Posted on by Nathan Riley

Addiction, Everybody Does It

One of the strangest promises Donald Trump has made is stopping fentanyl. The notion that being mean will stop drugs has never worked.

Freedom Democrats would be familiar with the iron law of prohibition: a more aggressive enforcement brings even more dangerous drugs to the market. When oxycodone was widely available, its safety had been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That many users would experience withdrawal was an unfortunate side effect. That the drug was widely available also meant many persons used it who had received no prescription.

Freedom Democrats believe that the relationship between doctors and patients should be respected, especially by politicians. They have no expertise, and the doctor and the patient should develop their own course of treatment. No drug enforcement agency. No rules about dosage or where the drug’s may be used. That is up to doctors, their patients, and agreements about best medical practices.

Freedom Democrats, had they been in charge, would not have blood on their hands. The politicians who played the blame game are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Lawmakers blamed the pharmaceutical companies for trying to expand their market. In this one sided view, the users had no responsibility; they were simply victims of addiction, had no intelligence, and no will power.

Elected officials accepted the discredited idea that drug users aren’t citizens, have no rights, and are trapped. A nefarious evil captures the user’s soul and deprives them of choice. It’s malarkey; similar ideas have existed for centuries. Witches after all were supposed to exercise control over their victims. Back then, the witches were killed.

Centuries later Democratic and Republican politicians adopted policies that killed the users. They were denied any moral culpability; the drug users were trapped by their “habit.” The politicians dismissed the possibility that drug users were rational and able to control their lives. The way they handled their habit was comparable to the way millions respond to alcohol, food, and caffeine.

The only difference is this group isn’t stigmatized and dehumanized. The effort they put into controlling their habits receives positive reinforcement and often drug treatments.

But the closed-minded lawmakers offered oxycodone users no support; in fact, their one-sided view simply killed hundreds of thousands of users. It should take no brains at all to realize that if a person regularly uses oxycodone you don’t simply say, “You can’t have it. The law says stop.” The law offered habitual users no comfort and legal ways for changing their habits at their own pace. All too often, judges thought it reasonable to tell users you must stop now, a decision that should be made by doctors and their patients.

To nobody’s surprise, Stop Now was a gift to cartels and ingenious people who created alternative illegal supplies. History had repeated itself. Banning marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines had produced illegal markets. In fact, they offered economic stimulus to criminals, and more work for the police. The criminal justice system will thrive.

Not so the drug users. They were too often conned into believing that a pill was oxycodone when in fact it contained a strong dose of fentanyl. The number of victims of the politician’s callousness soared to over 100,000 a year dead from overdoses. More people died in one year than died in the Vietnam War. Freedom Democrats would damn lawmakers for their callousness and cruelty.

This time the witches didn’t die; it was their victims.

Trump displaying the ignorance that is a trademark simply argued that drugs were reaching America because we weren’t really trying. He slammed tariffs on Mexico.

The iron law of prohibition suggests that fentanyl will be replaced by even more dangerous drugs that kill quickly. That drug has already surfaced—nitazenes. Being mean kills drug users.

The very idea that a societal habit like ribald humor can be banned is a joke. For one thing, and Freedom Democrats are an example of this, there is no agreement that drug use is criminal. Another problem is people make money selling banned substances. Banning alcohol in the 1920’s made many fortunes.

Trump’s effort to try harder in the silly hope that the drug will stop reaching the U.S. doesn’t recognize that law enforcement and drug smugglers all too often find ways to share the wealth. Mexico is famous for its ties between law enforcers and drug cartels. Nothing Trump does will change this reality, but we do know that a new drug is here—nitazene.

Democrats of course join Republicans in chasing the impossible goal of stifling the drug trade.

We are still looking for the charismatic and verbally fluent political leader who will support doctors being able to treat drug users without strangers violating their privacy and setting rules that harm a successful treatment.

Obesity is universally recognized as a major U.S. health problem. Doctors understand that many people eat for pleasure; in other words food acts like a drug. It was my habit and mastering it made my weight drop from 270 to 195 and brought a happier life. Dr. Peter Grinspoon’s book Up in Smoke and website makes sensible arguments for allowing doctors to treat patients who use drugs without outside interference.

He makes the point that using drugs is normal. We refuse to recognize that gambling, eating, and caffeine also have addictive impacts. In my case, my addiction to food started in elementary school. I fit Dr. Grinspoon’s theory that “suffering, often alone, feeling bad about myself, in the shadows” drove my eating and explained why diets did not work.

