From the Greeks to Shakespeare, one of the most heinous things in literature is taking a newborn baby from its mother.
I am not a parent, not a mother, yet it is obvious to me that such an act is one of the worst possible things you can do to either the infant or mom.
As Radley Balko reports, in one such case of removal for 75 of the first 78 days of the child’s life due to nothing more than a positive drug test from a poppy seed salad, the price was set at $160,000 in a court settlement.
But even if these tests were 100 percent accurate, treating both patients for addiction seems like a far more humane policy than yanking a newborn from his mother’s arms — or sending the mother to prison.
Of course, if this were a Greek play, the child would grow up not knowing its background and end up ironically slaying Jameson Hospital and Lawrence County Children and Youth Services, resulting in poetic justice.
But we can’t count on such dramatic plot twists and instead must work to change policies. $160,000 will help to make other similar entities think twice.
i have to wonder if the people involved in these actions use the old “it’s just my job” routine when they look themselves in the mirror at night. But probably it’s alot worse than that. I can more easily see the decision makers in these processes hanging out amongst their uninformed friends and colleagues at some bar consuming a beverage far worse for their body than anything a poppy or poppy biproduct could do to them and therein talking about how righteous their cause is, how correct what they do is. You know, it’s so frightening when you consider just how incredibly sheltered the average person in America can end up being. Without any kind of involvement in the black market of drugs or the more carnal aspects of human life, totally subdued by the gov’t sanctioned addictions of starbucks, alcohol, ESPN and the (hilarious) belief that everything they were told in school and by subtly politically driven saturday morning cartoons (see: cartoon allstars to the rescue, thanks Bush Sr.) were always right and on the right side.
I was just comparing stories last night with someone I respect whose twenty years my senior and continues to live the same existence as I do, we were comparing stories about how we were both in such precarious positions “out there” whereby we were almost raped. The situations were different but the outcomes the same and the theme the same. We then watched a documentary on the phenomina (sp?) of pedophiles attacking the young Romanian homeless populace. Considering all this, the tragedy is definitely akin to a greek play. As presumptuous and distasteful as it may sound, i have to say, it feels to me like the potential rapers of the vulnerable homeless are on the “bad guy” side of the so called “good guy bad guy pendulum” and it strikes me that these officials are, while supposed the designated go-to people on the “good guy” side, are rather, in fact, pretty much just as bad of guys as the just identified “bad guys.”
Yes, to call it a greek tragedy makes sense, it’s definitely satisfying to consider the ascending greek victim slaying his foes left and right in his conquest of vengeance and redemption
but I would say all too often the stories resemble a jidaigeki – japanese samurai films… yes, in these, very typically, the righteous hero is epically (sp) wronged usually by the Shogunate whose always there to play the villain, and, while the hero always rises up by the end to slay the legions of villains who’ve destroyed his life, inevitably however, the insane numbers of sword wielding opponents always overwhelm our hero, noble as he and his cause is.. (see: harakiri, samurai rebellion, to an extent even Samurai 7 [as the 7 don’t survive in totality] also sword of doom in a way and the list could go on and on.)
i wonder what these hospitals do when the test shows positive for cannabis metabolytes?
I knew instinctively very early not to have kids. Trust no One.
Throw some cash at it. HA!
No Solutions exist for Evil Backstabber Land.
Meltdown.exe loaded.
Send Pressed.
Apologies for going OT so quickly but here’s an interview of Nora Volkow from National Geographic;
http://tinyurl.com/mv7njuo
While this interview suggests a few cracks in the wall, it’s much the same drivel from Nora. Just a little repackaging.
Among Nora’s usual collection of half-truths, I found this interesting:
” … there’s concern about the fact that you’re creating an industry whose purpose is to sell marijuana products. The more people who smoke, the more profit they generate. When you have a profit incentive to promote the use of a substance, that could increase the problems associated with it.”
Do tell me Nora, what is the difference between your projected situation and what we have at the present time? Are those criminal drug gangs that prohibition has price-supported since the 1930s really not driven by the same profit motive as the rest of capitalist America?
No Nora, the industry (and the market) has already been created by prohibition, with some help from its handmaidens like you.
Yep… I was about to drop that quote here = as an example of just how stupid her argument is:
This absolutely is the largest problem – sort of…
She seems to have over-looked this bit of idiocy, inherent in her “logic”…
Its only a question of who will profit from the sales – Corporations or Cartels? The “Market” already exists – it has for as longer than most of us have been alive.
