DEA: “Prescription Drug Abuse is the Nation’s fastest-growing drug problem”
By Michael Komorn
According to figures released by the DEA during their House Appropriations Meeting on April 12, 2013 (during which they asked for roughly $3,000,000,000 in Federal Funding for FY 2014), an estimated 38,329 individuals died of an unintentional overdose of prescription drugs in 2010. ”The equivalent of one death every 14 minutes.” The DEA did not mention that in 2010, according to an article in the New York Times, ”1.64 million people were arrested for drug violations. Four out of five arrests were for possession. Nearly half were for possession of often-tiny amounts of marijuana.” In fact, the DEA failed to mention many figures that seem quite important when delivering a thorough, honest report:
1) The price of cocaine has dropped nearly 74% in the past 30 years. If supply has been going down due to major busts, wouldn’t prices go up? In fact, Marijuana was the only drug whose price went up over the same period.
2) One person is arrested for Marijuana every 42 seconds. In the time it has taken me to link the articles in this post, 4 people were arrested somewhere in the U.S. for Marijuana.
3) “Processing each of the roughly 85,000 arrests for drug misdemeanors in New York City (in 2011) cost the city $1,500 to $2,000. And that is just the cost to the budget. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, mostly black and poor, are unable to get a job, a credit card or even an apartment to rent because of the lasting stigma of a criminal record for carrying an ounce of marijuana.”-Harry Levine, Sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York
4) Studies at the RAND Corporation estimate that if Marijuana were legal, Mexican Cartels would lose about a fifth of their annual income.
5) Almost one in five inmates in state prisons and half of those in federal prisons are serving time for drug offenses.
6) TOTAL DOCUMENTED UNINTENTIONAL DEATHS BY OVERDOSE OF MARIJUANA (ALL TIME)= ZERO
The statistics about prescription drug overdoses really stuck with me. Medical Marijuana Patients enter the court room for marijuana charges and are treated like violent criminals. Marijuana, a substance that 25 million people in the US smoke illegally. a substance that 63% of the citizens of Michigan voted in favor of making available to sick people, giving them an option to the dangers of prescription drugs when considering treatments for the pain associated with their debilitating disease.
A substance that Doctors around the world are finding has more and more health benefits than we ever imagined. But we still see Judges sit on the bench playing doctor by telling people what kind of medications they can use. Police continue to arrest people for small amounts every minute. Prosecutors threaten Doctors with criminal charges before they give testimony as to why they recommended a specific patient try medical marijuana. It is absolute madness, an insult to the citizens of Michigan, and to the members of the program who are simply looking for a way to better their quality of life.
Call Michigan Medical Marijuana Expert Michael Komorn at (800) 656-3557 for a free consultation today.
