Oh sure use a misleading provocative title pull me in for some outrage, then do the ole competent cop switcheroo on me.

I hope this guy gets sent away for a long time. And I don't think its just the alcohol society, though that's certainly the largest and legal part of it, its the substance abuse society. Its not enough for people to simply enjoy the state altering effects of drugs, they have to get as high as possible then stumble out loose their freshly uninhibited self against society.

(Los Angeles, CA) – Today the NAACP passed a historic resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs. The resolution was voted on by a majority of delegates at the 102nd NAACP Annual Convention in Los Angeles, CA. The overall message of the resolution is captured by its title: A Call to End the War on Drugs, Allocate Funding to Investigate Substance Abuse Treatment, Education, and Opportunities in Communities of Color for A Better Tomorrow.

“Today the NAACP has taken a major step towards equity, justice and effective law enforcement,” stated Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. “These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”

The resolution outlines the facts about the failed drug war, highlighting that the U.S. spends over $40 billion annually on the war on drugs, locking up low-level drug offenders – mostly from communities of color. African Americans are in fact 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same drug-related offense than their white counterparts.
“Studies show that all racial groups abuse drugs at similar rates, but the numbers also show that African Americans, Hispanics and other people of color are stopped, searched, arrested, charged, convicted, and sent to prison for drug-related charges at a much higher rate,” stated Alice Huffman, President of the California State Conference of the NAACP. “This dual system of drug law enforcement that serves to keep African-Americans and other minorities under lock and key and in prison must be exposed and eradiated.

”Instead of sending drug offenders to prison, the resolution calls for the creation and expansion of rehabilitation and treatment programs, methadone clinics, and other treatment protocols that have been proven effective.

“We know that the war on drugs has been a complete failure because in the forty years that we’ve been waging this war, drug use and abuse has not gone down,” stated Robert Rooks, Director of the NAACP Criminal Justice Program. “The only thing we’ve accomplished is becoming the world’s largest incarcerator, sending people with mental health and addiction issues to prison, and creating a system of racial disparities that rivals Jim Crow policies of the 1960’s.”
Once ratified by the board of directors in October, the resolution will encourage the more than 1200 active NAACP units across the country to organize campaigns to advocate for the end of the war on drugs.

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private

So agree with you

In reply to this comment by EvilDeathBee:
To those who feel really upset about this, I'm wondering when a junkie on the street walks up to you begging for money you know they'll use on drugs, what is your response? To someone who has NOTHING else, no money, no friends, no family to help them through? Amy Winehouse's death, a tragedy? Absolutely. Preventable? Easily. But I think the deaths of unknowns in the street due to substance abuse is far more tragic than another celebrity who could've got help far more easily, if they really wanted it.

If you really want to help, why not donate to a charity? http://www.actiononaddiction.org.uk/ for instance?

To those who feel really upset about this, I'm wondering when a junkie on the street walks up to you begging for money you know they'll use on drugs, what is your response? To someone who has NOTHING else, no money, no friends, no family to help them through? Amy Winehouse's death, a tragedy? Absolutely. Preventable? Easily. But I think the deaths of unknowns in the street due to substance abuse is far more tragic than another celebrity who could've got help far more easily, if they really wanted it.

If you really want to help, why not donate to a charity? http://www.actiononaddiction.org.uk/ for instance?

i disagree with everyone, you don't have to be "crazy" to get in a fight with your producer. Sounds like his producer has split his effort across a few new shows, "crazy" charlie gets stuck with the blame for the hiatus of the show. If you get blamed, you would have to be "crazy" to disagree?

The producer went on the record mocking Charlie Sheens substance abuse and lifestyle. If Sheen was really "CRAZY" I don't think the producer would openly mock him. Would you openly mock a lunatic? A madman?

I think charlie sounds a little unhinged, but I have to draw the line. It's just too easy to pick someone apart at our leisure. If Charlie wanted to sound like he's got his feet on the ground, I bet he could. He's an actor.

@mgittle

Im 5'11" my dad is probably 6'1" or 6'2". Brother with the broken disk is 6'4"ish.

They told my brother that taller people tend to have a lot of disk problems especially in their lower back that shorter people don't have. Even so much so that their disks tend to be weaker as they get older. But they said seeing that kind of injury in someone under 30 was extremely rare and wondered if he had some kind of degenerative disease and found nothing to suggest it.

The union crews for physical labor will cover you better than working on your own. There's usually enough laborers that you don't have to go for extended periods of shoveling or anything like that. And anyone not in the unions are usually young or have substance abuse problems if they are still laborers and not doing something higher up the food chain by the age of 30-35.

Anymore we stick to the least amount of handwork possible, even if it takes us a little longer with a machine. But there are some things that machines can't do even a little bit of on every job so we try to spread it out between us and over a few days if possible.

If you want to see what a life of manual labor can do to you. Find an old guy who does tires, replacing, removing...anything like that. I haven't seen one that can stand up straight no matter what their height, they all have that hunched over like they are looking for something on the ground look to them.

