 The midterm elections are right around the corner, so let's talk about ending this very silly war on drugs. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health as well as addiction recovery and the stigma and all of that. So if you're new to that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Yes, November 6th is the midterm elections and part of my channel is mental health awareness and advocacy and before you go out and vote, I'm not going to tell you who to vote for or how to vote but chances are if you're watching this video, you care a little bit about mental health and although it's a battle that I'm always fighting, people think that addiction is not the same as mental illness. It very much is and you'll see why throughout this video but we need to look at the policies that certain politicians back because some of them are not helping people who are struggling with mental illnesses like addiction. So there's war on drugs, like let's talk about this because there are different politicians who are for it, some are against it so let's just put out some facts and talk about this. So did you know, did you know that the war on drugs and the war on cancer actually started the same year? Now think about that real quick, both of these wars on this illness right? But think about the direction the war on cancer went, okay? There's a bunch of funding, you know, a bunch of charities, we got, you know, months where we wear a certain color and that's awesome, that's great but think about the war on drugs. We started locking people up, we started tossing them in prison, alright? And like we have to think about that and it's understandable, like addiction is very complicated and it's this illness where people do very bad things like people who have cancer don't necessarily like rob their parents jewelry or you know steal things or do like violent offenses, right? So that's one of the reasons why people with addictions are looked at in a different way. But here's the thing, we cannot deny scientific evidence, okay? So over the years they have done many, many, many neurological studies to show that the brain of an addict is different than the average brain, okay? One of the primary differences is that somebody who has the disease of addiction, their brain gets an excess flood of dopamine, alright? So that is why they become hooked on these drugs or hooked on alcohol but it can also happen with anything else that can kind of release dopamine, right? But there are neurological studies, I have Zach putting up this picture on the screen, alright? There's one normal brain and then there's another brain that is getting flooded with dopamine. So we have scientific evidence that addiction is a disease but we're still locking people up. Here's something else to take into consideration, did you know that the leading cause of addiction as well as relapse is mental illness, that's right. Most people who develop an addiction have what we call co-occurring disorders. So they have an addiction as well as a mental illness. So many people, like part of my experience, when I became addicted, I was self medicating my depression and anxiety, alright? I didn't know what was happening to me, it was scary, it was confusing, why doesn't my brain work like other people's? The only thing I knew was that drugs and alcohol helped calm my brain down. So due to that self medicating and rewiring the way my pleasure circuits work in my brain, like every time I would get anxious my brain said, oh the solution to substances, right? Then what happens to most people is that that solution then becomes a primary source of the problem. So we are punishing and locking up a lot of mentally ill people rather than treating them. Now let's talk about the prison cycle, okay? Like I just want you to imagine, envision this story, okay? So think about it, someone who is hard on their luck, right? Maybe they grew up in poverty, maybe they're struggling with PTSD, like so many of our veterans are, as well as many people who have traumatic childhoods, right? And they just want to quiet the noise, they want to quiet this thing. Or maybe they live, you know, just in poverty and terrible neighborhood, they just want to escape. So they start using substances, alright? Then they get arrested for a nonviolent substance offense. Then they get put into the prison system. Now they get out and they have a felony, okay? So they started self-medicating because maybe they're depression or their anxiety. Now they get out of prison and now they can't find a job because of this thing that's on their record, right? What do you think that leads to? More depression, more anxiety. So what is going to stop them from turning back to those substances and going right back in the prison system? Are you starting to follow me here, alright? So when we're locking people up for these nonviolent substance offenses, they are more likely to start abusing substances again because as most of us know, the prison system isn't exactly set up to rehabilitate people. Now there is a saving grace. There is a saving grace. There are many cities as well as states that have drug courts. So if you're not familiar with drug courts, what this is is they give people the option. You can either do jail time or you can go to a treatment program, alright? I'm very fortunate. I never got into legal trouble because of my addiction but I know many people, many people who took the option of drug court and now they're still clean to this day. Two of my very best friends to this day are six years sober because of drug courts. On average, 50% of the people who go through drug court are sober a year later and if you're able to stay sober for a year, your chances of staying sober in the next five years are even higher. And if you can stay sober for five years, your chances of never relapsing again are pretty much like I think like less than 15% that you'll relapse, alright? So think about that. Now, one of the issues is that drug courts are not a federal thing, okay? A lot of it is state by state. Sometimes it's even county by county, alright? So what that means is maybe like here in Southern Nevada, we might have drug courts and then in Northern Nevada, we don't, right? So these are things that I want you to think about when it comes to legislature, like shouldn't we give people the option to get treatment, to get help, okay? Especially when the success, like when you hear 50%, it doesn't seem that great, but I'm letting you know right now, there's a lot of treatment centers that don't even have a 50% success rate, alright? It's much lower than