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chelseychats · 3 years

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Read This if You’re Curious About The Results Of The War On Drugs

Have you ever wondered where America’s-for lack of better terms-obsession with drugs came from? If not, have you at least become curious as to why the American government felt the sudden need to tirelessly advocate against drug use? The vast world wide web presents endless information on the nation’s War on Drugs; including how it came about, the effects it has had on our country, and where we are now. Yet, many of these website’s explain this information through wordy articles that are sometimes difficult to follow or simply downright boring. Chelsey Chats presents to all willing readers the ins and outs concerning the War on Drugs, it’s ramifications, and what this information means, in simple terms. Let us begin.

Drugs have not always been viewed as harmful, taboo, and negatively life altering. Countless individual cultures have utilized various types of drugs for pharmaceutical and religious reasons. Recovery.org found The Native American Church to be one of the most well known religions which use drugs to exercise their faith. The Native American Church uses a highly potent drug called peyote in certain ceremonies. An additional common religion that utilizes drugs for spiritual purposes is Hinduism, which has traditionally used cannabis to worship. Drug Policy Alliance asked the million dollar question begging to be answered in an article titled “A Brief History of the Drug War,”: why are some drugs legal while other drugs are prohibited? To provide readers with all-inclusive understanding, we must first understand the origin of the infamous War on Drugs.

In the 1960’s, around the time when bell-bottoms, lava lamps, and go-go boots were at their prime, drugs had become what Drug Policy Alliance calls, “...a symbol of youthful rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent.” As drugs became increasingly frowned upon by parents and political figures, the American government was obligated to counter this “growing threat”. The first president to do so was former President Nixon; in June of 1971, Nixon officially declared what he called a “War on Drugs.” President Nixon swiftly took action by mandating a handful of new orders and policies. These orders included significantly expanding federal drug control bureaus, and administering policies such as the notorious mandatory sentencing. Nixon also strategically placed cannabis in Schedule One; this distinct classification of drug categorizes cannabis as high potential for abuse.

The year following Nixon’s series of changes, the commission recommended reversing Nixon’s decision to place cannabis in Schedule One. Instead, the commission held that the drug should be decriminalized for the possession and distribution of cannabis for personal use. This suggestion was entirely ignored by Nixon. This information leads us to revisit the initial question presented by Drug Policy Alliance; why are some drugs perfectly legal while others are strictly and heavily prohibited? Writers for Drug Policy Alliance summed it up perfectly, “It’s not based on any scientific assessment of the relevant risks of these drugs- but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.”

The War on Drugs did not end with Nixon’s presidency, in fact, quite the opposite. Former President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, where he chose to continue to carry out the plans of his predecessor. The first lady, Nancy Reagan, launched her own anti-drug campaign in which she created her well-known slogan, “Just Say No.” Mass hysteria surrounding the subject of illegal drug use was partly owed to the media, which consistently presented images and news of American citizens addicted to the free-base form of cocaine called “crack”. Nancy Reagan’s campaign pushed for “zero tolerance” programs which showed no mercy to individuals who had fallen victim to the highly addictive drug.

The rise of the war on drugs continued to increase. Los Angeles Police Department Daryl Gates established the renowned project D.A.R.E, which educated youth on drugs. Drug Policy Alliance stated that the program “... was quickly adopted nationwide despite the lack of evidence and effectiveness.” The result of the mass hysteria concerning drugs in our communities began to shift the way American’s perceived drugs. In the year of 1985, the amount of American citizens who thought drug abuse was the country's most important issue was estimated to be about two to six percent. Around four years later, the percent of Americans who thought drug abuse was the most crucial issue jumped to an astounding 64%. Congress viciously fed off the American hysteria, placing severely harsh penalties concerning drug use, trade, and distribution. Long after the hysteria subsided, the harsh penalties remained.