When I was grossly fat, I used to tell people I was addicted, and it was completely visible. Only a few people recognized that I was speaking about my eating habits. People didn’t associate eating with addiction. Addiction is the all-too-common habit of confronting other problems by repetitive behavior that brings no real relief.

Freedom Democrats recognize that drug use and overeating are sister phenomenon. This humane response is alien to Trump’s angry “stomp it out” mentality. It is one reason why Trump is malicious and cruel.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Give The Doctors A Chance

“To me it makes sense to give fairly wide latitude to the doctors and their patients, as they would know best what helps them and how to integrate cannabis into their care.”

This is the expert opinion of a specialist in addiction treatment who overcame his addiction to heroin and has his own website offering advice for dealing with the good and the bad in marijuana legalization and the use of “harder” drugs. Dr. Peter Grinspoon’s book Seeing through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth about Marijuana (p. 100) covers the waterfront. It offers an in-depth examination of drug use.

Most of the book is accessible to any reader, but in parts it is intricate. These sections are addressed to physicians in the hopes of creating a dialogue between doctors who look favorably on legalization and other physicians who think this is a dangerous road to travel.

One of his major purposes is to dispel the shame that often sits heavily on the drug user. Another objective is to make physicians aware that patients who use drugs are competent persons who are all too often misdiagnosed and considered driven by uncontrollable compulsions.

As the advice offered at the start of this article, he lays great stress on the doctor-patient relationship, a key proposal of Freedom Democrats. The book lends professional support and wise knowledge to this political objective of making the doctor-patient relationship a private matter.

In his opinion, addiction is a clinical judgment made after a consultation between a doctor and a patient. It involves an understanding of the patient’s goals and the doctor’s care. He eagerly tries to educate physicians on the use of marijuana as medicine. He is equally opposed to physicians who believe that drug users can’t be trusted and pain medication must be used sparingly. A patient suffering pain with a drug history is often refused pain medication or given such low doses as to provide no real relief for the patient.

The book is filled with suggestions for patients and doctors about finding a common perspective that permits the doctor to work without fear that they are enabling addiction. It is way too easy for a doctor to believe that drug use is laced with such harms, and that the worried physician ignores other gains that are tied to drug use.

In other words, a patient’s marijuana use or other drug use may bring real benefits. Dr. Grinspoon insists that physicians weigh the good and the bad. He reminds us that the bad is often dubious. Medical research has focused on negative outcomes without looking at the real-world gains experienced by users. Such gains should be an objective of the doctor patient relationship.

His book is a polemic against biased research that makes illegal drugs look dangerous, even if the same drug in a hospital or medical setting is used daily. He finds study after study that weights evidence to reach the conclusion that drug use is harmful.

One of Dr. Grinspoon’s hopes is that a common language and approach to evidence can bring a productive dialogue. Unhappily the history of drug research often reveals shoddy methods that bias results. Anyone who has followed the history of drug legalization will not be surprised, but the facts and names of these biased studies are easily found in this thoughtful overview.

While Dr. Grinspoon is often angered by “scientific research” that claims drugs are dangerous, he patiently outlines steps that can make studies fair. One favorite point he hammers home is the popular belief that marijuana interferes with short-term memory. Even studies that make marijuana seem dangerous must admit that this is a temporary condition. While high, a user may have memory difficulties; these disappear as the effect of marijuana dissipates. This conclusion is well established, but all too often the news stories issue unfounded warnings about pot and memory.

Dr. Grinspoon insists that objective research would look at the gains that a person might experience, making the memory lapse insignificant. A user might find his appreciation of a book increases and discover conclusions that would never be found if the person had not used grass.

One of Dr. Grinspoon’s objectives is to make the real-world experiences of drug use be an integral part of scientific research. He is not alone; there are unbiased studies discussing the positive impacts of drug use. He wants the scientific and medical community to find a common set of standards that will permit unbiased research to become the norm.

To be sure, there are dangers surrounding drug use. Dr. Grinspoon softly but firmly wants the banning of sweet edibles that could attract a child, who munches the drugs thinking it is candy but in fact produces massive overdoses. The positive effects of drugs can lead to mistaken beliefs. For example, that a drug will cure cancer.

