Chuck Wade (standing), CEO of the Council on Alcohol and Drugs in Georgia, tells Rome Kiwanis Club members Monday that the U.S. is throwing money down the drain in a bid to stop drug trafficking in America by destroying coca fields in Colombia or opium acreage in Afghanistan. Jo Hibberts (from left) and Keith Dunn listen intently to the former narcotics officer’s presentation on Monday, Oct. 29, at La Marie’s at Magretta Hall. (Doug Walker, RN-T.com)
“It only takes 10 tractor-trailer loads of pure cocaine to supply the United States with all the cocaine it needs for one year, so imagine trying to figure out which trucks are bringing in the cocaine at what point and stopping them. It’s impossible, it can’t be done,” Wade told members of the Rome Kiwanis Club during the meeting at La Marie’s at Magretta Hall.
“It doesn’t matter how many coca fields we destroy in source countries like Colombia or Peru,” Wade continued. “It doesn’t how many opium poppies we eradicate over in source countries in the Middle East, they’ve already warehoused up enough processed heroin and processed cocaine to supply this country with all those drugs it needs for the next 20 years.”
Wade, who is a former narcotics investigator, said that the only way to effectively deal with the issue to attack the demand side.
The Drug Free Workplace program adopted by more than 10,000 businesses in Georgia is the best way to attack the demand side because the largest concentration of demand for drugs is in the workplace, he asserted.
“Seventy-seven percent of the people who use illegal drugs in the United States of America are employed,” Wade said. “There is an invisible empire of drug users, drug dealers and drug addicts in the American workplace.”
Wade said that the workplace works for drug dealers and addicts because law enforcement doesn’t police the workplace. “By selling drugs at work, the drug dealer has immediate access to a wide customer base,” Wade said. “Don’t we have the right to work in a drug free environment?”
After 16 years in law enforcement and 16 years as the state director of the Drug Free Workplace Program, Wade said, “If we could simply get every single business in the state of Georgia to become a state-certified Drug Free Workplace, well I believe we could reduce the drug and crime problem in this state by 77 percent because the drug and crime problem are one and the same,” Wade said.
He encouraged the civic leaders to promote the Drug Free Workplace program, which in Georgia offers a 7.5 percent discount on Worker’s Compensation premiums. That could add up to thousands of dollars even for small businesses.
“There’s an answer to the drug problem in this community and this country if you care,” Wade said. “I’ll bet you’d like to see all these workplaces become drug free so when it’s time for your child or your grandchild to enter the workforce, they’d be going to work in a safe, drug-free environment.”
And if they have to admit it someday then why not today? We have to find out what kind of pressure they respond to and apply it in LARGE doses!
And we really have to ask ourselves if we should even try to achieve this goal. Marijuana is significantly less harmful and less addictive than alcohol, while being able to be used for relaxation and socialization just like alcohol. This gives us the opportunity to GREATLY reduce the amount of harm and addiction in society by giving people the right to switch from the more harmful drug, alcohol, to the less harmful drug, marijuana.
If we really want to get rid of drug dealers and reduce harm and addiction in society then we should pressure our legislators to put marijuana on an equal footing with beer and wine. Drug Dealers Don't Card, Supermarkets Do.
He encouraged the civic leaders to promote the Drug Free Workplace program, which in Georgia offers a 7.5 percent discount on Worker’s Compensation premiums.
The first thing that happens when there is a accident at work is that the person is required to take a drug test, sometimes even before they are treated for their injury. If they fail the drug test then the company's workman comp insurance company will not pay any benefits.
But businesses only test for marijuana use because of programs like this one! Catch-22 courtesy of the paranoid old prohibitionists in the federal government! The lovely bit is that WE pay for it ($40 BILLION cost to taxpayers every year).
Readers. Ask Yourself. When’s the last time you saw on the evening news or read in the paper where drug agents were kicking in the doors of your local factories, mills, plants and other corporate environs and hauling away drug dealers and users by the truck load like they were raiding some sort of government housing project crack house? Never. Doesn’t happen. Wades assertions of 77% are a total, delusional fabrication.
When I read the daily scandal sheets why don’t I see mug shots of executive men and women dressed in business attire? Instead I see the regular, never ending aggregate of low-life’s and recidivist dirt bags that keep getting recycled through governments wasteful and inept legal system. A majority of them welfare recipients who AREN’T regularly drug tested like us working folk. And most of whom are products derived from government housing project plantations that blight this once great nation like a small-pox plague. Every single one a total nightmare, invented, nurtured and thrust upon the good folks of this country by our government. l
Mr. Wade…..what the heck have you been smoking?