that. So when people are threatened with, you know, jail time or this record or whatever it is, they're more likely to stay on the straight and narrow because it's like forced accountability. And I can do a whole nother video about how some people think that it's like, you know, it's unconstitutional to, you know, make people like go to 12 step meetings or do a treatment program and stuff like that's a bunch of ridiculousness, okay? But anyways, there's a great TED talk by the author, Yohan Hari. I'll actually link it down in the description below. But he talks about addiction and connection and all of that. But he talks about, I can't remember which South American country it is. But basically, they got rid of all legal issues when it comes to substance use, right? And what they did was they started giving these people jobs and they saw their addiction rates just plummet, okay? Now, one of the other issues that I won't dive too far into is that we have a privatized prison system where people are in there basically working for slave labor, alright? And like, you haven't, like, I don't know if you've seen, but there are people like in prisoners going on strike because of what's happening in our prison systems. So we start to kind of think about how we're punishing the mentally ill, the people who have a sickness, the people who have a disease, the people who aren't getting a proper chance to recover. They were putting them in a system so that other people can profit off them. Like, it's kind of messed up in my opinion. So for the last half of this video, let's talk. Let's get real real quick, okay? So some of you who don't know me, I'll let you know about me. I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I have not had one narcotic substance in over six years. I haven't had a single beer, no liquor. I haven't even smoked weed, okay? That's who I am. But I'm here to tell you, legalized weed, alright? Legalized weed. So going back to the whole war on drugs, you know how many people are in prison because of a weed offense, right? And it's absolutely crazy. It's crazy. I can't remember. I think it might have been Washington. But they've done this like retroactive thing where anybody who has a mail time or whatever, they're getting rid of all that stuff and letting them out if it was a nonviolent drug offense that had to do with marijuana, right? So here in Nevada, a couple years ago, I voted to legalize weed. I don't smoke it, but I know that it's not nearly as dangerous as some of the other stuff people are getting, like pharmaceuticals, alright? So legalizing weed will be a great benefit. So here in Nevada, we've made insane amounts of money that go back into our economy here. You've seen places like Colorado do it, alright? You've seen other places like, I think, California or Washington, they're doing it. It's going back into the economy rather than locking people up for some weed. It's even crazier. It's even crazier when you think about big pharma in the United States, alright? It's crazier to think. I did a video a long time ago that I will link up in the info card called The Truth About the Opioid Epidemic, alright? There are so many politicians that are paid by big pharma. So why do you think? Why do you think? And I don't want to get all crazy right now. Why do you think that they turn a blind eye to big pharma, but they're trying to crack down on marijuana, right? Some of these politicians are getting hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from big pharma, alright? But here's the thing, did you know, did you know that over 80% of heroin addicts started out with prescription painkillers, alright? So they want us to think that all these other countries are the problem for bringing in their heroin, but it's the pharmaceutical industry and us overprescribing medications that's giving people the gateway into heroin. Next, did you know that each year in the United States, every single year in the United States, more people die from prescription drug overdoses than heroin and cocaine combined? That's right. So we're talking about prescription opioids, prescription opioids. We're talking about benzodiazepines, okay? All of these medications that doctors can just make it rain all willy-nilly, more people are dying from those than heroin and cocaine combined. But we still have a federal government that won't legalize weed. How many documented overdoses do we have from weed? Now, don't get me wrong, weed can become addictive. I've made videos on this. People can get high and, you know, have accidents that can be fatal, alright? But when we look at what's happening in our country and the way pills are getting thrown around all over the place, the last thing, the last thing we should be worried about is marijuana. Marijuana is actually less dangerous than alcohol, you know? Like, alcohol has so many health risks associated with it. It's crazy. Now, I'm not telling anybody watching this, like, go out and smoke some weed. I manage my anxiety and my life in other ways, but it's crazy to think that this should still be illegal and have people go to prison over this stuff. So anyways, again, again, like, go out and vote. Like, I always say, like, you have no right to complain unless you're willing to go do something about it. Like, just go vote. If you think everything I said in this video was BS, I don't care. Go vote. If this might have, like, switched something with you and you're like, oh, maybe I'll actually look into these politicians and see if they're for or against the drug war, like, go vote for somebody who's against it, like, whatever it is. But go out there and put in some effort so we can make a difference together. But anyways, anyways, I want to have a conversation down below. Let me know what you think about the drug war or the prison system. Or let me know what your thoughts are about legalizing marijuana and pharmaceuticals and all that. Let's have a conversation down below. But be nice. Be nice to one another. Let's have calm, educated, adult-like conversations. All right? But anyways, that's all I got for you with this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure to subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. You helped me do what I love, which is spreading a message about mental health and addiction and all of that. And if you would like to help support the channel, feel free to click or tap on that Patreon icon right there. You can support the channel for as little as a dollar a month. All right? But anyways, thanks so much for watching. Go out and vote and I'll see you next time.