This is a wise book that takes the guess work out of the growing legalization of drugs by state legislatures. Dr. Grinspoon insists that physicians can and should play an active role in this new legal environment. Physicians can offer real assistance to patients, and he wants the help to increase.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Don’t Stigmatize Drug Users

Creating a new politics of freedom doesn’t require constant hostility and opposition. In the case of marijuana, an object is to end stigmatization.

This movement is making telling progress: state after state and local governments are making marijuana legal. As is true of life: do something big and there must be problems.

But telling people that legal pot is especially strong and may not be fun is very different from saying pot is dangerous and shouldn’t be used. In fact, some doctors have a specialized knowledge and prescribe pot to alleviate unpleasant symptoms. Pot, for many people, relieves insomnia or negative feelings like anxiety.

Publications like Marijuana Moment that track news about pot regularly publicize studies that are balanced and even recommend pot. Ashley Bradford from Georgia Institute of Technology recently completed a study showing that “in states where both medical and recreational marijuana are legal, fewer patients are filling prescriptions for medications used to treat anxiety,” like antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants. They found “consistent evidence that increased marijuana access is associated with reductions in benzodiazepine prescription fills.”

In other words, powerful medications that have a potential for addiction are no longer used. Symptoms are treated by pot. Such research is spreading, and it is now commonplace to concede that marijuana has medical uses. Traditional researchers are still trying to tie marijuana use to bad outcomes, but research like that done by Ashley Bradford are finding positive outcomes.

It should come as no surprise that there are good and bad results. That is the way the real world works.

But getting researchers to look at the good as well as the bad is a continuing struggle.

Of course, users still enjoy getting high and find, for example, that pot enhances sex. Although I must admit I have seen no studies on pot and erectile dysfunction. I am quite confident that users can make up their own minds about these pleasures.

At 82, after 65 years of marijuana use, I got stoned over Christmas. It was a disaster. My sense of balance was challenged, and it took over a week for the ill effects to dissipate. Without any physical withdrawal, I concluded no more pot; I had reached a point where it harmed me rather than pleased me.

This is a world of difference from the harsh, even hostile, atmosphere that surrounded pot when I was young. Being mean was not even recognized. Frequently we were told that only dopes do dope. Telling a person that they are stupid undermines confidence and agency. It certainly doesn’t help a person gain control of their lives.

We are in a new era, where it is recognized that some people use it, others don’t, just as at the start of the century it finally became clear that some people are LGBTQ+ and others aren’t. What is important is doing no harm to users and treating marijuana users as sinners is harmful.

In fact, so preposterous were the arguments against marijuana that it became widely assumed that pot was natural and therefore even good for you. It is certainly true that some weed smokers saw their lives improve, but it is equally true that pot can provoke anxiety, vomiting. In other words, don’t turn a pleasure into a general rule for everyone.

The most dangerous drug is obviously alcohol, and we don’t tell everybody, “Drink.”

The big task facing us is helping people who use hard drugs like heroin and meth believe they can face problems however painful without using these drugs. It is equally important to recognize that somebody who gets high on a weekend night isn’t necessarily harmed. They should probably have access to pharmaceutically manufactured drugs where their potency and effects are carefully calculated. Once again, we face the rule that some people take drugs even when it causes them problems while others simply find it a moment of pleasure. In other words, society should give people the freedom to discover.

Freedom is about letting doctors and the public find a healthy path. One rule doesn’t fit everybody. In short, we must spread knowledge and avoid setting rules that harm people who are doing nothing wrong.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Marijuana Pessimism Is Promoting Ignorance

Free speech has a special virtue; it improves the chances that errors will be corrected. In a blog from early October, I praised the New York Times for its enterprise journalism focusing on the dangers of marijuana.

I thought these were new ideas, signaling to doctors the risks of marijuana. I was wrong. The research they assembled repeats the tired arguments of those worrywarts who see mostly danger from pot.

Peter Grinspoon, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has written a book challenging the pessimists who see dangers from marijuana use. Like his father, Lester, whose famous 1971 book “Marihuana Reconsidered” was a foundational text of the drug reform movement, Peter argues that on balance the positives of marijuana are greater than the risks.

In his book, Seeing through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth about Marijuana, Dr. Grinspoon confronts those researchers, such as the ones the NY Times interviewed, who see grave risks and little benefit from the legalization of cannabis.

