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Drug Policy Forum of Oklahoma
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DPFOK |
Meets Second Wednesday of the Month, 7pm at Strode Center, 7th and Duck St. Stillwater, OK |
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 Free For 2 Months DPFOK Newsletter Contacting Oklahoma Legislators  |
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE AND THE WAR ON
DRUGS The outcomes of treatment
centers run as a business are disastrous compared to access to
treatment regardless of ability to pay. In the U.S. to get
treatment you must be wealthy, whereas treatment in every other
democratic industrialized nation is available on demand, accessable
to all. Are we blind to the obvious? Illness treated early is less
expensive and has better outcomes than illness untreated that grows
to costly emergency proportions. The argument should shift from we
cannot afford to cover the uninsured to... we can no longer afford
not to cover the uninsured. There is compelling evidence that there
are negative health consequences for individuals and children
without insurance, evidence that uninsurance places families in
tremendous economic jeopardy, and that in communities with a high
number of uninsured people, the fabric of the entire community is
adversely affected. There is new economic data to suggest that the
cost of having so many people uninsured, and the cost of charity
care, needless disability, and the cost of conditions becoming
worse than they need to be may be substantially greater than simply
biting the bullet and identifying a politically feasible strategy
for health coverage. Untreated drug addiction results in felony
records that amounts to life sentences. One felony piled on another
is no cure for disease and the expense to society mounts as illness
is not treated. We can't afford to continue with a system that
stigmatizes and forces intelligent people with a brain disease to
live or die on the streets. What options do they have except street
life and to do what it takes to survive. A counselor who works with
street people said, "You wouldn't want to know what they do to
survive." There are solid reasons why drug policy reform and
universal health care can't be separated. All advocates of drug
policy reform should support a system of universal health care
comparable to those of every other democratic industrialized
nation. If you agree or wish to know more send me your email
address. I will send information about what is being done to
achieve universal health care in Oklahoma and the nation. Recently
I was appointed convener for the universal health care study-action
groups by Stillwater SPEAKS, a community dialogue sponsored by the
Kettering Institute. The premises of the Stillwater SPEAKS
universal health care study group are that health care should be as
"rightful" as public education, as "irrefutable" as civil rights,
as "imperative" as the right to vote, as " essential" as clean air,
and as "American as apple pie." The questions to be addressed
are...if you are not for health care for all, then who would you
leave behind? If you are for health care for all, then how would
you get there? If you agree with these premises and questions and
wish to work on "how to get there", please contact me. We must
develop a List Serve in order to send each other information, to
communicate and act. I am willing to serve as a Stillwater SPEAKS
convener to develop a List Serve for a Universal Health Care study
group. Sincere thanks, Ron du Bois, Prof.
Emeritus
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
minds."  |