And they just had a 4-star General testify that they can only interdict about 20% of the supply.
General Says He Will Need More Ships If We Expect Him to Win the War on Drugs
And they basically make-up that 20% number as well, via some sorta educated guessing (quite possibly/probably via illegal snooping on basically everyone on the planet.)
Just the idea that the guy says, “Okay what we’ll need to Win the War On Drugs is yada-yada-yada”… Strikes me as gullibility and/or insanity on the part of all those present who believed that crock!
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Do the phrenologists work for free? They’re not making their fat paychecks from promoting addiction? Are these people fans of H.L. Mencken or what?
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Holier than thou sanctimony Batman! It’s The Addictionologist!!
Yes Robin, and he’s up to his old tricks again! Using “the children” as political pawns while regurgitating bald faced lies, half truths, and hysterical rhetoric to promote his own self serving financial interests!! The Batmobile is only 12 steps away so let’s hurry!!! We must protect Gotham City!!!!
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Oops, phrenologists = addictionologists. My bad.
Where I grew up there was a People’s drug store about a 1/4 of a mile from my home. Everyone in my family was always running out to People’s to buy whatever people buy at the local pharmacy. A couple of decades later People’s was bought out by CVS and converted to that trademark. To this day I still refer to CVS as People’s unless I remember to edit myself. Here’s a little more supporting evidence that child memories ingrained at that age are really, really ingrained: Even though I live in a different State, my childhood was more or lees 5 decades ago, I still live 1/4 of a mile from a CVS. It’s where I’m consistently run out to buy whatever people buy at the local pharmacy. I believe that it may always be People’s to me.
In the very same category, when I was growing up the most popular stripe of self anointed medical expert cum charlatan were the phrenologists. Of course years later they were run out of town on a rail and starting in the latter years of the 1980s the addictionologists started playing that role. I have no doubt that they will always be phrenologists to me.
Two things stand out for me here:
1. This is blatant weaponization of healthcare.
2. This is a business that wasn’t happy only drug testing its employees so it decided to branch out into drug testing its CUSTOMERS.
Shit like this just reinforces my natural aversion to doctors. It’s now just about impossible to deal with one who isn’t a happy tool of prohibition.
NYT has a pretty good Room for Debate on drug addiction. Dr. Carl Hart and Kurt Schmoke have pieces. The ususal suspects are there of course, but the good guys seem to be in the majority this time.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/03/17/lowering-the-deadly-cost-of-drug-abuse/saving-drug-abusers-lives-with-a-radical-plan
Usual suspects indeed, with the usual arguments.
Dr. Klieman (the K is silent) is, as always, focused solely on how to more effectively and efficiently force people to stop consuming stuff he thinks they shouldn’t. He tries to make it sound like he’d only apply it to those who “need†treatment by clinical criteria, but we know what that means — if you use a forbidden substance one-tenth as often as practically everyone uses an allowed substance like caffeine, that’s “clinical criteria”, which is why, as he admits, most of those people “aren’t ready to give up their favorite drugs”. Yeah, neither are coffee drinkers — and for the same reasons.
And Dr. Harrumphreys, as always, uses the forum for a pro-ACA rah-rah session, focusing on who pays for “addiction treatment” rather than who needs it. He speaks of “universal on-demand treatment”, but leaves out the part about who is demanding it — usually law enforcement and not the user.
We don’t need to legalize, folks, all we have to do is force everyone into rehab and get insurance to pay for it — problem solved! NOT!
Which doctor is Kleiman. I used to think that he was a professwhore.
Is there nothing these body fluid searching animals consider sacred? Is their nothing they consider “Unreasonable”?
It’s sickening. Makes me weep for the families, the mothers and the children of this country.
Injustice!
What’s wrong with the blood thirsty monsters behind these debacles? They have no respect for these people they subject to these atrocities. And they are atrocities.
Atrocities that DuPont and other other monsters visit on their victims. And these people are victims. They are truly victims of money and power hungry monsters.
It’s “UNREASONABLE” to draw blood and cells from a human being so you can divine what they might have been doing that would displease you.
It’s got to stop. The only way non-violent way to stop these monsters is lawsuits and changing the laws. It should be so illegal to do things like a forced search of another person’s insides and their body cells.
They don’t understand the word respect. Why, for heaven’s sake, do they even have the right to do this people?
We are treated like slaves or chattel by these crazy authoritarians. We are treated like they actually own us. The woman and child in this piece did not belong, like chattel, to the people that authorized these actions.