He starts the book with a family story demonstrating that the plant is medicine. It’s a tale that the researchers interviewed by the NY Times would find impossible to refute. Peter’s older brother developed a blood cancer requiring massive chemotherapy, but it couldn’t arrest the spread of leukemia. Peter asserts, convincingly, that cannabis kept his brother alive for months. It performed this task by combatting the side effects of chemotherapy.

“Without cannabis, Danny would be lying in his room with a towel over his head and a barf bucket next to his bed at the ready. With cannabis, he would be downstairs playing board games and wrestling with his younger twin brothers.” “Instead of barfing, he was eating.…the improvement in his quality of life was incalculable.”

Without a doubt, marijuana added months to the life of his brother. Surely, this effect is medicinal; it minimized the side effects of chemotherapy.

What angers Dr. Grinspoon is that throughout history the medical profession has recognized that tinctures of marijuana and the marijuana plant treat certain illnesses. Migraine headaches is just one example. When Congress took a conservative turn after the reelection of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936, southern conservatives formed a voting bloc with Republicans. This coalition had a working majority that lasted decades. In 1937, Congress made marijuana illegal for the first time in medical history. The American Medical Association opposed the legislation, but the government agencies that had enforced alcohol prohibition and their scary stories convinced the lawmakers. Pot quickly became an illegal pleasure, and a new market monopoly was given to lawbreakers.

This change in attitude was stunning. Pharmacists and doctors for centuries had gotten positive results from medicine using cannabis. It is one of many benefits that humans have gotten from the hemp plant. Throughout human history, they have used the hemp plant for practical uses rope, shoes, and medicine. Archeologists have found artifacts that use hemp as long ago as ten thousand years.

Pessimistic medical researchers limit their research by focusing on memory and other work-related mental tasks. A comprehensive report in 2017 concluded “there is strong data for immediate impairment, but little to no data for lasting impairment.” The negative conclusions relied on selective data; had the researchers “looked at, creativity, humor, and insight,” Grinspoon suspects “there wouldn’t have been deficits, and people might have done significantly better than the norm.” In short, the pessimists are desperately hunting for reasons to conclude pot is bad.

Unsurprisingly, Peter Grinspoon offers a different conclusion: pot, like alcohol and food, works best if used in moderation. However, the pessimists are creating a real danger: ignorance. Too many doctors lack an understanding of the properties for good and bad of marijuana. They are unable to help their patients who use cannabis and can’t recommend this drug even when the benefits are clear.

Grinspoon’s book Seeing Through the Smoke seeks to help doctors and the public understand how they can get benefits from pot.  As a physician, he advises that pot sold in legal markets is tested and users are not exposed to “mold, heavy metals, and other contaminants.” It is a much safer product than the illegal substance.

Peter Grinspoon is trying to create a common language and values that allow the public to make informed choices and to create a common understanding that will lead to a new consensus.

Posted on by Nathan Riley · 2 Comments

Don’t Be Fooled: Marjiuana Isn’t Always Fun. For Some It Carries Serious Risks

Legalization is no panacea. Simply lifting the criminal penalties creates new problems, not insurmountable but which require community attention.

Nobody knows this better than Portland, Oregon, where the decriminalization of all drugs became a major source of public dissatisfaction. As might be expected, Covid added to the city’s problems, but national attention focused on the open-air use of drugs, making it a political issue. So widespread was the discontent that the City abandoned its governmental structure. Among the changes, City council districts replaced at-large elections.

A spectacular and thoughtful article has brought similar attention to the problems tied to the sharp rise in marijuana use. About 4.5 million people aged 18 and over use marijuana daily or near daily. In 2002, approximately 1.5% of adults 26 and over were daily users. Today, it has skyrocketed to an estimated 7%.

In a major piece of enterprise journalism, the Times spoke to close to 600 users and discovered frequent illnesses in states across the nation. The journalists described widespread use even among users experiencing negative reactions, who often didn’t connect their symptoms to marijuana use. Although alarmed, many experts the Times consulted remained supporters of legalization. However, every one of them wanted wider recognition of the medical problems, which are often unknown to doctors and emergency rooms.

The newly legal businesses frequently offer products whose potency would give most stoners concern. New users without marijuana experience were vaping with products that had a 90% THC concentration. Anybody who’s hung out with drug users has met some people with a compulsion to persistently seek stronger drugs in the hopes of experiencing better highs.