The War on Drugs was composed of anti-drug programs, excessively harsh laws, expansions of federal drug control agencies, doubling prison populations and endless anti-drug marketing. The War on Drugs founded by Nixon had lasted almost 50 years. After 50 years of advocating against drug use, the results are disheartening, to say the least. The Penal Reform Institution stated, “The enforcement of overly punitive laws for drug offenses has not only proven to be ineffective in curbing production, trafficking, and consumption of illicit substances, but had many negative consequences including overloading criminal justice systems, overwhelming courts, fueling prison overcrowding, and exasperating health problems.”

There were many faults to the War on Drugs project from its very inception. To begin, the prime reasoning behind the project’s launch stemmed from ill and discriminatory intentions. Nixon’s former domestic policy advisor, John Enrichman, later revealed Nixon’s hidden agenda in starting the War on Drugs. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” You can find out more here.

The War on Drugs primarily focused on low-level offenders and drug users. This moved the government’s focus from removing actual offenders of organized crime. The project also failed to sentence drug users and dealers accordingly; there was minimal distinction between the possession of illegal drugs and trafficking. The War on Drugs project also provided an unfair disparity between crack and cocaine sentences. Penal Reform International concluded that the “...biggest contributing factors in the startling increase in incarceration in the U.S. is traceable to the arrest and imprisonment of poor people of color for non-violent and drug related offenses.”

Now that we’ve drawn an adequate illustration of the War on Drugs and its efficiency, this post will present some useful statistics to provide readers with full understanding. Writer for The Globe, David Case, wrote a commendable article titled “The War on Drugs: What Is It Good For?” which broke down the various aspects of the campaign and analyzed the results. From gathered statistics, Case estimated that the 50 year long war on drugs has cost the nation a whopping $2 trillion dollars, and calls the war “nearly still born.” As of 2013, almost 3 million people are incarcerated; equivalent to more than 1 in 5 of the planet’s prisoners. To provide readers with a better understanding of what this means, Case provided that the number of American inmates currently serving time for drug related charges surpassed the total U.S. prison population in the year of 1970.

The effects of the War on Drugs project caused a negative trickle-down effect that affected American neighborhoods, families, and taxpayers across the country. The World found, “Illicit trade has transformed neighborhoods- from Baltimore to Detroit to East L.A.- into battle zones where innocent citizens live in fear of violence and shady dealers.”

Not only this, the plans specifically designed to fuel the War on Drugs has proven to have failed or backfired. The project has not considerably affected the overall flow of drugs in America. In fact, the prohibition of drugs has consequently amplified the worldwide black market, which has been estimated to worth a whopping $300 million.

Furthermore, the War on Drugs has been identified as the leading cause behind the spike in crime. Jefferey A. Miron, A Harvard lecturer, explained how the outlawing of drugs ultimately forced the drug industry to move underground. Inevitably, this meant that sellers and buyers were unable to settle any possible disputes with legal action, leaving the individuals to rely on violence. Miron further conducted a study back in 2010 which concluded that full legalization of drugs in America has the potential to save taxpayers over $40 billion dollars each year. Taxing these drugs was also estimated to bring in over $40 billion dollars in revenue, meaning changing our drug policies could yield over $80 billion dollars in revenue each year.

The primary fuel behind the War on Drugs was to prevent drugs from invading our communities, and more specifically, harming our youth. Yet unfortunately, the project failed to keep the youth from obtaining and using drugs. A study conducted in 1975 found that approximately 40% of high school seniors across the nation reported having smoked cannabis in the past year. By the year 2012, the rate had dropped by a mere 4%, as around 36% of high school seniors reported that they had smoked cannabis within the past year.

Now that readers have a thorough understanding of the War on Drugs and its effects, which have appeared to be completely negative, I would love to present some of the positive effects the project has had on the nation. I sifted through an endless amount of websites searching for positive outcomes of the War on Drugs. Nonetheless, I failed to find any positive outcomes that could be scientifically/evidently supported. Counterpunch.org provided one of the funniest positive outcomes claiming, “Via programs like DARE, it has turned kids into drug informants who monitor their parents for the authorities.”