But the simple fact is, a lot of the work is needed.....and if you want someone who won't screw it up you need the older guys who've seen the various problems that might come up. Lot of crews that have 1-2 40ish guys running a crew....they get young guys who get hurt bad or killed on the job because they skip stuff that seem like wasted time. Properly securing things (dropping equipment in the middle of the freeway, this stems from substance abuse as much as negligence, lots of people run around with unsecured loads against all laws and never get caught), not stacking stuff next to the edge of a deep ditch (caves in the ditch wall and can crush someone in the ditch below it or at least crack them in the head, was an inspector who got the top of his head sheered off when some bricks went down into a ditch he was trying to climb out of and caused to collapse), staying clear of machines or making sure the guy on the machine knows you're there (guy got backed over by a dump truck, broken legs from people twisting bobcats and catching people in the legs next to it, etc).

Im too afraid to work on highway crews, those guys work in a dangerous as hell place and usually only have a few barrels protecting them from someone running them over. Was a girl who was running a roller, a semi went by and hit her in the head with it's side mirror. She was in the hospital for months before she died. And then you got all the machines and people working in the little confined spaces in the middle of both sides of traffic, so you can't hear very well...

Probably the best place I've ever worked doing asphalt was on a military base. Don't have to worry about people vandalizing or stealing your stuff and they stay away from you while you work. And they can follow simple ideas like barriers are meant to keep you out and arrows mean follow them around the big hole in the ground. And you got prevailing rates, but it was just a lot less stressful to not have to worry about getting ran down because someone wanted to rubberneck.

But deterrents aren't effective, @Shepppard. If harsher penalties were deterrents, then we'd not have murder because of the death penalty. But that hasn't worked as a deterrent so why would you think DUI laws would? Let's look at the numbers:

15,000 deaths in the US related to drunk driving, you say? My numbers say it's more like 11,000, but whatever. According to the Department of Health's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (that's a bureaucratic mouthful, ain't it?), "1.2 million adults aged 21 or older" were arrested for DUIs during the past year.

So, for 15,000 (or 11,000) deaths we're preemptively locking up 1.2 million people. That's a deterrent? My numbers say that automotive fatalities are estimated around 33,963 a year with 1/3 being from DUIs. Shouldn't we just outlaw driving altogether with such high numbers? 3/4 of the deaths are male, which is a higher amount of crashes than caused by DUIs so maybe we should ban men from driving?

If the numbers add up, then men should be banned before those driving with a BAC of .08 or higher.

And of those 15,000 (11,000?) is it proven that driving under the influence caused the wrecks? Probably not. From what I've learned (unless the information received was bogus), if you're in an accident in California and it's the other guy's fault but your BAC is above .08, then it becomes your fault and you're charged with a felony. That could easily skew numbers in any statistic.

Untreated mental conditions are fun to deal with. Bipolar is one of those things where if the person can hold it together in front of cops and judges and keep from getting violent...they can go on for years flipping back and forth between super nice dude, normal, and super insane pissed off guy until something gives. Either end up killing themselves, break in front of someone who can force treatment on them, or a myriad of other things. Age seems to worsen the condition. Just another reason we need universal health care, because then there's no excuse to not be treated once diagnosed especially if you are a danger to yourself and others through substance abuse as a coping mechanism (drunk driving, impaired driving via illegal drugs).

I have a brother with a bipolar disorder and I suspect it comes from my moms side of the family because as she's gotten older she shows more symptoms and a lot of the males on her side of the family have killed themselves. So I suspect one day my brother will end up in the same boat because he won't take any medication prescribed even if it's something he requests specifically....saying that the government is trying to get him to take chemicals..blah blah. All that paranoia shit that comes with bipolar. No one can make him take medications unless he becomes loud, obnoxious and has the appearance of being on the verge of violence by ranting and stalking around....which he learned from experience when the cops took him away.

So........having all that experience with my brother's condition and how he reacts. This recording sounds familiar. Irrational complaints that skip all over the place with a lot of repetition of the same exact argument over and over. If she had tried to reason with him much, I suspect he'd just repeat it over and over until she stopped...or he'd have hung up. It's like an irrational "fight or flight" response to stupid things or "out of the blue" things that didn't seem to bother the person the day or week before.

I suspect an overdose is in Mel Gibson's future, only way he can see to "deal" with the demons...because he's not sick like everyone keeps telling him he is...they're just out to get him.

For the most part, I felt the presenter should STFU. Most people who try to claim that society is out to get men are disenfranchised men looking for something to validate their feelings of inadequacy due to the perceived threat on men's priorly assumed dominance.

That said, there are interesting points in here. One is 90% of homeless people are men. I'm not sure where the statistic comes from (I haven't seen numbers that high anywhere I've looked), but in my follow up research I found the following to be rather interesting.

