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Topic: An Alternative To Our Failing System- Teen Challenge
Topic Posted by: Paka Maka (pakamaka@hotmail.com )Organization: Teen Challenge - Free For Those Who Want Help!
Date Posted: Sun Apr 5 20:40:44 1998
Topic Description: The definition of "Rehabilitation" as defined by Merriam Webster Dictionary is: to restore to a former capacity. I believe the idea of rehabilitating a person is just a "BANDAID SOLUTION" for a much deeper issue. If we are to take a person who has at some point in their life turned to drug use to find an escape from the things of this world, the daily grind and stresses, and simply return them to the state they were in before the drug use...what has that person gained? Are we not setting them up for another trip down the road of despair and drug use...without dealing with the real issues behinds the drug use itself. Drugs and Alcohol are nothing more than a surface result or manifestation of a much deeper rooted issue that the person is trying to deal with or find freedom and peace of mind from. I believe in there is a void in every human being and that is the reason man has gone in search of so many things to fill the void- dugs and alcohol being one way to fill the void and try to deal with the confusion and stress of life. Once the person has learned to overcome the drugs, removing them from the space where the void originally was...what do they now put in place of the void? As I look at the basics, I believe every person is in need of something much greater to fill the void in their lives...thus sealing the void and setting the person free from the cycle of despair or uncertainty in this world in which we live. Looking at the current ways the Government has been trying to 'help' those who are entangled in drugs or alcohol, I only see a system that is largely FAILING. By putting people in jail you are essentially putting a BANDAID on the surface problem and still releasing them with the severe internal issues they had before their incarceration. I personally have found, and gone through, one place that has claimed a 70% cure rate for the drug addicts that complete their program as compared to the governments cure rate of 1-15%. This place is called Teen Challenge. If you need more information on this program you can find it at: www.teenchallenge.com I hope you found something here helpful or insightful. Paka Maka- pakamaka@hotmail.com
Posted by: Steve
Date posted: Tue Apr 7 12:46:16 1998
Subject: Flawed reasoning
Message:
I'm glad that you agree that prison doesn't do any good. I wouldn't even call it a band-aid; it's more like putting a psychotic patient in a straitjacket and expecting him to get better. I just visited your web site. I was disappointed to see some of the same old myths about marijuana, in particular that it is a "gateway" drug to other drugs. I do not believe the research you cite supports any such conclusion. Furthermore, you're falling into several logical fallacies. One, you're engaging in post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning; "after this, because of this." Because an event occurs after another does not necessarily demonstrate any causal connection. You might just as well argue that alcohol is a "gateway" drug, because it precedes nearly all other drug use. Yet, I doubt that many of the millions of social drinkers in this country feel as though they are being inexorably drawn to the use of heroin and cocaine. Two, you're drawing inappropriate conclusions because of the relative percentages of drug use. Far more people use marijuana than harder drugs, so it's inevitable that some people who use harder drugs used marijuana first. But that doesn't make it a "gateway" drug. Dr. Peter Cohen of the Centre For Drug Research, University of Amsterdam, has looked at the "gateway" myth and concluded there is no such thing. Indeed, the Dutch experience confirms it. While their rate of marijuana use has remained fairly constant (despite general tolerance of its use), their rate of hard drug use has consistently gone down over the past 20 years, something that would not be expected if there were a causal connection. Lynn Zimmer and Dr. John Morgan further debunk the "gateway" myth in their book, "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts." As far as 73% of your teenagers saying that marijuana shouldn't be legalized...the illegality didn't keep them from using marijuana, did it? Indeed, I've seen reports that teens say it's easier to get marijuana than it is to get alcohol. It's quite likely that marijuana's illegality makes it *easier* to get, not harder. That seems quite plausible; instead of licensed, regulated dealers under some kind of control, we have totally uncontrolled dope dealers on every corner ready to sell anything to anybody.
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