to them. [To any NSA/DEA interlopers/nannies/readers, the statute of limitations has long passed.] During a period of extreme trauma, I abused alcohol. Fortunately, I wasn't at risk for prison for that, and because of the circumstances, driving under the influence was not an issue.

Prison fucks up lives a least as royally, if not more so, as any abuse of a substance. It is the worst possible answer to a substance abuse problem.

Anyone who has read Cliff's relating the ordeal his mom went through knows we need stricter controls on anti-biotics than we do on opiates.

Even most anti-prohibitionists (including Glenn and me, who have both stated it publicly) do not think antibiotics should be available OTC. Among other things, over- unnecessary-consumption renders one dangerous to others, since when bacterial strains develop resistance to the antibiotics -- as they always do; it's an evolutionary thing -- it becomes difficult and sometimes impossible to control infectious diseases, thus posing a direct harm to others if one has gobbled so many of them that none in the pharmacopoeia can treat one any longer.

No one has a right to make themselves a potential walking contagion because at every sign of the sniffles they gulp down Zythromax (sp?).

And when Ambien came out in the 90s, they said the same thing. Oops!

I stopped taking it long ago, when a non-addictive, anti-seizure med (I don't have seizures) turned out to have the unexpected benefit of easing one into sleep.

(Seattle measured an found significant amounts of birth control hormones and SSRIs in its water supply)

Seriously? I take an SSRI that greatly enhances my life, and which I have no interest in quitting. It sure is no party drug. Folks don't say: "hey, let's get together Friday nite and do some Lexapro." It produces no high at all, and actually takes 2-4 weeks of continual use to really kick in. Sure, it has its drawbacks in terms if weaning off, where withdrawal symptoms can be really excruciating, but I do not function well without it, or something like it.

And surely we can't eliminate the Pill because it shows up in the water supply!