While I do consider myself to be somewhat knowledgeable on drug and alcohol addiction, I am by no means an authority.
What I am is someone who has been deeply affected by drug addiction and alcoholism. Like millions of Americans, it has torn up my family and affected the lives of many of my friends. Like many people, I have buried friends due to drug overdoses, lost others to drunk driving accidents, and seen others lose all sense of hope and take their own lives.
While our politicians and lawmakers have decided to fight a "war on drugs," several members of the general population have, instead, decided to belittle the problem, considering it to be caused by the very laws that are designed to combat it. And meanwhile, our youth continue to receive mixed messages regarding alcohol and drug use and thus seek their own answers through experimentation.
While I am in essence a layman where education is considered, I am also someone who has chosen to devote a great deal of my life addressing this problem. I do hold a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in Addiction Psychology and have focused my academic research on addiction-related subjects. I am also certified as a Chemical Dependency Professional in Washington State.
So as such, I have access to a great deal of information that the general populace does not, or at the least, does not know about.
But one of the goals of this website will be to show you that much of the information I have is readily available to the general populace, indeed to you, if only you know where to look. I also endeavor to take much of this contradictory information, separate the wheat from the chaff, and summarize all of it for you so that, if you find yourself in the position to deal with some aspect of the drug issue (which in today's society you likely will), you can address it with a proficient deal of knowledge and confidence.
The basic plan of this website is to take all the major (and several) minor drugs of addiction, both legal and illegal, and give a general overview, deal with the myths and realities, and answer some common questions related to each drug. I also plan to discuss several of the issues related to drugs, including the questions of medical use, HIV/AIDS, treatment, and the legalization vs. criminalization debate.
This information in this website is intended to be current as of 2000 unless otherwise noted. In some cases, the information may become outdated rather quickly, particularly where HIV/AIDS is concerned, and as such, I thoroughly encourage you to seek out more information. This website is not intended to answer all your questions or to give you an authoritative knowledge; it is merely intended as a starting point, a basic primer if you will.
One more thing: While I will attempt, in most cases, to bring facts as objectively as possible, all of this will be my perspectives on what the facts are, and my personal biases may become involved. This is, of course, true in anything you see, hear, and read, and I would recommend you scrutinize any information you find either here or elsewhere. Again, this is a starting point, and if you end up looking elsewhere to verify or contradict what I have said in these pages, I have fulfilled one of my fundamental goals.
Thank you,
Everett, WA
March 17, 2000
Updated September 11, 2004