I stumbled upon this really excellent essay written by Lieutenant Commander Diane Goldstein. She has spent her entire professional life on the front lines of the “war on drugs” and can see through the facade into what it all really is. She penned this essay on Substance.com. Here’s part of it:
I was a police officer for 20 years, enforcing drug laws in California and thinking I was doing my part for society. But what made me think properly about drug use for the first time was my experience with my older brother, Billy. I had watched him struggle with a lifelong problem with drugs. But I still did not understand what it meant to be Billy until my husband convinced me to open up my heart and our home to save him in 2002.
It was in this intimacy of watching Billy try, during the year he lived with us, to live up to the expectations of society and those he l...
