Surely, you’ve considered the huge amount of pharmaceuticals we deploy into our society. Perhaps you’ve considered the costs as a tax payer or the cost increases on your insurance policy for health care. I bet you’ve even thought about the usage of psychiatric drugs in our schools, yes, I know that is a touchy subject, and I suppose diagnosing someone with ADHD, ADD, or bipolarism is one way to get them onto the drugs so they behave in class, but is it really the ethical thing to do? Let’s talk shall we?
Interestingly enough, as that debate rages on, a new one is coming forth on the illegal drug issues, and one PhD seems to think that if teens, especially African American teens are going to be using drugs in the inner cities anyway, that perhaps, they need a little guidance so that they don’t fry their brains, cause health care issues, or die of cardiac arrest, stroke or something terrible like driving while under the influence and crashing their car, potentially killing innocent bystanders.
CSPAN – Harlem Book Fair hosted an interview televised on July 20, 2013 with ER Shipp of Morgan State University, a journalist in residence and Carl Hart PhD and author of “High Price” explained to the audience that our illegal drugs are used by many but only 20% ever have any problem with it, and African American minorities, especially males are vastly more likely to come in contact with law enforcement due racial profiling, which he explains is why there are more African-Americans in our prison population in a misrepresented skew.
He tells the audience that users can do drugs if they take small doses in the right way. I totally disagree with this entire premise, and with Carl Hart PhD, but it is worthy of debate, and it was interesting his view points. The book if you want to buy it, which I do not recommend, and am actually shocked he was able to find a publisher – the book is titled;
“High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society,” by Carl Hart PhD, HarperCollins Publishing, New York, NY, 2013, 357 pages, Electronic Version on Kindle ASIN: B009Nf75MY.
For the record I’d like to add something to his debate and that is; what are we doing as a society which seems to be pushing our young adults towards drug use, experimentation, and abuse while in their teens. Isn’t there a deeper fundamental issue at stake? Look I am all about tough love and I do like excuses from drug addicts, still, maybe we ought to hear Carl’s side of the coin too. Think on this.