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<p>Excuse? How about this: if you want to come to Princeton and give me a ride to one of the places you have suggested, I’ll be happy to go. This is not an excuse: I’ do not have a car on campus, and do not have the time to spend on trying to figure out transportation and then actually getting there - especially around finals time. There’s also (though this is secondary) the issue of credibility - you have not provided a single piece of evidence to support your argument, except that supposedly the instant I enter a treatment center all of your arguments will clearly be supported with rigorous evidence. Sorry, but I’m just not willing - or really able - to take the (large amount of) time necessary to go and maybe or maybe not see your argument substantiated, when you have provided no other indications that it is. Do you blame me for that?</p>
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<p>You’re putting words in my mouth and trying to make a straw man argument. I never said everything the US government did was false. I said that their stance on drugs has been so one-size-fits-all and reactionary as to poison the discourse on drugs and make the government a less-than-credible source on he issue of drugs. If you had read the transcripts of Congressional hearings on marijuana, for example, you’d know why I feel that is a valid criticism. Moreover, I criticize the US government for its heavy-handed approach both with other nations (insidious and overbearing attempts to force other countries not to allow medical marijuana, for example) and even the country’s own states (with federal law enforcement raiding people even in states with legal medical marijuana - abetted by a ridiculous Supreme Court decision).</p>
<p>But that does not mean I consider the US government incompetent in all respects - and I never said I did. For example, when the DEA reports that it seized 10 kilograms of cocaine from some boat in the Gulf of Mexico as they were smuggling it into America, I’m not sitting here going “Well that sounds like a lie!” Likewise, when the government gathers statistics on the price of drugs, something it both has little reason to blur the truth about and has had a good track record with (there’s a long record, and I cross-checked what I could to see if it looked right), I don’t have a problem with it.</p>
<p>But that’s not the only reason - the main reason is that I figured you’d trust a government source more than independent ones, even though the latter were the first sources I found (the two types do agree, by the way). Do you not?</p>
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<p>Cut the condescension.</p>
<p>The point is that you have provided not a single iota of evidence to support anything you have said. You have not provided a single link to a study, an article, peer-reviewed literature, even to one of your precious treatment centers, that supports anything you have been saying. And that is the problem. If you linked me to an addiction specialist who was saying the same things as you, be it on their center’s website, or wherever else, I would take it very seriously. But you haven’t even done that.</p>
<p>I’m not telling you I doubt your evidence because you’ve provided it and I have found it wanting. </p>
<p>I’m telling you I doubt your evidence because, so far, you have provided NONE AT ALL. You keep saying “mental health experts” this, and “addiction specialists” that, but have provided nothing to verify that they agree with what you’re saying; nothing so much as a third-hand media article has been provided by you. And that is the bottom line. Provide some evidence - any evidence - of what you’re saying, or you will continue to look like you’re making this stuff up on the spot.</p>