The abstract of this paper states that out of 227 homeless people surveyed, men cited unemployment, alcohol abuse, and jail release as the top reasons for their homelessness. Women most often cited eviction and domestic violence. Now, this to me suggests that homeless men are self-reliant people who have 1- lost their livelihood for whatever (unstated) reason, 2- ruined their ability to be self-reliant due to substance abuse, or 3- were coming from a place where their self-reliance was based on illegal activity and that illegal livelihood was taken away, along with the likelihood of their actual rehabilitation and ability to (re)enter the workforce due to prison time & a criminal record. Women, on the other hand, are positioned as being reliant on others. Being evicted from a home should not make one homeless. If a self-supported person were evicted, they would stay with a friend or relative and find a new place to stay. This is the same for domestic abuse. Often women who suffer domestic violence have no perceived alternatives. They are dependent on the abuser in one way or another, financially primarily.

Now, when reading the abstract, it felt willfully omissive, though I didn't know how. This paper's abstract elucidated what makes the other feel incomplete. Men cite job loss, discharge from an institution, mental health problems, & substance abuse most often as causes for their homelessness. This is the same as the first paper + mental health issues. Women were more likely to cite eviction, interpersonal conflict, and "someone no longer able or willing to help". This really drove home the pattern that was not so overt but nonetheless emergent in the former paper: women who end up homeless have been under the care of another and that care has, for one reason or another, been removed.

I think this illustrates the societal trend that people are just less likely and less willing to help men in need. I'll grant you that men in need are less likely to ask for help, but I believe we enter a chicken/egg situation there. Men are less likely to ask for help because of the societal presumption that they ought not to need help. This is an example of institutionalized misandry.

Sorry for the downvote, acidSpine, but I hate it when people write off kids. I've done enough work in education to know the huge impact one good teacher can have on a kid's life. I've seen kids who were headed for serious trouble (gangs, substance abuse, etc.) have their lives completely turned around by a single inspiring teacher. Writing someone off is one of the worst things you can do to a person, especially if that person is a child. I have no idea what kind of impact this teacher will have on his student over the year. Whatever it may be, it's infinitely better than doing nothing.

"Absinthe was portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug. The chemical thujone, present in small quantities, was singled out and blamed for its alleged harmful effects. By 1915, absinthe had been banned in the United States and in most European countries except the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although absinthe was vilified, no evidence has shown it to be any more dangerous than ordinary spirits. Its psychoactive properties, apart from those of alcohol, have been much exaggerated.[7]"
[7]Padosch, Stephan A.; Lachenmeier, Dirk; Kröner, Lars U. (2006). "Absinthism: a fictitious 19th century syndrome with present impact". Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy 2006, 1: 14.

-quote is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe

>> ^vairetube:
marijuana looking better everyday


Yeah, bad idea.

I work in a psych group home, out of ten clients I have 8 that have developed symptoms due to long term illegal substance abuse.

I work with all the drugs mentioned, along with more damaging medications such as depakote, clozapine, and haldol. Believe me when I say that these meds can cause some major damage to an adult much less a child, and that is with on label medication.

There is a terrible flip side to my argument though. These meds can do harm, but they can also do a lot of good. The problem comes when a client takes a down turn. I had a client that was ready to move into her own home, was an elderly woman who was unsteady on her feet. She had a pretty bad fall that lead to a temporary hospitalization. During her hospitalization her family physician claimed the problem was due to overmedication. Over two week off her meds the client became paranoid and was exhibiting severe auditory halucinations. Even when she was placed back on the meds that had balanced her she didn't recover. The damage had already been done.

If I had my PHD, it would be a last resort for me to prescribe any psych meds to a patient initially, because I know that it will be a steady increase of medication to keep that patient funtional, until finally they are on depakote or clozapine and the meds start causing kidney damage.

>> ^Trancecoach:
As a therapist at a chemical and substance abuse treatment clinic, I am well aware of the consequences of the societal bigotry against gays. If only the straights were courageous enough to be upfront and honest about their sexuality, the problem wouldn't be as bad as it is. The conditions are in dire need of revision.

I just complimented their hair. What else could you ask from a straight guy?

As a therapist at a chemical and substance abuse treatment clinic, I am well aware of the consequences of the societal bigotry against gays. If only the straights were courageous enough to be upfront and honest about their sexuality, the problem wouldn't be as bad as it is. The conditions are in dire need of revision.

>> ^StukaFox:
Who is Glenn Beck? Honestly, I don't know who he is.

A) You're better off not knowing.

B) A college dropout, former substance-abusing Mormon who managed to get his own show on Fox News, despite the fact he hates the "media". Prone to getting the cameraman to zoom into his eyeballs and crying on cue. Strong dislike for atheists and Mexicans. Thinks the government is out to get him. This should pretty much give you all you need to know....

http://www.videosift.com/video/Glenn-Beck-s-Awkward-Forced-Blubbering