How the State Fails Us (satire)

How does the State fail us ?

It fails us when politicians who claim to be ensuring the safety of its citizens put them at risk of injury either from overcrowding in mental health facilities, over-medication of patients by family doctors, and overreacting to mostly harmless people who daily beat the stigma.

Take, for example, the State's handling of mental health.

Only effective forms of medication are covered by state health insurance i.e. Medicaid/Medicare.

Medications deemed old and inefficient are not covered, nor are the newest ones approved in another jurisdiction universally available.

The State does so to protect people from harm, since it knows what is best for the People.

Yet it does not go further to protect the mentally ill from stigma, citing "free speech" when Hollywood stereotypes the mentally ill as evil in the guise of violent psychotics, zombies or agents of the Devil.

Could it be that the stigma of mental illness is manufactured by society to motivate each of us to pro-actively develop mental health strategies through education and therapy.

Perhaps the State implies through its administration of Medicaid/Medicare that medication does the least harm while allowing local government to section/hospitalize mentally ill people who pose potential harm to themselves or others.

At the same time, it surely cannot protect the People from benign sociopaths who become politicians. Why can't the State protect the People from politicians? While the laws of the State are often written to remedy social problems such as mental illness, they also ensure that "the rich get richer while the poor get poorer."

In this way, doing what's best for the People profits the State through the private sector. Hopefully it also helps us to promote the mental health of the People.

While ending the stigma of the mentally ill may not be profitable to the State, it still is a basic human right for the People.

Yet the free speech observed by Hollywood producers trades a few laughs gained by parodying the mentally ill for profit.

Even if the State fails us by helping the pharmaceutical corporations profit from increased psychiatric medication sales, that should provide adequate motivation to beat the stigma of mental illness daily.

If we want to end such stigma, then it is only worth watching a movie which casts mental illness in a negative light by discussing the stereotyping that casts the shadow stigma on the characters in it.

In that way, it is possible to educate family and friends about how stereotyping the mentally ill subtly promotes the stigma.

If we want to reduce the cost of lives lost due to over-medication, then prevention could save costs.

For not everyone wants to rush forward where the extremely nervous of people fear to tread.

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Original post: June 25, 2010 1154H
Previous updated: March 15, 2013 2327H
Currently revised: November 28, 2013 0447H

Legal Ramifications of Wifi NAS

Could you imagine how livid RIAA and MPAA will be when more and more people can afford a Wifi 2TB NAS filled half full of AV rips, with no WEP or WPA?

That server could be hosting a lot of downloads, serving over 500GB - at least until the NAS crashes trying to serve everyone in the neighbourhood!

Braidwood

Braidwood is an important legal finding BC.

The reason simply is now a civilian-led body has been formed which will closely scrutinize all future police incidents involving wrongful death

This is in stark contrast to before Braidwood, when the police would scrutinize itself, often resulting in cases where the public didn't hear the outcome.

Here's a link to the two phase of the Braidwood report: http://braidwoodinquiry.ca/

Annoucement on Braidwood helps form agency: http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2010PSSG0040-000730.htm

Independent Investigations Office of BC: http://iiobc.ca/

Busting the Gateway Myth about Marijuana

"Cannabis itself is not a cause of other drug use." --
CANNABIS : OUR POSITION FOR A CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY
REPORT OF THE SENATE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON ILLEGAL DRUGS
SUMMARY, SEPTEMBER 2002

There you have it, evidence that cannabis is not a cause of other drug use, that it is not a gateway drug, and that, given the evidence that cannabis is not more harmful than caffeine, it is a safe drug.

It was originally because of racism that marijuana was made illegal in Canada.

Thus the law is inherently racist but currentlyt targets a benign drug culture of whose members, very few of them have acted harmfully towards themselves and/or others.

At the very least, given evidence that alcohol and tobacco are many times more harmful, why are they not also included in any drug law nationally? Why are they treated separately? Because they are legal and any addiction to them is treated as a health problem.

Indeed, it is because both alcohol and tobacco have been regulated by the government. Consequently the media has "hidden" alcohol and tobacco from public scrutiny, and thus downplays their role in violence and/or death in Canada?

If so, then it may be possible that marijuana is demonized by media and by legal enforcement agencies for moral reasons unrelated to whatever potential harm this drug may cause. Essentially then, mass media has practiced propaganda against marijuana first by targeting an ethnic group and later by doing the following: associated early use in grade school with symptoms associated with idiopathic schizophrenia, used hyperbole to exaggerate the risk of lung disease caused by smoking marijuana, and used ad hominem attacks against regular marijuana users.

As well, the aggressive methods used by police to regulate marijuana use is a significent contributor to the rise in other drug use including methamphetamine, cocaine, and other stimulants.

If anything then the real gateway is the drug law, since it is because the law makes drugs illegal that criminals manufacture drugs for profit.

For legalization of all drugs would reduce the harm caused by such drugs.