Current legalization policies not only give such adventurers a free hand to try more potent versions of pot but also permit the marketing of these products to persons with limited experience who are unable to recognize ill effects, even dangers. Legal weed dispensaries don’t only sell grass that is recently harvested; they also sell hybrid products that provide an ever-increasing kick. In short, the Times team described a laissez-faire market lacking regulation.

Think about what would happen if liquor stores had no idea whether their whiskey was 80 proof, 100 proof, or 120 proof. Liquor products are standardized to protect buyers. They know what to expect because government rules mandated be presented to the consumer.

Pot is sold in a variety of products, sometimes from pot plants, other times from hemp, and undoubtedly many products in a pot store are cooked and unnatural.

As people grow older, they select their attitudes towards beer, wine, and liquor. A growing number of young adults simply don’t drink. Bar or restaurant patrons frequently encounter servers who don’t use alcoholic drinks.

What is surprising is the extent to which users experience problems that are often associated with booze: vomiting, mental confusion, and even cause psychosis. But all too often the public believes pot is harmless, which is often true but not always.

A more serious illness tied to marijuana is cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS). A wide range of symptoms mark the syndrome:  “nausea, vomiting and pain… extreme dehydration, seizures, kidney failure.” Even cases of cardiac arrest are reported. According to the three reporters on the Times team, doctors and users are unfamiliar with the connection between these symptoms and marijuana use.

Legalization properly done will inform the makers of marijuana products, the medical community, and consumers about the risks. The bottom line is that pot and other psychotropic drugs should be treated with respect, and many should stay away.

The outlook is cloudy. Congress can’t even agree on legislation that gives sellers and growers full access to banking facilities. Many people still attribute magic powers to pot and see it as a life-destroying force. The great merit of the Times article is the clarity with which it recognizes the pleasures experienced by potheads while offering specific and detailed information about how things can go wrong. The impact of the Times story, presumably the first of many, on the legalization community is uncertain. Many, including this writer, will think it’s an argument to make pot use a crime. It took me three readings to realize that Megan Twohey, Danielle Ivory, and Carson Kessler had fairly weighed the contentious arguments and found problems that any fair-minded person would want to address.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Welcome to Freedom Democrats

This blog is about creating a new wing of Democrats, pointing the party in a new direction.

Freedom Democrats support people who party, be they drug users, sex workers, porn watchers, or porn performers. Regardless of their pleasures, everybody should be respected and have their voice heard. We are not alone. DecrimNY and other groups across the United States are working to decriminalize sex work. Freedom Democrats should have an obligation to listen and understand the proposals these specialized groups are making. They have not only the respect of Freedom Democrats, but, more significantly, they have worked on rules to help sex workers do their job with dignity. Working in a brothel is only justified if the sex worker preserves their right to stop work or reject a trick. A person’s right to autonomy over their own body means that they mustn’t be forced to accept every customer.

I believe Freedom Democrats support the right to decide if a person want to practice monogamy. Such arrangements should be made honestly and explicitly between couples. Life would be smoother if a person’s sexual escapades don’t become a source of pain and surprise to another partner. Again, like with sex work, people have understood this, and couples routinely work this out. This is not a radical idea to many Democrats and Republicans.

But life isn’t a free-for-all. The right to say no has received positive attention from the #MeToo movement. It’s one thing to ask; it’s quite another to pursue a person after they have said no. For Freedom Democrats to work well with others, they should be willing to quickly and easily accept refusals. At the same time, people who party, should have spaces where the sexually adventurous can meet, and it is not offensive for a person to make a pass or sneak into a corner for some private time.

None of these issues are new to the Democratic Party, but Freedom Democrats propose to organize by having weekly parties of persons who are comfortable around drugs and sexual activity. This special feature of a Freedom Democrats’ weekly parties holds out hopes that like-minded people can organize and become a new wing of the Democratic party.

At the same time, Freedom Democrats should oppose war because war is about the powerful imposing their will, even if it’s against the wishes of the loser; it is the opposite of freedom. International affairs exist in a state of anarchy; disagreements are all too often settled by violence.

Ending this violence has been the fond hope of thoughtful people for centuries. War is scattered all over the globe and causes sorrow on continent after continent. As President John F. Kennedy said in 1963, “peace—based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions” should be the ambitious goal. Freedom Democrats, I believe, should make it a primary objective.

I believe they should seek to turn the United Nations into a world government. Any nation that has a grievance should be able to appear before the United Nations. Lawyers and diplomats should replace soldiers and weapons. As a world government, the decisions of the United Nations would be enforced. Nations would lose the dubious ability to reject a proposal because the powerful think they can impose their plan using violence and the assets that the richer have against poorer nations.

