Common Sense

According to a tribal chief, the people of the Osage Nation are now using meth at an epedemic proportion.

OKLAHOMA CITY – In the rural areas of the Osage Nation reservation, tribal officials say a silent epidemic is spreading, causing domestic abuse, child abuse, child neglect and an overall decline in the quality of life for some Osages.

Methamphetamine use is on the rise, and tribal leaders passed an anti-meth bill last month that would set minimum penalties for the use, possession and distribution of meth.

I’m kind of sad to see that that is the tack they’ve taken. Obviously, mandatory minimums never stopped crack use here in the US, and meth use happened so fast that it has taken most lawmakers and law enforcers by surprise. By the time someone passes a bill making posession or use of meth more illegal, it is already too late.

Incarceration doesn’t seem to break someone of addiction anyway. I’ve heard of meth users choosing jail time over rehab because they know that it is still possible to get the drug in jail and that when they get out, they might know a few new drug dealers.

No, the only way to treat drug addiction is to treat the addiction. And addiction is a medical problem, not a law enforcement problem. The effects of drug addiction are. If someone is neglecting a child, or God forbid, abusing a child, then they need rehab and jail time on top of that. For too long, we’ve been one or the other. We need to understand that part of recovery does have to be learning to accept the consequences of your actions.

Rehab alone doesn’t always work and jail alone definitely doesn’t work. I think both together might have a better shot of improving things for some people.

I don’t have the statistics, and I’m not Bill O’Reilly so I’m not going to pull them out of my ass, by I think the vast majority of people in prison these days are in for drugs and drug-related crime. Whatever we’re doing isn’t working because many of them are repeat offenders. And now the Osage Nation is simply following in our failed footsteps.

Hopefully, by looking for better solutions, they’ll find something that works a whole lot better than what we’re doing.

Meth is a seriously hard drug and it has become eerily common. Some time back, if you were at a party and someone offered you a drug, it would probably be cocaine or pot. Now kids are being offered meth because it is cheaper and the high is better and longer lasting.

The worst part is that the high includes some serious brain damage and the drug can grab you after one use. I saw a program on meth where a college couple tried it for the first time at a party. They called 911 several times thinking that they were being chased outside their apartment when in reality, they had driven over a hundred miles and were in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. They abandoned their truck and then died in the freezing cold snow.

I know one person who was a meth user. I say was because, as far as I know, she’s still clean. The statistics are against her. Even though she has a daughter to look after and lives with her parents, the relapse rate is extremely high for meth. It requires longterm treatment.

I’m not an advocate of 12-step programs. They are basically bullshit. The second step is admitting that you are completely powerless over your addiction. That doesn’t help you. What you need to understand with addiction is that it is your choice to be addicted and only you can make the choice to stop. AA and other 12-steps don’t publish success rates, but on an episode of Penn & Tellers Bullshit (conveniently) a 1997 internal document they got their hands on showed that AA’s success rate was statistically the same as people who who quit on their own with no support system.

According to a tribal chief, the people of the Osage Nation are now using meth at an epedemic proportion.

OKLAHOMA CITY – In the rural areas of the Osage Nation reservation, tribal officials say a silent epidemic is spreading, causing domestic abuse, child abuse, child neglect and an overall decline in the quality of life for some Osages.

Methamphetamine use is on the rise, and tribal leaders passed an anti-meth bill last month that would set minimum penalties for the use, possession and distribution of meth.

I’m kind of sad to see that that is the tack they’ve taken. Obviously, mandatory minimums never stopped crack use here in the US, and meth use happened so fast that it has taken most lawmakers and law enforcers by surprise. By the time someone passes a bill making posession or use of meth more illegal, it is already too late.

Incarceration doesn’t seem to break someone of addiction anyway. I’ve heard of meth users choosing jail time over rehab because they know that it is still possible to get the drug in jail and that when they get out, they might know a few new drug dealers.

No, the only way to treat drug addiction is to treat the addiction. And addiction is a medical problem, not a law enforcement problem. The effects of drug addiction are. If someone is neglecting a child, or God forbid, abusing a child, then they need rehab and jail time on top of that. For too long, we’ve been one or the other. We need to understand that part of recovery does have to be learning to accept the consequences of your actions.

Rehab alone doesn’t always work and jail alone definitely doesn’t work. I think both together might have a better shot of improving things for some people.

I don’t have the statistics, and I’m not Bill O’Reilly so I’m not going to pull them out of my ass, by I think the vast majority of people in prison these days are in for drugs and drug-related crime. Whatever we’re doing isn’t working because many of them are repeat offenders. And now the Osage Nation is simply following in our failed footsteps.

Hopefully, by looking for better solutions, they’ll find something that works a whole lot better than what we’re doing.

Meth is a seriously hard drug and it has become eerily common. Some time back, if you were at a party and someone offered you a drug, it would probably be cocaine or pot. Now kids are being offered meth because it is cheaper and the high is better and longer lasting.

The worst part is that the high includes some serious brain damage and the drug can grab you after one use. I saw a program on meth where a college couple tried it for the first time at a party. They called 911 several times thinking that they were being chased outside their apartment when in reality, they had driven over a hundred miles and were in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. They abandoned their truck and then died in the freezing cold snow.

I know one person who was a meth user. I say was because, as far as I know, she’s still clean. The statistics are against her. Even though she has a daughter to look after and lives with her parents, the relapse rate is extremely high for meth. It requires longterm treatment.

I’m not an advocate of 12-step programs. They are basically bullshit. The second step is admitting that you are completely powerless over your addiction. That doesn’t help you. What you need to understand with addiction is that it is your choice to be addicted and only you can make the choice to stop. AA and other 12-steps don’t publish success rates, but on an episode of Penn & Tellers Bullshit (conveniently) a 1997 internal document they got their hands on showed that AA’s success rate was statistically the same as people who who quit on their own with no support system.