Whitney Houston’s Death Is A Reminder of the Failure of the War On Drugs.

To be clear, we do not yet know whether the tragic death of Whitney Houston is directly related to drugs, alcohol, or something else. What we know is rather little: that she was found underwater in a bathtub, not breathing, and no one who made the attempt was able to resuscitate her.

But whether she was or wasn’t high, the fact remains that upon the announcement of her death, the great gob of people we call “Society” leapt to the conclusion that she had overdosed, drawing attention once again to her troubled life and long battle against drug addiction, which by all accounts began after her marriage to Bobby Brown. While we won’t know, probably for several weeks pending toxicology tests, how Ms. Houston died, we do know this much: that her life and career were dramatically altered, marred and possibly shortened by her experience with illegal drugs. It’d be tempting at this point to take the stance that this tragedy is a prime example of why drugs should be illegal, but given that they are and have been illegal for decades yet were utterly impotent to prevent this and other similar tragedies, perhaps it’s more useful to start thinking a little differently: specifically, about how and why we should bring the “War On Drugs” to an END.

Suggest ending the drug war to some people and you’ll be met with some combination of the following: terror, anger, paralyzed dear-in-headlights stares at your incredible hatred of drug addicts, poor people and fluffy kittens. After all, if you’re against the War on Drugs, you must be a dealer, an addict, or just plain mean-spirited person who wants to see people overdose and die, right? For these people, ending the War on Drugs somehow means that everyone will suddenly forget that drugs are harmful and the world will become a ruined, post-apocalyptic wasteland, ravaged by wandering gangs of drug addicts, the land riddled by corpses. Some think such a move would convert the country into a “drug addict tourist attraction.” The implicit belief is that somehow, some way, the words “Drugs are illegal” are magically the only thing standing between American civilization and certain doom. But there’s a problem with this line of thinking, and it’s pretty significant: there’s no evidence to support it, and in fact, there is a growing body of evidence to the contrary.

For example, Portugal fully decriminalized use and possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use–including marijuana and even harder stuff like methamphetamine, interestingly–11 years ago. The Cato institute released a study in 2009, after approximately 7 years of decriminalizing drug use, that was startling in its revelations about the change. But more than merely decriminalizing drug use, Portugal also recognized that treatment is far cheaper than incarceration, they also implemented a new policy to offer help to those who want to kick the habit. Keep that word–help–in mind as we proceed, and also keep in mind another word–punishment–the default method of the War on Drugs for dealing with addicted people. As we proceed, both words will be very important.

When Portugal adopted their new policy, many predicted the country would become a “drug tourist” nation and that usage rates would climb. What actually happened was that following decriminalization, rates of new users declined, numbers of people seeking treatment more than doubled, HIV infection rates (often associated with sharing drug needles–yuck) declined, and savings realized by adopting a Help rather than Punishment methodology allowed for a greater share of the budget to be allocated for treatment. All the fear about Portugal’s population suddenly turning into a collective of drugged-out addicts following decriminalization turned out to be exactly and precisely wrong. All the chatter about the country becoming a tourist attraction for the worst dregs of drug culture in the world turned out to be the same: wrong. Conventional “wisdom” turned out to be fairly unwise, in the end.

I’m not insensitive to the impact drugs have on people. I grew up in a family with a Vietnam veteran who was also a heavy user of both pot and meth (and, if what I’m told is accurate, ultimately he died from an infection probably caused or at least aided by complications of meth use, at only 56 years old). I watched not just my parents, but “friends” of theirs as well, destroy their lives with drugs (primarily meth). But rather than help the problem, the “system” simply made their lives worse and more tragic. They faced heavy fines, jail to various degrees, both drug and non-drug related–both of which took food out of the mouths of myself and my young sisters, and at times left us homeless. I watched as drug use destroyed a family friend’s home and business, and watched as they basically lost everything to a combination of drug abuse and incarceration or harassment. Their employees lost their jobs and their customers lost a business they’d patronized for years.

What did the policies of the War on Drugs do to help those victims of drug abuse? NOTHING. It simply destroyed their family and alienated children from parents. And while it’s possible their kids may have ended up better off wherever they wound up, the fact remains that if our system pursued rehabilitation and help for breaking the addiction cycle rather than being focused on meting out punishment on people who’ve made a grave error in thinking, it may have been possible to set that family back on a rational, productive, healthy path. They’d already had a history of being successful small business people (they ran a tuxedo and bridal shop), had accumulated some assets in doing so, and with the right help could have returned to a life of healthy, productive working and living–probably at a cheaper cost than what the government spent on incarceration.

It’s a basic fact of nature that everything operates according to patterns. Human behavior is no exception to this rule. From subatomic particles to solar systems and everything in between, our universe is ruled by patterns. Sometimes, people fall into bad patterns. This can happen for many reasons: sometimes we’re raised into them, sometimes we make a bad choice and become trapped in a negative pattern as a result. But one of our uniquely human features is that, with help from an objective source (or a great deal of focused introspection, which is difficult to achieve if you never learned how), we can learn to see the patterns we’ve become trapped in. Then, we can make the choice to change those patterns.