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” concluded a June 2011 report published by the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The report noted that between 1998 and 2008, global consumption of opiates had increased 35%, cocaine 27%, and cannabis 8.5%.” -The Globe

So… what does this mean? Well, this means it's time to reverse the damage that has been done. It means it's time to restore our communities, amend drug policies, exonerated individuals who have fallen victim to these severe drug policies, and restore families. Public opinion has begun to substantially shift in favor of logical reforms that support health-based approaches to combating drug use.

Good news; the change has already begun. States across the country have already taken the first step by participating in marijuana reform. Many states have decriminalized cannabis, while others have legalized it all together. America has continued to take progressive steps; dozens of states have passed legislation in order to increase access to the overdose antidote, naloxone, in efforts to fight the overdose epidemic. Drug Policy Alliance has compelled the government to support drug policy reforms, and has successfully brought about major change. On November 3, 2020, the state of Oregon passed Measure 110, becoming the first state in American history to decriminalize all drugs. This created a significant shift in American support in favor of treating addiction with a health based approach rather than a punitive approach.

There you have it Chatters. This blog post has provided you with the full history of the War on Drugs (sparing you the painful details), with supportive evidence, a birds-eye view of where we are today, and what all of this information means. Personally, I’ve always found the War on Drugs and its effects especially intriguing. Therefore, I hope you enjoyed this blog post half as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. That brings us to our final quote:

“There's a phrase, "the elephant in the living room", which purports to describe what it's like to live with a drug addict, an alcoholic, an abuser. People outside such relationships will sometimes ask, "How could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn't you see the elephant in the living room?" And it's so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth; "I'm sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn't know it was an elephant; I thought it was part of the furniture." There comes an aha-moment for some folks - the lucky ones - when they suddenly recognize the difference.” -Stephen King

Until next time,

Chelsey Chats.

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ironstoutbrews · 7 years

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Brewfest has Arrived!

Brewfest has arrived, and with it, a plethora of flavorful beers, delicious feasts, and games for those both young, and just young of heart! Clan Ironstout has returned for it’s second year as an installment for the festival, located next to the Thunderbrew tent at the back of the Festival Grounds. At their booth, there are a ton of fantastic volunteers, freshly tapped Ironstout beers, food supplied by the Cask ‘n’ Anvil, and activities to keep you busy for hours!

Keep reading for the menu, the game rules, and a full guide with details about the Ironstout beer-booth at the Festival!

Drinks!

We will be providing seven different beers from our own Ironforge Brewery, snacks and meals from the Cask ‘n’ Anvil, as well as tons of mini-games with our own set of prizes!

Beers provided include traditional recipes, both new and old.

Brewfest Märzen: Malty, sweet, and strong. This lager has been fermenting in the cold snow of Ironforge since the Spring. This is the featured Brewfest Brew!

Diamond King Kristallweizen: A crystal clear wheat ale. Light and crisp on the tongue, yielding a refreshing citrus flavor.

Anvilmar Altbier: Copper-colored ale, brewed like a lager. The lager fermentation leads to a crisper, cleaner beer with a muted fruity flavor.

Dun Morogh Doppelbock: A strong, malty, dark lager.

Bronzebeard Blonde: An easy-drinking, golden ale. Subtly sweet with just a pinch of bitterness on the finish.

Ironstout’s Iron Stout: A rich, malty stout. This brew is the clan’s flagship. It resembles the color of Iron.

Snowdrift Shandy: An easy-drinking option at festivals, this half-hefeweizen, half-juice concoction is popular with light drinkers.

Food!

Food at this year’s Ironstout tent will once again be provided by Modarin Slatefist, owner of the popular Cask ‘n’ Anvil tavern in Ironforge. The full menu has yet to be announced; however, several traditional festival snacks will be provided.

