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Mon. 23 Michael J. Reznicek M.D. Blowing Smoke
Blowing Smoke: Rethinking the War on Drugs
without Prohibition and Rehab
http://www.drrez.com/#!
Dr. Reznicek is a board certified psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience. He has practiced in the military, community settings, prisons and state hospitals. He currently practices as a consultant in Washington state.
He has extensive experience in the field of substance abuse. Dr. Reznicek has written for The Weekly Standard, the Omaha World Herald and has had letters in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He has been a guest on numerous talk radio shows at the local, national and international levels where he has discussed drug abuse.
He is an outspoken critic of the way psychiatry over-medicalizes human behavior.
He lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife Linda.
Professional Experience
Independent contractor, Washington State Department of Corrections
Full time clinical psychiatrist providing treatment to adult offenders in the state prison system.
President of the medical staff, Eastern State Hospital, Medical Lake, Washington
Attending psychiatrist, Eastern State Hospital, Geriatric Services Unit, Medical Lake, Washington
Full time clinical psychiatrist providing treatment to older adults who suffer from psychiatric illness and dementia. Also performs Officer-of-the-Day duties providing medical and psychiatric care to geriatric and adult patients throughout the state hospital. An overview of what is at stake in the drug war: we either maintain the status quo of black market violence and out-of-control drug use, or we embrace drug use as a cultural norm and allow embedded cultural controls to reinforce responsible habits. The disease model-inspired drug war represents a "professionalized" approach to the problem, while the alternative is layman-centered and more responsive to the realities of human nature.
Chapter 10: The case for drug legalization
Drug legalization would end the violence and corruption associated with the drug trade. Just as important, legalization would incorporate drug use as an accepted cultural norm, thereby removing the forbidden fruit effect. When legalization is combined with rejection of the disease model, drug users would no longer have incentives to practice out-of-control consumption. The biggest obstacle to repealing prohibition laws is that people believe such laws are preventing the spread of addictive diseases.
Chapter 11: Controlling teen drug use
Childhood is the time to learn habits that lead to success in adult life. Children can easily become derailed by self-indulgent habits, thus prohibition must remain in place for them just as we currently do with alcohol. There are many tools available to parents to prevent childhood drug habits, and foremost among them is home drug-testing. Children should never attend drug rehab because they'll be taught that they aren't responsible for their behavior.
Chapter 12: Controlling adult drug use
The key to managing the drug problem in adults is to let people consume whatever they want and let informal cultural controls reinforce responsible use. Legal sanctions should be reserved for any use that affects the safety of others. Most drug users will practice moderation when they are subjected to the disciplines and expectations of lay, working-class culture. The current prohibition-based approach ensures that drug use occurs outside of cultural norms and then sends addicts to treatment professionals who coddle and enable them.
Chapter 13: Challenges and opportunities
Legalizing drugs will cause many reasonable people to fear an epidemic of out-of-control drug use. Such fears, though, are stoked by those who have financial interests in the drug war and don't reflect what would really happen if we stopped enabling substance abusers. This chapter addresses how we can legalize drugs for adults but maintain prohibition for children and how legalization would drastically change the role of the medical profession and its monopoly on "by prescription only" medications. Finally, the habit model can be shown to be a better fit and offer more effective interventions for other deviant behaviors that have been framed as diseases: chronic criminality,
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NORML SHOW LIVE #842 - The Drug War Disease Modelby NORMLnet6 views
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