3 Policies Dems Should Consider
Let's Start Thinking Outside the Box
Howdy,
This counts as my one
article this week. I’m happy to report that I spent three hours working on my memoirs yesterday while soaking up some beautiful Texas sun rays!
Contrary to popular belief, I want Democrats to stop getting their collective asses kicked. Here’s a friendly reminder of how badly and WHY the Dems got their asses kicked!
Accordingly, here are three easy policies that could help Dems and some
(s).Legalize Marijuana - It’s freaking 2025, and so many states have decriminalized or legalized weed that you can get it anywhere. Yes, I should know. If you don’t think
(s) would be better off smoking pot than drinking whiskey, well, this is what I got for ya.
Reimagine the Department of Veterans Affairs - I don’t know what the solution is to the frustrating canker sore known as the VA. I’m inclined just to recommend this, but I also know there are better ways to approach it.
Please stop giving us the motherfucking Bernie Sanders answer that is just progressives’ feebe attempt to protect their precious: socialized medicine.
Go back to the Soviet Union, Comrade Sanders!
Useful idiot.
Sorry, I digress.
Make MDMA, Shrooms Legal for Vets with PTSD- You damn straight I’ve signed up for some free studies. Who has two thumbs and is ready to be used as a human ginnie pig if it helps me sleep better?
Now, why on G*d’s green earth, would the United States government, who surrendered to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Syria, keep the very veterans they betrayed from getting some Moral Injury relief from alternative medicine?
Here’s my answer for the GOs who think otherwise:
So, Democrats, here are three straightforward slam dunk policies you could promote that would not only assist veterans, whom you lost significantly in 2024, but also possibly improve your electoral chances.
You’re welcome, ‘Merica.
Almost every state with a Democratic governor and/or Statehouse has already legalized recreational cannabis (WI and PA are exceptions). Even in Ohio, voters defied the wishes of the Republican Supermajority to legalize it (although pols in the Statehouse have not given up on overriding the will of the voters). I wish we'd just nationalize it and get it over with.
I agree that a comprehensive reimagining of the VA is a great idea. My son and DIL both get their medical care through the Cincy VA, and while it's a great perk for veterans, the limitations can be exhausting.
For example, my DIL deals with PTSD, which has caused a couple of mental health crises. It's now impossible for her to get the kinds of painkillers for some of the health conditions she also struggles with during flareups (autoimmune disorders) because they're classed as opiodes. And of course, this has to do with the high rate of suicide among veterans :-(
Seems to me that finding and using better methods for treating the underlying condition might be a better choice.
Having done a fair amount of cultivating/experimenting with the two aforementioned substances, I'll offer my thoughts/experiences here for any folks curious about why two of the suggested policies can help folks like me (combat vets) out:
Canna: Definitely helps with sleep, particularly the getting to sleep part. Definitely helps with anxiety reduction so long as you stick to indica or indica-dominant strains (sativas can increase anxiety). Definitely a helpful way to get vets like me who are on a default setting of being antisocial to socialize. The downsides are that munchies will ruin your diet/physique if you struggle with impulse control around snacks (ask me how I know), sativas can increase anxiety, vapes can really fuck up your lungs if you use cartridges (as opposed to "dabbing" oils directly on dab rigs), and they'll make you lazy and yellow your teeth. Canna is also classified as a depressant (a "downer" as opposed to an "upper"), so it may end up problematic for some folks with depression (it hasn't made my MDD symptoms necessarily worse nor necessarily better). I've found canna helpful for managing some symptoms of various post-combat syndromes, but it is NOT a disease killer. Regular talk therapy (I'm a fan of the IFS system of treatment) is still the long-term way to go on dealing with your personal trauma, but canna can def be a tool in the tool kit for managing symptoms. Cultivating canna is actually a rewarding hobby on its own--use of the flower aside--and managing the plants actually ends up helping to manage some of your own symptoms via the "structure" of having a daily hobby where you care for things. It sounds weird, but caring for plants makes you better at caring for yourself in the same kind of way that caring for your Soldiers/Marines when you were a leader made you a better version of yourself. Cultivation has a learning curve though, and don't expect to produce good yields until you've come to semi-master several techniques (proper lighting setups, training good plant structure, good environmental control, etc.).
Cubes (Psylocibe cubensis AKA "shrooms"): Definitely helps with acute depression symptoms in the short term when taking a "trip" in a controlled environment, micro-dosing has a promising future for treating depression (I haven't tried it personally), it's fun with friends, and isn't bad on your lungs/liver/kidneys/etc. like other substances are. Also, your tolerance will stack quickly with shrooms, and they should be an once-every-two-weeks at most kind of drug if you plan to use frequently in normal doses (micro dosing is closer to 0.1-0.3g every 2-3 days). All of that said, picking who you trip with and where you trip is very important when using normal doses to avoid a "bad trip." If you're gonna do it indoors I highly recommend cleaning the place up (floors especially!) beforehand and sticking to 2.5-2.8g on your first time (you can move up to 2.8-3.8g per trip from there). Don't worry about "potency" or "strain" so much with these guys the way you would with canna because with shrooms "a cube is a cube." Only focus on dosage and remember that you can always eat more later rather than going overboard on initial dose. They can give you stomach issues if you eat them raw because of the chitin inside of the shroom cells, but this can be negated if you either "lemon tek" them by doing a sort of shroom ceviche where you crush up the shrooms and then put the grinds into a shot glass of lemon or lime juice for 30 minutes and then separating the solid bits from the liquid and drinking the lime/lemon juice straight up (will shorten the trip period a little bit but will also enhance the trip effects as well). The other way around the potential for stomach grumbling is to brew a tea (or chi) with the shrooms and drinking them that way. While shrooms/cubes are harder to come by and a far less legal at the state level across the country, the spores that you use to start microbial growth with are technically legal to order across the country. Cultivating is def not legal, but requires far less space, costs, and maintenance time compared to cultivating canna, however, the grow cycles goes a lot quicker with shrooms (1-2 months vs 4-6 months with canna). Cultivation also requires much more sterile procedures and your batch can go bad very quickly if you're not being super careful about being sterile. There's also not as much of a "rewarding" daily maintenance thing with shrooms the way that caring for plants will give you in my experience.
Hope this info is helpful for anyone curious about this stuff.