Letters: Dec, 7, 2017

Tough GOP choice

To pass or not to pass tax cuts/reform? A tough choice for Republicans who have to choose between looking unable to govern or looking incompetent to govern by passing a really, really bad bill. Which will most hurt their chances in 2018? And which will most hurt the country and their constituents?

Frankly the country needs every dime we are currently collecting since we have had unbelievable natural disasters which will require zillions of dollars in federal aid to rebuild. The proposals so far under consideration clearly benefit the richest among us while blowing up the deficit and debt to crippling levels, and triggering pay/go cuts to crucial programs for the rest of us.

The current effort, in both process and content, stinks like a dead skunk in the middle of the road. American voters will not mind as much if Republicans bury it as they will if it is served up for supper.

Call Congress (202)224-3121 and tell your rep or senator to just say No!

Karen Swoope,

Colfax

Hopes

Frank Watson raised my hopes, then let me down . (Everyone is a Victim, 11-16-17). Congratulations to him for being able to quit smoking. That's a tough addiction to beat. He must have some powerful, healthful connections with people. More on that, later.

Mr. Watson has good powers of observation. He recognizes that we have a drug problem that reaches back beyond living memory, and which continues to grow despite all efforts to suppress it. He even wonders if we're going about it wrong. But then... Dear Editor!... he ends by saying that we must continue doing what we have been doing; attempting to suppress it.

He came so close!

Let me quote his second paragraph: "Anyone who has had a basic course in economics can tell you that the market is driven by demand.

Demand creates an opportunity for profit.

As long as there is a demand for a product and an opportunity for a profit, entrepreneurs will provide that product.

We have focused all our energy toward cutting off supply and ignored demand.

This has not worked and never will.

The product in this case is, of course, illegal drugs.

Our laws and law enforcement efforts have made it risky for drug traffickers, but as fast as we take dealers off the street, another takes his place.

If we really want to win the war on drugs, we must attack the demand, along with the supply."

So, let's look at demand.

Let me start with addiction, then touch lightly on recreational use.

When the nicotine patch came out, it freed people from the chemical hook. I expected everyone to quit smoking but only 18% quit. 82% didn't quit. Even breaking the habitual pattern, by putting food or a video game device in the ciggy pocket didn't free the 82% -- they continue to demand the nicotine products. Something other than the chemical hook is involved in 82% of nicotine addicts.

It might be your 'cage.' The Partnership for a Drug Free America ran television commercials showing rats in solitary confinement. Each rat had two water bottles, one bottle containing a drug. 90% of them used their drugs obsessively, and died of overdoses.

Dr. Bruce Alexander built Rat Park, a large room-sized enclosure having tunnels, toys, and lots of other rats: friends, family, places to go, things to do. And, of course, both clean water and drugged water were available. There was no compulsive use. There were no overdose deaths. The drugs were right there, in unlimited supply, but the demand for them was minimal. What's the magic? Social connections, apparently.

Dr. Alexander also repeated the experiment having rats in solitary confinement, and observed the expected 90% compulsive use and overdose deaths.

Here's the best part. Dr. Alexander took some of the rats who were using drugs obsessively, out of solitary confinement, and put them into Rat Park. They quit using drugs obsessively! They lived normal lives!

The drugs were right there, within reach of the addicts, in unlimited supply, but the addicts did not use them compulsively.

Maybe addiction is not so much about your drug. Maybe it's more about your cage.

Maybe getting sober isn't so much about quitting drugs. Maybe it's more about creating and strengthening meaningful human connections.

Frank Watson was able to quit the cigarette cartels' powerful drug. I suspect he has strong and healthful human relationships.

"The opposite of addiction is connections." Johann Hari.

Dr. Gabor Maté tells of studies that were done, comparing adverse childhood experiences with health outcomes in later life. There are numerous severe outcomes. A multiplied rate of drug addictions is one of them.

Dr. Maté works with the addicts in the downtown East Side of Vancouver, BC. He says that nearly all of the injecting drug users report being sexually abused in childhood.

'Nor bars a prison make.' (R. Lovelace, I think.)

The treasure that we are spilling on the drug wars -- with their increasing problems -- would be better spent on children. But we all know that Child Protective Services is clumsy.

We must think of a way to let children know that it's OK to report family secrets, and think of a way to protect the children (from both the abuser and the protector), and pour in the resources needed to help them rebuild trust, and to re-establish meaningful human connections.

So, the cage has emotional and mental fibers. But then, it also has economic fibers.

Ross Perot was right. When NAFTA/ GATT/World Trade Organization was passed, there was a giant suckling sound, as factories went overseas. Unemployment in the rust belts soared -- happy expectations for their kids' futures evaporated. In the epidemic of drug overdose deaths, the highest rates are in the rust belts -- apparently, deaths of despair -- as people escape from their cages.

Maybe people are feeling abandoned and isolated, as though in solitary, with no way out.

I suspect that the national epidemic of overdose deaths reflects the shrinking middle class. I have to believe that the children feel abandoned and isolated.

For years, there has been a redistribution of wealth upwards, from labor to investor. (I do some investing myself, but there's a larger picture, here.) Maybe we need to return the money to the working level.

I said that I would talk about recreational drugs. I don't have much to say about it.

Among those who use alcohol, heroin, cocaine, etc., 90% do not become addicted. But, the more kinds of adverse childhood experiences a child has, the more likely it is that he or she will be in the 10% who do.

I wonder if we could reduce that 10% by healing the "inner child."

None of the rats in Rat Park used obsessively. Perhaps controlling the supply is not the highest priority.

Perhaps our thinking should be directed toward helping people whose trust has been broken, to reconnect with people.

The brain has opioid receptors. The brain produces feel-good hormones that fit on those receptors. Normally, the brain releases those hormones during moments of social contact, sex, athletics, productivity, etc.

If one doesn't connect with people, then one might connect with drugs, or with an excess of feel-good activities like work, sex, gambling, athletics, etc. For people who aren't getting a flood of feel-good hormones from social connections, there are alternatives; it's just that they seem to degrade the quality of family life.

Are meaningful and healthful human connections the keys to reduced rates of addiction?

Maybe we shouldn't be asking, "What's wrong with you?" Maybe we should be asking, "What happened to you?"

Wiley Hollingsworth,

Pullman