Pubdate: Fri, 27 Feb 2009
Source: Maui News, The (HI)
Copyright: 2009 The Maui News
Contact:  http://www.mauinews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2259
Author: Sara Schindler
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n222/a03.html

NOT EVERYONE RECEIVING HELP A HOPELESS DRUGGIE

The writer of a Feb. 21 suggesting a program he called "Urine or
Urout" obviously has no idea what it is like to be poor or disabled.
Not everyone getting an "assistance check" is a tweaked-out meth-head
like Dog the bounty hunter has led many people to believe.

My father is an American veteran receiving 100 percent military
disability, and he was drafted. I was born with many medical
challenges, and I receive Social Security. We can barely afford to put
enough food on the table every third week of the month.

We are not lazy and we are not drug addicts. I want to work, and wish
I had the able body to do so. Instead, I have to go through life in a
lot of pain and discomfort. I smoke marijuana, because it is safer and
healthier than the unapproved medications that pharmaceutical
companies produce and are prescribed every day, and are often not even
approved by the FDA.

They don't test employees for alcohol and I am quite sure more people
have messed up on the job being hung over or being drunk. The writer's
suggestion would take our country a giant step backward with civil
rights. In such a hard time in our economy, across all 50 states, the
idea wouldn't make one red cent. Drug addicts don't work.

Would you rather have an employee strung out on prescription drugs,
drunk or high on a joint he smoked so he can finish the work you don't
want to do? It is people like the writer who kept our nation under
control of the extreme right.

Sara Schindler

Kihei
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin