Platform - 2017
As a Libertarian, my priorities would be to prosecute crimes where force, threat of force, or fraud were used against persons or property. That would include such crimes by government officials.
Poisoning of your air or water is an initiation of force which I would prosecute.
I would not enforce a law that violates the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment is an important part of the US Constitution. Some NY Laws violate the Second Amendment. GarveyFacts
Voluntary drug use by adults generally does not harm others.
Cannabis has been used mostly harmlessly for thousands of years. It can suppress pain, seizures, and brain damage from trauma or stroke.* There is no link between cannabis use and motor vehicle trauma.**
The main problem with opioid drugs is they are illegal. So users must rely on criminals to obtain drugs. Criminals tend to use fraud and force as business tactics. So users can't rely on consistent product. Hence, the opioid overdoses. I would prosecute dealers who use fraud or force.
Endogenous opioids = Opioid-peptides that are produced in the body include:
Endorphins
Enkephalins
Dynorphins
Endomorphins (Wikipedia)
Although pain is important for sensing injury and avoiding further injury, you don’t need to be distracted by pain for the entire healing duration.
So your body makes Endogenous opioids as natural pain suppressors, that make less noticeable many of the day’s routine discomforts.
If you bash your thumb with a hammer, and your opioid production is good, you can feel the opioid warmth of pain killer infusing your entire arm. Enough pain might also make you drunk, as the endogenous opioids spread to other nerves and brain cells, causing slurred speech. But the pain has done its job of discouraging another hit with the hammer.
Alcohol irritates your nerves, and thereby triggers your opioid production. There is no shortage of endogenous opioids, so there are no physical withdrawal pains.*** Spicy-hot foods similarly trigger opioid production.
When a person takes outside opioids (opiates, drugs derived from opium, Laudanum, morphine and semi-synthetic and synthetic drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone and fentanyl), his body senses that he has more opioids than needed for normal pain suppression. Endogenous opioid production is reduced to compensate for the opiates taken, reducing the opiate effect of the outside drug and its high. Hence the increasing dependence on taking opiates. If you keep increasing your dosage to compensate for lower endorphin production, all your opiates come from outside drugs.
When the outside opiate supply is interrupted, the body takes 24-48 hours to ramp up endogenous opioid production to normal levels. Pain becomes more noticeable. “The withdrawal symptoms for opiates may include severe dysphoria, craving for another opiate dose, irritability, sweating, nausea, rhinorrea, tremor, vomiting and myalgia.” Wikipedia
An important therapy for opioid addiction is ibogaine. Make Ibogaine legal for opiate addicts
I would not prosecute ibogaine use or treatment.
Copr. 2016 Chris Garvey
* United States Patent 6,630,507 Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants
Hampson , et al. issued October 7, 2003 claims benefit of No. 60/082,589 filed Apr. 21, 1998
Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC)
Abstract
Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. Non-psychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting of H, CH.sub.3, and COCH.sub.3. ##ST
**"No increased risk for road trauma was found for drivers exposed to cannabis."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15094417?dopt=Abstractcid Anal Prev. 2004 Jul;36(4):631-6.
Psychoactive substance use and the risk of motor vehicle accidents.
Movig KL, Mathijssen MP, Nagel PH, van Egmond T, de Gier JJ, Leufkens HG, Egberts AC.
Source
SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, Leidschendam, The Netherlands.
Abstract
R1##
***A hangover results from different mechanisms than opiate dependence and withdrawal pains.
If your drunken binge is long enough to suppress dream sleep, you will eventually dream while awake - - the D.T.s.