They do not own other people. It’s not right. They have to back off with their accusations and needles and their tests.
One thing no one has yet mentioned is how doing this to mother and child damages (and if they are apart long enough, destroys) the bond between them. The same thing happens with babies that are premature and spend the first few weeks of their lives in incubators without being held close by their mothers daily.
My best friend went through this back in 1964, her first child was 2 months early, she was unable to hold him and was only allowed to touch him through the side of the incubator with her hand in a glove and only allowed that minimal contact once a day. She loves him, but she has never really felt close to him. I had my first son the day before she gave birth and my son was fully developed and because he was so big for a first child my doctor induced labor 2 weeks before his due date (he weighed 8 lbs. 9.5 oz at birth) so I got to snuggle him, and breast feed and bond, now he and I are still close, just as I am close to my other two. She is also close to her other two, neither of which were premature.
Is there nothing these body fluid searching animals consider sacred? Is their nothing they consider “Unreasonable”?
It’s sickening. Makes me weep for the families, the mothers and the children of this country.
Injustice!
What’s wrong with the blood thirsty monsters behind these debacles? They have no respect for these people they subject to these atrocities. And they are atrocities.
Atrocities that DuPont and other other monsters visit on their victims. And these people are victims. They are truly victims of money and power hungry monsters.
It’s “UNREASONABLE” to draw blood and cells from a human being so you can divine what they might have been doing that would displease you.
It’s got to stop. The only way non-violent way to stop these monsters is lawsuits and changing the laws. It should be so illegal to do things like a forced search of another person’s insides and their body cells.
They don’t understand the word respect. Why, for heaven’s sake, do they even have the right to do this people?
We are treated like slaves or chattel by these crazy authoritarians. We are treated like they actually own us. The woman and child in this piece did not belong, like chattel, to the people that authorized these actions.
They do not own other people. It’s not right. They have to back off with their accusations and needles and their tests.
Pete, if you can, please delete my extra post.
If the government is actually trying to change from treating drug use as a crime into a health issue there surely needs to be an adjustment to the way drug screenings are acted upon,,,if they are needed at all,,if drug use is a health issue then how long before we start picking up kids in homes where a parent has a debilitating illness and can’t give their children “proper” care?
Child removal due to poppy seeds? What part of “first, do no harm” is confusing the hospital staff?
If this ever happened to my spouse or child–that doctor and nurse would understand how deploying with the infantry dealt the cards for them a day or two later. Just maybe, I might not treat them like someone attempting to take the life of my child–just maybe I could get a million miles an hour emotions to stop on a dime.
Since marijuana is “no more harmful”..actually no death makes marijuana a lot safer,,then the same precautions used with marijuana edibles are the same precautions that are used for protection from alcohol in the home,,if you have an open bar in your home with whisky sitting around then a joint in the ashtray or a candy bar in the fridge isn’t the danger in the house.
Colorado wrestles with how to keep edible marijuana away from kids
csmonitor.com
http://tinyurl.com/n3vpbyu
A new law extends the same packaging requirements to medical marijuana products as exist for recreational pot, but critics say it’s still hard for kids to…
Under the new law, edible marijuana products sold to medical marijuana patients must be in opaque, child-proof packaging. The law also allows marijuana businesses to confiscate fake IDs from minors, just as liquor stores do, and requires that marijuana grown in a home with minors must be enclosed and locked. “snip”
But you can still brew beer in your garage or ferment wine in your cellar while the refrigerator full of beer is a necessity of life.
here’s a disturbing view of the upper crust that could explain why they can steal your kin and invade your body without a qualm:http://tinyurl.com/olhkt49
Problem with that article is we are more abused by our peers (busybodies, bureaucrats and LE) than by the “upper crust” (IF you leave all politicians out of the equation, I think the majority of politicians are sociopaths which is why they can pass the bills they pass in legislatures and congress without bothering to read them and while making certain they do not have to abide by those same unconstitutional statutes).
Can you imagine if Bret Easton Ellis wrote his ‘American Psycho’ novel with a politician instead of a rich Wall Street guy . . . or as a police officer since they too must be sociopaths to enforce those laws as well.
“$160,000 will help to make other similar entities think twice.”
What makes you think similar entities think at all?
Insurance pays all. There are no consequences so there will be no change. Add a couple of zeros to the award so it exceeds insurance maximums and the taxpayers will demand change.
