International Brotherhood of Crack Ho’s?

The older I get, the more absolutely astonished I become at the level of stupidity that we human beings stoop to. The bleeding hearts seem to have turned the world upside down. Good is bad, up is down, black is white and it just gets crazier all of the time.

Nothing symbolizes that more than discovering that right here in America, we have chapters opening up of a relatively new “union” designed to give drug addicts a stronger presence in the “discussion” over health care.

The group falls under the International Network of People Who Use Drugs or, as I prefer to label them, the International Brotherhood of Crack Ho’s. Their website and explains their position, they choose to walk through life high on drugs and expect wide acceptance from the rest of us.

This advocacy group came to my attention through an article appearing in the Los Angeles Times, Drug users’ union in San Francisco part of growing movement where we read of different drug users, current and former who strive to feel good about using drugs.

The group meets regularly in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, “not for treatment, but to discuss public health policy and share their experiences free from shame or blame.”

We read of the groups’ plan “to testify before a city panel on housing discrimination,” one member speaking of her arrest record for “being high in my own house” that has prompted landlords to renting to her. Imagine that!

Indicating the movements beginning in Europe some years ago, University of Connecticut anthropologist Merrill Singer states the movement is getting a late start in America “because of racism and class discrimination, which are intimately bound together in our conception of drug users.”

The group doesn’t care much for the terms “addict” or “abuser” and neither encourages nor discourages drug use. They do discourage dealing during meetings, telling attendees, “You can be high, but don't be disruptive.”

One user explained it as, “People say, ‘you’re a drug user, you brought this on yourself. Do people say that when you’re 300 pounds with heart problems from eating McDonald’s every day?”

As a matter of fact, they do, from Michelle Obama’s goal of forcing people to eat better to what must be called the “war on obesity.”

Claiming to advocate “reducing disease, injury and death among drug users without passing judgment or demanding abstinence,” it also admitted two goals, “to put a face on those whom most people despise” and decriminalization.

The International site lists as their mission,

“INPUD is a global peer-based organization that seeks to promote the health and defend the rights of people who use drugs.”

“We will expose and challenge stigma, discrimination and the criminalization of people who use drugs and its impact on our community's health and rights.”

“We will achieve this through processes of empowerment and international advocacy.”

Left to be read between the lines, it appears more that these addicts simply want others to pay for their drug habit and accept them for walking around stoned. Do I even need to cover the hazards of stoned people walking and driving around our communities? Don’t we have a hard enough time trying to stop drunk drivers?

And, since alcohol too is a drug, would such a move undo efforts to curb drunk drivers and alcoholism?

Seeking to capitalize on what many believe to be Portugal’s successful decriminalization of drugs, these addicts fail to recognize the Portugal drug program isn’t quite the wine & roses they believe.

Ed Miliband, British Labour Party Leader Bob shot down an effort in Britain to “decriminalize” drugs in 2010. Bringing this out in a Dec 2010 UK Telegraph article it is driven home,

“Would the problems caused by drugs be easier to solve if all criminal penalties for their use, cultivation and trade were removed? Advocates of that policy insist that if the drug trade was in lawful hands, it could be taxed, so the vast revenues would flow not to thugs but to the state. Prices would fall, they say, and to levels low enough to mean that addicts would no longer have to steal in order to feed their habits. That would lead to a drop in the amount of property crime, and allow police officers to spend their time arresting people for serious crimes – rather than trivial ones such as possession of cannabis.”

“It all sounds wonderful – but it's not credible. The reason is simple: making an activity legal does not necessarily stop there being a colossal illegal market. Sex between adults is legal, but that has not prevented the development of a huge sex industry, controlled by criminal gangs who kidnap, rape and enslave the girls involved.”

While Portugal is often touted as such a success, with the experiment in decriminalization, drug advocates ignore Sweden’s Zero Tolerance of drugs, including marijuana. Sweden also has the lowest illegal drug usage in Europe.

The International Brotherhood of Crack Ho’s seems to fail to notice that.

Drug addiction, like I or not, is a choice. A very bad choice. We all have problems, we all have troubled times. Forming an advocacy group in order to get taxpayers to pay for their habit and to seek “normalization” of their inability to cope with life and to force others to be openly acceptable of their bad habits is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard of in years.

Then again, 10 years ago I’d say the thought of two men marrying was just as ridiculous.

There is no doubt in my mind that is the ultimate goal of the International Brotherhood of Crack Ho’s, normalization and becoming a protected status class.

It seems one day the only unprotected class left will be those hard working people who look out for their loved ones and families and try to make the country a better place.

I shudder to think what group will next seek normalcy and acceptance.