Brewfest Pretzel: The essential Brewfest snack, complete with stone-ground mustard, or beer-cheese for dipping.

Giant Iced Cookie: A rune-stone shaped ginger-cookie, iced with a personalized message!

Coldridge Cupcake: Large chocolate cupcakes with fresh berry filling, straight from Coldridge Valley.

Games!

Once again, Clan’ Ironstout’s brewtent will feature games with several prizes. We should have another Mekgineer’s Chopper, several souvenir steins, and magically created alemental pets to give away, along with many other fantastic prizes!

Make sure to come and participate in these mini-games to earn tickets for your prizes. We will once again feature regular drinking contests, a drinking contest tournament, drunken ram racing, and drunken brawling! You may also choose to bark for Ironstout’s Brewery for tickets, as well! Who knows? Will you earn enough to get a brew named after you?! (Please see below about tickets. They are for GHI and TRP3e users only.)

Drinking Contest: Challenge up to three friends and drink ‘till ye drop! Last one standing wins! You may challenge your friends at any time!

Participants will receive 15 tickets, winners will receive 30!

Participants will be handed several mugs of Brewfest Beer!

When the hosts says “Round X! DRINK!” You’ll do as follows:

Drink your in-game brew > Roll 20 > emote the result.

The threshold to meet or beat is the round number + 4.

Round 1, you need a 5 or better.

Round 2, you need a 6 or better.

Etc, etc. until there is one person left standing!

If you fail your drinking roll, you gain a sick-point.

At 3 sick points, you spew your brew, or pass out! Better luck next time!

Last one standing wins!

If the last few participants go out at the same time, the highest final roll wins!

Drinking Tournament: Same as the Drinking Contest, but will be held in brackets, and with great prizes! This will only be held once on opening night! This event will be hosted at 7:00 PM server time.

Winners of each bracket will receive winners of each bracket will receive 50 tickets! Winners of the whole contest will receive 100, as well as a Mekingineer’s Chopper! Runners up will receive Alemental pets!

The tournament will use the same rules at the standard contest.

The difference; however, will be that each bracket increases the starting number to beat by 5! (It only makes sense, as you’ll be much drunker at this point!)

Bracket 1 - Round 1, meet or beat a 5.

Bracket 2 - Round 1, meet or beat a 10.

Bracket 3 - Round 1, meet or beat a 15.

Bracket 4 - Sudden Death

Drunken Ram Racing: While we do-not condone drinking and driving outside of Azeroth, doing so in Ironforge during Brewfest is to be expected.

Participants will receive 15 tickets, winners will receive 30!

Referees will be present to watch for cheaters, so no cutting corners!

The referee will tell everyone to begin!

Players will drink until they are “completely smashed!” and then mount up on a ground mount - preferably a ram.

They will then race their peers around Ironforge’s outer ring!

First one back to the referee at the Brew-booth wins!

Don’t hesitate, or you’ll fall behind!

The path of the race is posted below!

Drunken Brawl: Strip down to just casual clothing and drink until you’re smashed! Then challenge a friend to a fight!

Winners will receive 10 tickets! Officially sanctioned fights only!

Official rules to come last minute! - Sorry!

Daily Quest: Bark for Ironstout: (GHI USERS ONLY) Take a ride around Ironforge, barking for Ironforge Brewery!

Quest completion rewards 35 tickets!

Players using GHI will receive an item called “Bark for Ironstout”

Players who are already mounted on a ground mount may begin the quest. Those who are not will be automatically mounted on a ram - if they have one - and must click the item again to begin the quest.

Players will race around Ironforge, using the extra-action button to bark for the brewery near the designated flags. They will gain a buff for each zone.

Once players have collected all four buffs, they may click the bark button one more time outside of the city to complete the quest.

Stay mounted the entire time, and do-not click off any buffs until you’ve received your reward, or you will be unable to complete the quest.