Freedom Democrats are just taking baby steps. It is our objective to have specialists devise plans for world government. The object is to get the discussion started. World government should be debated on college campuses. It should be the subject of scholarly study. There is no reason to expect that Freedom Democrats will start a world government, but there is a hope that Freedom Democrats will start the debate.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Overdose Deaths Are Proof That the U.S. Fails To Provide Healthcare to Drug Users

With a drug overdose, a person gradually stops breathing and while it is not true for marijuana, opioid use can be dangerous.

Crossing the street is dangerous—vehicles kill. That is why we have traffic lights and look both ways before crossing. For the illegal drugs we also have “traffic lights:” Don’t do drugs alone. Be sure there is someone there who can help if the user becomes helpless and could die. Have naloxone nearby to interrupt an overdose.

In cities all over the world, drug users inject, inhale, and snort in facilities where a healthcare specialist is on duty and able to interrupt the overdose, or some other health crisis that threatens the user’s well-being.

But not in the United States.

Such facilities are rare and subject to legal sanction because U.S. law can’t distinguish between a crackhouse and a healthcare facility. It’s not just stupid; it’s cruel and all too often murderous.

New York City should have dozens of these programs. Almost every needle exchange program would like to become a healthcare facility where drug users ingest drugs while a healthcare specialist oversees, ready to protect the user if things go wrong. Even with severe limitation the two facilities in New York City have interrupted 1,000 overdoses.

Needle exchange programs set up to stop the spread of H.I.V. faced opposition. “This neighborhood already has too many programs.” Or providing sterile needles and stopping the spread of disease, “Encourages drug use. There is only one message, and that is ‘Just say no.’” Drug use is wrong, accepting the conclusion that illegal drugs must be demonized. Thanks to the public health community and ACT UP’s demonstrations that delivered pithy messages supporting them, needle exchange programs can be found in metropolitan areas all over the United States. Safer consumption facilities should also become widespread.

The neighborhoods survived needle exchange, and the lives of the general public stayed the same. By and large, only drug users and local officials paid attention to the programs. Adding Supervised Injection Facilities would also neighborhood health.

Drug users should have a place to inject drugs away from public view. Many members of the public are disgusted when users take their drugs on street corners or under bridges. A city with drug consumption rooms protects the neighborhood and the privacy of drug users.

The arguments in favor of safer injection facilities are overwhelming. All over Europe, cities have adopted these programs for decades. But not here. A federal judge in Philadelphia has actually found that U.S. law prohibits these programs. Laws intended to close drug dens also stopped health programs.

This situation is more than stupid. It’s deadly. In New York City, on the average, there are about eight deaths every day from overdoses. In 2014, the state comptroller’s researchers reported 2,300 deaths. In 2021, 5,841 New Yorkers died.

Unless something positive is done, 58,000 New Yorkers will die every ten years. The number of deaths in the United States is equally startling. In 2021, 106,719 died in the U.S. That’s a million deaths every ten years.

Nothing, it seems, will persuade U.S. officials to give drug users “traffic lights” to improve their safety. During this time, fentanyl use spread and increased the risk of an overdose.

Fentanyl is easier to smuggle because just a little bit provides a powerful high. If, as Freedom Democrats advocate, these drugs were manufactured by drug companies and prescribed by doctors, only rarely would the prescription authorize fentanyl. There would have been few, if any, overdose deaths from fentanyl-laced drugs.

But because the United States gives illegal operators a monopoly, they are able to add fentanyl. But facts are facts; in the United States people were using opioids when George Washington’s troops were fighting the British, when the Union was battling the Confederacy, and when the United States entered World War I. Opioid use has a long history and will not go away. Policy makers must recognize this reality.

Opioid use is here. And if Freedom Democrats get their way, it will be a safe drug to use. Obviously, some users will want the drug every day; that has always been true, but so what.

Anybody who knows drug users knows that there are depressed people who depend on it. Others want their high right after they’ve been released from prison, forcing them to go “cold turkey” didn’t stop the memories. Indeed, one group who suffer overdose deaths are recently released persons.

Some drug users live disorganized lives, but there are others who support positive change.

Recent news reports describe such a person. Cecilia Gentili founded Trans Equity Consulting, served as director of policy at GMHC, and was board co-chair of the New Pride Agenda. The details of her death are silent on whether she was by herself when the overdose occurred, or whether she was only an occasional user and unused to the potency of fentanyl-laced heroin.

