Never believe anything or do anything until you have studied the incentives that apply in the situation. When government activity occurs, the incentives point in the wrong direction.
For example, the U.S. government bailout was more than G.M. is worth at the height of its value so that to pay back its "loans", G.M. will have to have profits of much more than its value. If this happens, all the laws of economics will be revoked and everyone can have chocolate.
The G.M. Volt will be the automotive equivalent of vaporware. G.M.’s bow to the "green revolution" will be the disaster it cannot help to be and all the endorsements from show business intellectuals will not save it.
Now, back to considerations of a social science nature wherein I will consider rehabilitation for substance overuse.
from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:
Author’s Point of View on Street Drugs.
In case anyone cares or is curious, the author believes that all “street” drugs should be legal and no one should ever use them. This has nothing to do with what follows in this chapter because personal and conceptual are unrelated, but some people think it is important. One thing that brings out high volume hysterical rhetoric at the gallop is a debate about mood-altering substances. One of the great paradoxes in contemporary society he said, pontifically, is the ease with which drugs are obtained for unhappy adults and fidgeting children and the difficulty, or at least legality, of obtaining street drugs for self-medication. Again, you must trust us, the elites know best. Look it up, it’s in all the books.
The legalization arguments are fairly standard, but the best rationale I’ve found is in Peter Moskos’s book, Cop in the Hood.
“Policymakers’ reasoning, based on our experience with alcohol, is backward: Since alcohol is legal, drinkers cause trouble when they’re drunk, not when they’re trying to procure their drug of choice. Alcohol-related violence and drunk driving is tied directly to levels of consumption: more drinking, more death. So if public policy can control the consumption of alcohol, it can control violence. Simple–but wrong when applied to drug violence. Other drugs aren’t like alcohol: Drug users aren’t responsible for violence–high people just want to enjoy their high. Drug violence is business violence. Since prohibition can’t end drug dealing, dealing should be regulated and controlled. It would simply be ironic if it weren’t so tragic: drug prohibition creates an unregulated, chaotic, and violent drug culture.” p. 159.
“At come point we have to accept drugs. Until then, we live with drugs and violence. Like Sisyphus’s eternal effort pushing a rock uphill, the war on drugs is at times heroic. But more often it is simply absurd. After all these years, if the war on drugs were winnable, it would already be won.” p. 193
And further–"A legal product is produced and traded openly, and is therefore subject to competition and civilizing custom. If two beer distributors have a disagreement or if a liquor retailer fails to pay his wholesaler, the wronged parties can go to court. There’s no need to take matters violently into their own hands. As a result, in legal industries the ability to commit mayhem is not a valued skill." John Stossel
Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime,
It don’t prohibit worth a dime,
It’s filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we’re for it.
Franklin P. Adams (1931)
“The government profits from the same things as Al Capone killed to make his own.” Paul Mousseau
"…policies are judged by their consequences, but crusades are judged by how good they make the crusaders feel." Thomas Sowell
"American substance abuse treatment services, like those for mental health problems more generally, have evolved on the basis of factors other than empirical evidence for their efficacy….”, W. R. Miller and S. Brown. Similar findings in other areas appear agonizingly often in this book. W. R. Miller and his colleagues have done extensive research on how well programs work in alcoholism treatment. They found, as usual, that the programs which worked best were used least often, and those which had no effect, were used most often. As is typical, there was no correlation between cost of treatment and effectiveness.
Miller, W.R., & Brown, S.A. (1997). Why psychologists should treat alcohol and drug problems. American Psychologist, 52(12), 1269-1279.
Moskos, P. (2008). Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cheers and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