Expecting health care and child services to do law enforcement’s job is bad enough, especially when law enforcement screws up so much doing its own job. Now the blame for negligence on a drug test interpretation has fallen upon health and child care workers with Lawrence County, legally shielding those instigating the drug war. The Lawrence County court judgment illustrates one more way the drug testing industry rigs the system to allocate its legal liabilities to others.
Peter, great post and I am so glad you have written about the issue of the state taking kids away from parents in War on Drugs. There is a great organization that focuses on this issue and in particular how CPS has harassed medical marijuana patients who are parents and threatened to remove their children. It’s called Family Law and Cannabis Alliance, based in Massachusetts and run by two activists I’ve known for a long time. It would be great if you guys can work together!
for folks that like using accurate numbers (like those long provided by mr bennett) the ACLU has just unveiled a new tool: https://theuncovery.org/
their release:
Ganjawar Child Protection Racketeering
– Child Protection Racket (raw)
– Gulf War vet sues city of San Diego over pot allegations, child abduction
– Smoke A Joint, Lose Your Kids
Children taken from mom in pot raid inflame Butte Jan. 3, 2013
Her defenders say Bram is essentially being prosecuted for breast-feeding while using medical marijuana. They say her case dramatizes what they contend are heavy-handed policies for medical marijuana use in Butte County, where supervisors put restrictions on growing medical pot, and police and an aggressive district attorney shuttered all local marijuana dispensaries.
Moms Say Marijuana Makes Them Better Parents
POT TV June 27 2013 – CNN’s Piers Morgan interviews the Pot Moms of California on their medical cannabis use and its effects of on parenting.
Quotes About Marijuana
Eventually, my professor asked, “Is there anyone that thinks this girl is doing something wrong?†Not one person raised their hand.â€
Juicing MMJ the latest trend in amazing cures
Now it appears that Dr. William Courtney, MD, has discovered the best way to take in CBDs and other beneficial cannabinoids without the THC becoming psychoactive even though it’s still in the plant: Eating or juicing the whole raw marijuana plant.
Drug mishandling may have tainted 40,000 cases
California: Oppose Unscientific ‘Drugged Driving’ Legislation
Monday, 17 March 2014 via @NORML
Members of the California Assembly are considering legislation, Assembly Bill 2500, to impose ‘per se’ criminal penalties to individuals who drive with trace levels of THC or any other Schedule I through Schedule IV substance in their body — regardless of whether he/she is behaviorally impaired. AB 2500 has been referred to the Public Safety Committee.
CA Bill SB 289
Hearings on Sen. Correa’s zero-tolerance DUI bill SB 289 have been set for April 23rd before the State Senate Public Safety Committee. The bill would outlaw driving with ANY detectable amount of marijuana or other controlled substances in the blood unless taken on an MD’s prescription
What true apartheid is : Saudi Arabia
The Bush-Saudi Connection
Saudi sheiks or Wahhabis imposing their medieval code since 1774
Jeannie Herer â€@JeannieHerer
Winery raises glass to hemp cellar, net-zero building http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/03/19/winery-hemp-cellar …
Expand
Indiana: Lawmakers Approve Legislation Reclassifying Hemp As An Agricultural Commodity http://cannabis.hawaiinewsdaily.com/2014/03/19/indiana-lawmakers-approve-legislation-reclassifying-hemp-as-an-agricultural-commodity/ …
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How Racist Is Your State’s War on Weed? Compare! http://reason.com/blog/2014/03/19/marijuana-arrests-by-state-race
Norm D Guerre â€@NormDGuerreIndy
Indiana wasted $38,480,904 enforcing #marijuana laws in 2010. https://theuncovery.org/ #mjuncovered pic.twitter.com/HMlgTWSLRf
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BjCYcbyCQAA225W.png
Please excuse the mess. I just need to rant for a sec.
I still get the daily paper here in Tampa, and sometimes it gives insight into the mentalities of the local “common folk”.
Saw in the morning paper today:
She’s actually asking the right question, but coming to a wrong conclusion.
Why are we voting on medical marijuana? Why indeed. Because the government took a power that it had no right to take. And the people are taking it back. It has been proven that the government has lied, misled and scared the public sheep into accepting that certain drugs are so incredibly dangerous that the only solution is to throw you in jail for just touching them. Meanwhile, these other drugs that our friend Mr. Pharmy has for sale are mostly safe, and he can make a profit on them, so that’s good…
Ugh.
Sherry, when people like you realize that everyone could grow an effective medicine in their backyard, maybe you would start to see the truth. No, Cannabis is not a miracle drug, but it is a WONDER! And that is what scares them the most, and why they have been suppressing it mostly successfully for the last 100 years.
Get on the internet! All of your concerns are addressed. Learn that you don’t have to smoke it! Understand that drug interaction with Cannabis has been studied and is virtually nil. Understand that you basically CANNOT overdose on what is one of the least toxic substances on the face of the earth. Correct dosage is when the sick person says, “Thanks, I’m good.”
And then the clincher (paraphrased). “Remove this decision from the voters”. That’s what they already did. That is why we are here today, and in November, we will be voting on Medical Marijuana.
Soon, you will evolve or die. And then we will be voting on recreational Farming when the public sees (once again) that the sky isn’t falling and society is no more broken than it already was.
Well, for both Aspirin and penicillin, there WAS no FDA approval. Since both of those drugs predate the existence of the agency. Perhaps she means “Why do we have to vote on a medicine that should never even BE subject to FDA approval.
Since the FDA was formally christened in 1930, and cannabis remained in the pharmacopeia until AFTER 1937 (it was only removed from it a year or so later), and since the FDA did nothing to limit or restrict cannabis medicines until they were made federally illegal, that says, A) like aspirin, did not need to be reviewed because of it’s ubiquity and perfect unchallenged safety record, and B) had tacit FDA approval because of that, just like aspirin.
dc, I quoted your post in an email to our State and fed “reps”
Ask your US Rep to sign Blumenhauer’s letter
February 03, 2014 | Don Duncan
US Representative Earl Blumenhauer (D-OR) is sending a letter to President Obama asking him to follow his recent comments on cannabis and its classification under federal law with action. Call your US Representative today and ask him or her to support this effort by signing Representative Blumenhauer’s letter.
Find your Representative & Contact them Today!
Why this matters:
President Obama told a reporter that cannabis was no more dangerous than alcohol on January 27. When asked about that comment by a CNN reporter a few days later, the President said it was up to Congress to decide which drugs belong on Schedule I – a classification reserved for dangerous drugs with no medical value. It is encouraging to hear the President taking a relatively enlightened view of the safety of cannabis and raising the question about its classification under federal law. But we need him to go further.
Representative Blumenhauer’s letter points out that the classification of cannabis as a dangerous drug has real financial and human costs for Americans, costs that fall disproportionately on minorities. The letter calls on the President to instruct US Attorney General Eric Holder to start the process of reclassification (called “reschedulingâ€) or to simply do it himself. The letter will be most effective if other US Representatives sign on, too.
http://tinyurl.com/qxxngn4
It took 2 minutes to make the call.:bongin:
“bongin”
does that translate as hitting it on the phone to said congressperson?
while
Handy item:http://tinyurl.com/p7dj2ec
☺ ♥ ♦ ♣ â™
I wish I could do that Clay, but Earl Blumenhauer is not a Republican . . . not that it maters to me, but that would be like asking my Rep to support voting on a bill authored by a Portuguese politician. Most people taking calls for the rep just hang up on you when you call them about Marijuana (which is less rude than the hysterical laughter they do as well). Texas is the land of Libertine and Liberal Hippies when compared to my area . . . Our Bible Thumping politicians thump other Conservative Bible Thumpers for being Hard Core Liberals. I would get further if I wrote to him in the Russian language. I only work with state reps (all one of them) now and no more D.C. Dorito Heads from my state. I’m not sure I can persuade my rep that Marijuana falls under the Second Amendment . . . that would be a useful loophole. Does anybody have a Zip code I can barrow for the Website posted on Clays post?
The BATF has been officially spanked by U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright for entrapping people into committing drug related crimes:
Now the BATF will have to tackle real crimes instead of faked ones. Too bad the DEA doesn’t get the same treatment.
Wrong. They will just continue doing the same and try to avoid this judge. There are no consequences so there will be no change.
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Wow primus, you may as well just give up and commit suicide if you’re really convinced that’s true. You really might consider talking to someone that you trust. You’ve had a black cloud hovering over your head in the last few days and it’s got me worried about you. Maybe
just need to go fishing or spend a few days contemplating your navel, I don’t know.
None of this is really any of my business but we really don’t need to lose any of the good guys. It may be slow but it is happening. Anyway, I’ve said my piece so i’ll get my nose back into my own business now. If I’m all wet I apologize, and believe it or not I hope that’s true.