She was in the news in late September 2024 because the two dealers who sold the drugs pleaded guilty in federal court. They face prison sentences well in excess of ten years, an outcome that would probably sadden Cecilia Gentili, who spent her life helping sex workers and transgender persons live with pride. She fought laws that punished persons for their life choices.

We don’t know anything about a person if all we know is that they get high. The U.S. hostility to drug use rests on witchcraft, not science. The United States attributes magic powers to drugs like opioids, but in fact some users have no problems with their drugs, while a smaller group experience fatal consequences.

Freedom Democrats, I believe, should recognize the dangers of many illegal drugs, like heroin and methamphetamine, but society should recognize, with medical care, these drugs are and can be used safely. It makes no more sense to interfere with the doctor patient relationship by prohibiting the medical profession from prescribing drugs that help a person get high than it does to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship surrounding pregnancy.

In fact, the number of deaths from illegal abortions plummeted once government allowed women to consult and work with doctors during the difficult decision about abortion. The same positive results would happen if society allowed doctors the freedom to work with patients who use drugs, leaving it up to the doctor whether the patient will have access to pharmaceutical drugs whose purity has been verified.

It is critical to end the stigma attached to drug use that often forces users to take their drugs secretly and alone. There is no more chance of the United States becoming a nation of drugs users than lifting the stigma attached to homosexuality made everyone gay.

In fact, working with public health specialists it is possible to control drug use and prevent dangerous outcomes. Sixty years ago, on a hot summer day millions of Americans drank beer to quench their thirst. Today they drink water. That is a positive public health result, achieved with a minimum of criminal sanctions. Making drug use a crime causes deadly results. It’s time for us to welcome drug users into society rather than punish them for their habit. The law also ruins the lives of drug sellers with long prison sentences. The only reason they have a market is because the law makes drugs illegal. If drugs were legal, doctors and patients could make their problems manageable.

 Overdoses are proof that society is failing to provide healthcare.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Fame and Privacy

Freedom Democrats start with the party every week; it’s fun to get together and just enjoy yourself. It also promises to become as famous as Lincoln’s Republican Party or Washington’s Patriots.

Freedom Democrats fight for two great principles: the right to make up your own mind and live your own life and the transformation of the United Nations into world government. An invitation is extended to people who party, their friends, and people seeking world peace. It also offers a home to all sexes, people who watch porn, people who make it. Do drugs? So what.

Freedom Democrats want drug users to have safe, effective drugs made to the same standards as the drugs you get from your pharmacist. It’s crazy to force drug users to depend on criminals for their supply. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are tightly regulated for public safety. Drug users deserve the same protection: a public health step that will reduce but not end overdose deaths.

World government is considered ambitious, usually bringing smiles closer to pity than fun. The nearly universal reaction is “It ain’t gonna happen.” Fight this pessimism; remember President John F. Kennedy’s admonition about world peace: “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable.”

Obviously, Freedom Democrats will not start a new world government; we will only persuade our government when many others join us. And don’t forget we have little influence over nations like China, Russia, and India that must agree. World government is a huge project, but the reward is immense. Resources are wasted, lives ended, and infrastructure destroyed [by war 9-17] . We must do something. In my view, Freedom Democrats should insert the possibility of world government into the public dialogue, just as the abolitionists made slavery a political issue in the years leading up to the Civil War. Freedom Democrats can end the silence; that’s a task within the means of a new wing of the Democratic Party.

What we are proposing is a coalition of people from the streets and of persons whose gender or sex life is queer joining with the professors and brainiacs pushing for world government. We are talking about pride and possibility. People from the street at these parties will chat with graduate students and veterans who oppose war. Straitlaced will mix with sketchy. This is a political movement, and it includes people with governmental experience and large numbers of people who VOTE; it doesn’t mean we win, but it does mean we can put it on the agenda.

The people who create a world government will be humanity’s greatest benefactors. That is why weekly parties and enjoying the company of strangers should have a political impact and change the conversation about war and peace. By working together, this coalition will bring pride. Sex workers and professors will respect each other. This social cohesion enhances pride and brings new voices into governmental decisions.

Posted on by Nathan Riley · 1 Comment

Who Are Freedom Democrats?

In an earlier post, I described my life in self-imposed exile buried inside the closet, lonely and depressed.

