There has to be a better way.

Drugs to stay awake for several days in a row are given to our troops with long missions and then they take drugs so to come down when the mission is finished. We give the combat troops anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medication.

When our troops are fully broken they are returned to their families.

The government we are propping up in Afghanistan is allegedly engaged in heroin trafficking. Most of the H probably winds up here; after all the USA uses about ½ of the illegal drugs used worldwide.

The Viet Nam War gave us cheap marijuana and cheap Heroin. Most of the H came in the bottom of soldiers coffins.

Over here on the Wall Street Front, there is a line of coke their next to the secretary on the Wall St. derivative trader’s desk. They do some pot at home to come down from a heavy day of trading.

I think that about ¼ of the US population uses marijuana to deal with stress at the end of the day. A lot of the rest of us use alcohol.

Some of those people may become a statistic on the next USDoJ National Drug Threat Assessment.

At least the Wall St traders can afford health insurance and the combat troops have the VA hospitals. A lot of Americans have no health care for addiction problems; they only have prison time to help with their addiction problems. There are some people in government and nonprofit agencies heroically trying to help with addiction but they are running against the tide.

And the drug dealers and the public officials paid to look the other way keep shoveling in the money.

There has to be a better way.

Op-Ed Columnist
A Fearful Price
By BOB HERBERT
Published: December 7, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/opinion/08herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion