Tracking prescriptions won't help problem
As happens so often, New York state is looking through the wrong end of the telescope (or perhaps sigmoidoscope) to fight the war on drugs.
The WOD has been the longest, mostly poorly run and ineffective effort to curb a problem that has ever been fought. The outcome of the WOD has been more drug addicts, newer drugs, lots more "for-profit" prisons and "for-profit" drug cartels (Big Pharma, not the people from Colombia) and not a single dent in the problem.
I think the new prescription tracking law will only create more of a fuss for doctors and their staffs, already overwhelmed by a plethora of paper. It will probably also allow for more-creative scamming by wheelers and dealers.
You cannot legislate prohibition; people want to get "out of" themselves. Life for many is painful _ spiritually, psychically and perhaps even arthritically. Drugs have been sold to us as the "answer."
That's why the gin mills are full and legal ads for beer and booze are everywhere, promising a new and happier life. So if you are underage and want to be part of the in-crowd, you start with weed, try some coke, move on to uppers-downers-lefts and rights, and oh yeah, a lot of Bud.
Some people get hooked young, some bide their time and I suppose some people have no need for anything external to make life grand.
I hope someday someone in power will suggest that we as a society look into the need to get different and out of ourselves, instead of nail and jail.
I did notice that there was no emphasis on a solution to the crime of becoming addicted, no mention of 12-step programs or rehabs or even a religious/spiritual intervention.
Something real must get done _ these Band-aids have not worked.
Alan Kaplan
Delhi