If this was so terrible, then the question of “Why am I so happy?” should be confronted.

As I look back on my life, it becomes obvious that happiness was close, and it was only choosing the exile of the closet that caused an aching heart. The realization has struck that miserable memories could easily have been moments of joy and love. I recognize that I missed a high school love affair because I wouldn’t confess to a classmate that I was gay. He also never told me he was gay. But had I known Jeff was “that way” I could have had a high school romance with a man I loved. The past can’t be undone, but I find it comforting that happiness wasn’t impossible.

What happened is an introspective revolution. Painful memories are balanced by happy daydreams showing how close I came to living a happy and undepressed life. Having abandoned the despair of depression, I now dwell on the possibilities that were within my grasp if I had shared my gayness with others.

This revolution makes me happy. I see my life as marred by stupidity, and smarter decisions would have brought me happiness. Hence, I spend my days in a cheerful mood with comforting thoughts.

My current project is organizing Freedom Democrats who welcome all people with all their peculiarities. It’s a political coalition that includes drug users, women grappling with choices after pregnancy, sex workers, and fans of pornography. People who support freedom and reject censorious government. Our neighbors may support the life of a fetus, but they should have no power to impose their beliefs on others. This I believe will unite Freedom Democrats and make them a new wing of the Democratic Party.

What we are doing is creating a home for despised people. Freedom Democrats welcomes drug users, sex workers, persons carrying the burden of criminal convictions, LGBTQ+ people, and those who please themselves with erotic pictures.

All too often we face thoughtless hostility from the misguided persons who believe our habits should be condemned even though they have never met us. It’s a battle against stigma. Freedom Democrats offer a home for the excluded, their friends and allies. It is an opportunity for us to mix with opinion-makers and say we are fully capable and as worthy of respect as anyone else.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

The Time is Now for Freedom Democrats to Organize

Anyone can start a Freedom Democrat club in their neighborhood—just throw a party.

Do that again week after week. The basic organizing principle is getting people who party to unite, pool their votes, and let the politicians see the support from those of us who think it is no crime to get high. The radicals among us can damn politicians for forcing us to buy drugs illegally. It is far better to get drugs as safe as those that treat allergies, headaches, and fevers. These drugs are made under strict government supervision, their doses are disclosed, and the pills are uniform. Drugs made in the illegal market in back rooms are unreliable and often dangerous. This is discrimination—a denial of medical care—against drug users.

More than 100,000 people die of drug overdoses every year, and most often at least some of their drugs are made illegally. It is doubtful that we can bring drug overdoses down to zero, but we can certainly make it unusual and rare.

 Politicians supporting drug prohibition simply told users of oxy, “Stop!” It is a policy that is wildly improbable. It is true that these drugs are addictive for some people, and that means, as any teenager and the public knows, that the users won’t stop, no matter what the government says.

It was a fatal mistake, and the officials who are supposed to curb crime were actually creating a market for illegal drugs. That is how bad policy spread fentanyl across the nation. By being strict, officials were bolstering the market for illegal drugs. In the name of fighting crime, they were encouraging it.

The thoughtless condemnation of drugs, like its related criminalizing of sex workers and the constant threat of curbing pornography, are unpopular, but those of us who fight prohibition must publicly call for a new policy.

These are Freedom Democrats.

This is not a new policy. The prohibition against abortion killed women and made medical care illegal. In state after state, with women leading the way, doctors were allowed to care for their patients.

But when it comes to drug use, the government limits medical care. This must stop. It is up to the doctor and his/her patient to determine the best way to proceed. If a doctor and a patient want to continue drug use, the patient should have access to drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. The ill effects of these medications will be smaller, and no one will be forced to go to dealers. The big losers will be the drug syndicates.

Politicians, with great hesitation, are slowly realizing this truth. Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota who is Kamala Harris’s running mate, mocks Republican’s misplaced severity. Governor Walz says, “Across our nation, we have been witnessing a full-on assault against hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights: the freedom to vote; the freedom to be safe from gun violence; the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water ; the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride; and the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government telling her what to do.”

Walz updates freedom with his charge that for Republicans freedom means the government has the freedom to enter the examination room, tell us what books to read, and stop teachers from candidly discussing American history.

The time is right for Freedom Democrats to organize, so throw a party every week. The people who love freedom will increase visibility and push Democrats to accept people as they are, not as some wish them to be.