we saw this weekend in Los a Philip Seymour Hoffman
who died at the age of 46 the
terrible tragedy %uh
our war on drugs now
let me explain I found this for small I found this really interesting
Mike Gallagher is one of my colleagues he's a
conservative talk show host I think he's he's over on Salem Radio
and I don't know I'm well you know we've met a few times but
speak it's in conferences and things but over on his website Mike online dot com
he's said another senseless death
this time or the greatest actors are times I wonder if this
if he started with marijuana if you want to get pot at and lovers mad
dare to even ask the question if an oscar-winning movie star was found dead
in his bathroom the needle stuck in his arm started with marijuana
he's supposed to decriminalizing pot
and I i guess you would the
assume from Mike Gallagher statement that we can expect to see an explosion
of heroin
on overdoses now in Washington State and Colorado
and I think it's this
uninformed jingoistic
perspective which is widely embraced in america
talkers magazine the the is I learned of
what hap me know Mikes experience what Mike Gallagher said
a because talker says no that he got over 50,000 views
and death threats against him his family and his dog
%uh for posting this as well so he mostly you know I E this guys get some
publicity
rent for coming on same bus I think it's
I think it's just as you know it's a sad state of affairs
the the fact of the matter is if you look at
the experience of the United Kingdom and Switzerland and can it up until last
november
which had turned heroin into a prescription drug
and treated heroin addiction
as a public health problem rather than a crime that
harrowing doesn't ravage the liver the way alcohol doesn't heroin doesn't cause
lung cancer the way smoking does
this is not a pro heroin pitch I actually think that there are
medicinal values and even recreational values to
pot I don't think that her on but that's sad
at there actually is a medicinal value for her when it's a very very powerful
painkiller
you know morphine doesn't quite work but is almost getting you there
prescription her when should be available my opinion I mean it's see it
was originally sold as a cough medicine for children
by bear at they they came over the brand name haro
you can find online pictures the old 1918 bottles
a row and got service in children it works and does work it just has the side
effect
been very addictive but the principle to side effects at the use a heroine
are addiction and the things that come along with it being illegal
which are principally disease and the threat of imprisonment
and
if what's what's a London England found was that when they
made heroin prescription drug in said to doctors and
very carefully supervised doctors who are specialists in addiction not just
you know any old dock you may prescribe this
to addicts to treat their addiction and their necks would come into these
clinics three times a day and shoot up
literally shit up with a brand new fresh needle that their rates
%uh HIV and hepatitis other but blood-borne infections
plummeted crime dropped because these guys another steal anymore to sport a
habit
many of these heroin addicts continue their heroin addiction but went
on went back into the workplace gained weight
got healthy got jobs and eventually quit using heroin
there been a dozen documentaries done on this there's there is
380 all you have to do is go to YouTube and type in
prescription herro one annuals we'll see
the BBC is done documentaries on at the CBC has done documentaries on it
there the the there's there the there's a brilliant one be done by Dutch
television
in public health circles this is not contested
so eighty idea that because Colorado and Washington stated legalize pot you're
gonna see a
increasingly using heroin thats that's nonsense
you're gonna see a decrease in the use of heroin in those states
because people no longer have to need to go to illegal market places to buy pot
in those illegal marketplaces where people were buying pot are also the
places where heroin assault
number one so actually my prediction is five years from now we're gonna look
back and we're going to be able to see the clear epidemiological trend
that the use of heroin and not just their own heroin cocaine and all the
other illegal drugs that can be very very destructive
that they are going that their use is going to decline in
States
my prediction number one number two with I
think it's time for us to declare the end and to the to the hell
to the war on drugs if Philip Seymour Hoffman
had been able to go to a clinic or a doctor and say I have an addiction
disease
and get prescription heroin or if he had had
access I guess he had a lot of money and access to it the opportunity to get
cleared
he might not be dead right
this is the Thom Hartmann program
now I realize that sounds counterintuitive like give heroin heroin
addicts
but it actually as workers