Pest Control: Wyrmtongue demons, masterfully disguised as Dwarves, infiltrate the festival in an attempt to deprive the Alliance of their morale increasing holiday beer! Be careful, however, because beer-goggle-vision helps to make the demon’s taped-on beards much more convincing. Attempting to eject an actual drunken patron will result in a punch in the face! (This special event will occur only once on opening night.)

Participants will receive 20 tickets!

Once the event occurs triggering this mini-game, participants will join a raid group for important in-character information.

Once the game is triggered, players will split into 5-man parties. 4 players to each volunteer DM.

8 markers will be placed around the festival grounds to represent potential pests. Only 5 of these are Demons, 3 are plastered Brewfest patrons!

Players will RP to find out who is a demon, and who is a patron. When they are ready to attempt to eject the pest, they will announce it to the DM of their group.

If the player attempts to eject a patron, they are punched in the face, and knocked out of the running!

Once all of your demons have been removed, your party may collect their rewards!

Prizes!

The games will yield their own set of prizes, including that of Brewfest Prize Tickets! Prize tickets may be redeemed by any member of Clan Ironstout for prizes!

20 Tickets - Take home a crate of Ironstout beer! Your choice of flavor!

50 Tickets - Take home a cask of Ironstout beer! Your choice of flavor!

100 Tickets - You will receive a personalized souvenir stein!

200 Tickets - A custom beer will be brewed in your honor! You choose the style of beer, too!

OOC Information:

We’re back! Come visit us! Can’t wait to see you. This is an IC brew-tent much like the Barleybrews and the Thunderbrews, run by some pretty fantastic folks!

About Time and Location:

ICly we will be in a tent like all of the others, but OOCly you will find us on the Podium where High Tinker gives his opening ceremony speech.

As far as hours of operation are concerned, I plan on running the booth every night that I possibly can; however, real life will - as I’m sure - get in the way. Just check nightly, and there might be some RP going on!

The absolute most important time to make it will be opening day: September the 20th at 6 pm server time.

Lastly, keep in mind that on Saturday, September 30th, the Dwarven Clan Moot will take the utmost priority. Brewfest goers will still get some attention; however, the Dwarven community has the evening reserved. (Generally speaking, I also happen to run the guild hosting this month’s moot!)

About Add-ons:

A lot of our RP is run via an addon called Gryphonheart Items, otherwise known as GHI. It is a custom item generation addon that allows for all sorts of incredible RP. While it’s not mandatory that you have the addon, to earn tickets and exchange them for prizes, you will be required to use the addon.

NOTE ABOUT GHI: Currently the addon DOES work as long as you are not using other Bag addons. It is a little buggy, but you can access the main bag. That said, there is a manual fix available >>>here<<< that completely fixes the addon!

I will personally be using TRP3′s about section for information regarding the festival tent. If you want to see menus and everything, be sure to have a viable Roleplay addon!

About the Beers:

Beers provided will be GHI items; however, there are also in-game substitutes, as well. Even if you don’t have the addon, please come RP with us! <3

About the Food:

All food will be RP and in-game food only. No GHI here!

About the Games:

GHI will only be absolutely required for one of the games. The rest of the games can be completed without addons. This said; however, only GHI users, and TRP3 Extended users, will be able to earn Tickets and prizes from said tickets.

About the Prizes:

The prizes are a combination of actual in-game items, as well as RP prizes! RP prizes can be used by GHI users, or just RP’d as well!

Special note about the drinking contest. The drinking contest will be hosted fairly regularly, and is a /roll based system. The prizes for the contest are very real, and the drinking contest tournament will only be held on the opening day, Sept. 20th.. The prizes for the tournament include in-game mounts and pets!

Thanks in advanced to everyone who comes to participate, and a special thank you to all of this year’s volunteers and sponsors!

@the-royal-courier

#brewfest #WRAroleplay #ironstout #dwarves #beer #dwarf #wow #warcraft

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