Addictions are a Cost of War: Marijuana Speech #31

31st speech in this series to the Josephine County Commissioners, 5-9-2012; 

Honorable Commissioners:

          Last week, Mr. Ford took offense to my previous speech, saying that I had tarred all Vietnam vets with the same brush, and “We didn’t all come back drug-crazed maniacs.”

          I didn’t say that anyone came back a “drug-crazed maniac”; I said that some men came back with “habits”.  I also confined such remarks to people who were protesting that war, and who had such habits, in talking about the origin of our modern “drug culture.”  Mr. Ford can rest assured that I was not talking about him or people like him.

          I talk about what I know, in this case, men who were drafted to ‘Nam with drug habits and came back with more reason to use them.  In the case of my late husband, Randy Brown, when he was drafted, he had a wife and two sons, and owned a bar in Georgia.  During his first tour, his wife divorced him, kept the kids, and sold the bar.  He stayed for a second tour. 

          Before he owned the bar, he had a roofing business in Kansas; he was a natural entrepreneur.  After he was drafted, he never started another business; all his efforts were focused on get-rich-quick schemes.  Why work hard and save your money when the government can pick you up at any time and take it all away?  Being in the black market, that threat always hung over his head.

          Since the discovery of opiates, addiction to such pain-killers has been a cost of war.  A war on those who take marijuana, opiates and other pain-killers and stimulants does not help our soldiers recover from their experiences overseas; it just makes them the enemy in their own country.

          Many of us are said to be primed for drug addiction by trauma in childhood.  We are not helped with our addictions by being made the enemy by our government.  I was well on my way to being a social alcoholic when I smoked pot in college at 18—in a state where the drinking age is 19.  Your ban on youth drinking didn’t stop me; it just taught me to get drunk.  I was drunk when I tried pot.  Your ban on marijuana didn’t stop me from finding my drug of choice; your ban on harder drugs didn’t stop me from trying them to see what they really do.  All it did was put me outside the rule of law, afraid to report an attempted rape.

          Please help stop the war on us and our habits and support the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act as a first step toward peace and freedom of medicine.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener         541-955-9040    rycke@gardener.com