A Message From Our Founder
Throughout the centuries, successful animal species have learned to self-medicate. And through self-medication, heal themselves, alleviate pain, or relieve stress. Many animals have been shown to use self-medication to assist relaxation, and even for pleasure.
This trait of self-medication for any of these purposes has been seen in animals from bees to bears, and from lemurs to humans. As can be seen throughout nature, self-medication is often vital for survival. Thus, the right to self medicate is as natural and unalienable as the right to eat nutritious food.
Unfortunately our present laws do not reflect this point of view. In the United States, it is the government that dictates when and how a person may receive medication, often preventing or hindering what a person's personal physician and/or medical science offers as relief.
Further, the government's laws appear to refute the fact that recreation is as important an aspect in a person's mental happiness and well being, as a healthy diet is to their physical well being. Recreational medication is in many cases as vital to a person's overall welfare as medications that target a specific disease.
The unfortunate results of the government's prohibition laws have wreaked havoc on society by creating an atmosphere of fear and hysteria where crime flourishes and families are torn apart. Specifically, laws such as the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 have:
- Created new crime where there was none before.
- Unfairly targeted minorities.
- Torn families and communities apart.
- Resulted in gang violence and terror, fueled by the profits of black market medications.
- Made honest and reliable information regarding recreational medications unavailable to parents and children.
- Made recreational medications available solely through the black market where poor quality and dangerous impurities create a far greater public health hazard than the medications themselves.
In short, this "new prohibition" has failed and created even more problems than the failed alcohol prohibition of the 1920s.
As such, it is the goal of the Drug Action Network to create public awareness regarding the severe social harm that the government's prohibitionary stance has caused our society. Of course this will include significant action to work toward legislative changes that consider the important human aspects of recreational medications.
One form of action for D.A.N is to setup booths are raves, clubs, and other events, providing honest fact based safety and helath eduction, along with providing voter registration, collecting names and addresses for action alerts, and encouraging a proactive stance within the dance community.
Videos and other multimedia programs will be produced and sold, along with books, bumper stickers, and T-shirts - both to educate the public and promote the goals of the Drug Action Network.
This will be expanded to include permanent store front office spaces in high traffic (especially tourist) areas such as Hollywood Blvd. These offices will be setup with multimedia viewing areas so that people can come and view video and other entertaining and educational programs on harm reduction and legislation issues.
Offices will further be setup with theater style meeting spaces to accommodate regular meetings, seminars and "Take Action" lectures.
The presence on the Internet will be further developed to provide easy access to harm reduction and legislation information.
Of course, we can't do this alone. We have a great deal of important work to do, and we hope that you can become involved with us.
We are embarking on a journey towards a safer, healthier society. While many journeys may seem impossibly long from the beginning, they all start with simple first steps. We encourage you to take those steps with us, because together we can make a difference!
Sincerely,
Andrew M. Somers
Drug Action Network Founder and President