What I believe is this: that right and wrong, moral and immoral, can be defined objectively and empirically, and that when we do so, behaviors which are healthy and beneficial to human flourishing become the Good, while behaviors that are harmful become the Evil. Looking at it from this perspective, we’re able to tie concepts to empirically demonstrable reality, which in turn means that with the right knowledge, applied using a well-examined Reason, we can turn the tide of our lives away from evil and toward the good. And that means: we can save lives, and enable people to pursue flourishing in a healthy, productive manner.

And that’s my entire point: we need to inculcate Good decision-making capabilities in ourselves and in the lives we can affect (especially important for parents to realize!), and you can’t do that by destroying lives, seizing property, charging outrageous fees they can’t afford to pay and throwing people in prison. It does not work, and we have more than half a century of evidence to prove that fact. It’s time we try something other than sitting around, too paralyzed by fear of making things worse. It’s time we actively try to make things better. The methodology of punishment has failed–abjectly so–and it’s time to try a methodology of help, based on real psychology, real philosophy, and the understanding that patterns of behavior can be changed and improved. Maybe if we’d simply confront the problems of addiction in an honest, helpful way, with an eye toward solving the problem rather than punishing the person who has that problem, tragedies like that of Whitney Houston and others might be more readily avoided.

Today they have an interesting piece highlighting the clever thinking of Marion Donovan, to whom most any parent owes a significant debt of gratitude. Why, you ask? 70 years ago, tired of the constant work of keeping two not-yet-potty-trained daughters clean and dry, she decided to try and develop something to make her, and eventually others’, lives a lot easier: the plastic-lined, nylon-backed diaper and, later, the disposable diaper. I’m tempted to simply pilfer their research and tell the tale, but In good conscience I’ll just say why not go take a quick read for yourself!

I haven’t spent much time looking at heroic women in fiction (outside of Eve herself, of course) since we launched Eve Is My Hero, so perhaps this is a fitting introduction.

In the world of comics (to say nothing of movies, television, etc) men have always dominated heroic roles while women stayed largely on the sidelines. There’ve been exceptions, of course, and more than once there have been characters such as Batgirl, Supergirl and so on, but they’ve rarely been priority characters, nor particularly breakout kinds of characters. As a rule, they tend to play second-fiddle to their male counterparts.

Things are apparently about to change. This coming fall, DC Comics will revamp their entire comics lineup, taking all their character books back to Issue #1 status, effectively “resetting” the world. As the new world begins, some of the major changes taking effect include the new prioritization of female characters, beginning with Batgirl and the all new Batwoman, who packs a surprise or two of her own.

From an interview at IGN, Mike Marts of DC Comics noted of Batwoman in particular, ”It’s very important in several different ways. Not only do we have fan-favorite and critically acclaimed writer J.H. Williams III taking charge, this is also the first time that we have a superhero title from a major publisher that features a lesbian protagonist.”

Independent labels have, of course, lead the charge on gay characters of all sorts for years, but to have a major character in a major series by a major publisher (that’s a lot of majors!) be both female and gay is a sort of sea-change in the traditional comic book world that could have positive ramifications for a long time to come.

The increased focus and valuation on female characters–gay or straight–is a welcome change that reveals some optimistic new perspectives that seems to reflect the gradually increasing acceptance of women as not just equals to men, but as being heroic and worthy of examination, celebration and veneration in their own right. Mike Marts continued (via IGN, again): “We feel that the female members of the Batman group are just as important as the male. That’s why we’re offering several different titles from Batgirl to Batwoman to Catwoman to Birds of Prey. A lot of times those characters have proven to be more popular than their male counterparts.”

The times, they are a-changing indeed!

In any case, it’s good to see women in these roles succeeding; like with the women in the Film and Television industry posted earlier this month, each of these makes a small but measurable, worthwhile difference in redefining the role of women in the professions, and demonstrate with clarity that gender is by no means a limiter of intelligence and competence.

If you’d like to show someone who doesn’t read English some of the amazing accomplishments of the Heroic Women we highlight here, have we got an update for you. If you look to the right of this post (go ahead–I’ll wait) you’ll find a little box in the sidebar, with the heading “Translate!” Guess what it does? That’s right, it translates the whole darn site, using the pretty-darn-good tools offered for free by Google’s Translation API. It’s not perfect, but hey, sometimes you just need to get a little closer to a native tongue, and this might make the difference you need! Let us know if it helps you!

Liz Manne, who co-founded Fine Line Pictures and worked as Executive Vice President of Marketing from 1990 to 1997, has now been named Executive Director of Film Aid International, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

If you’re not familiar with Film Aid (I only learned of them recently,) they’re an organization that puts together and shows educational films to people in less developed parts of the world in an effort to elevate education levels on basic human life topics. From their website:

“FilmAid has completed a 5 part film series on hygiene and the prevention of malaria and cholera produced for the Somali refugee community. The films are being watched by thousands of Somalis living in Dadaab refugee camp where health is consistently compromised by overpopulation.”

Now, you might think “eh, so what? I saw those kinds of films in grade school.” Fair enough. But for people who live in parts of the world where education is unavailable or undervalued (or goodness forbid, both,) many people can go their entire lives without the basic understanding of simple human hygienics, much less higher needs like Liberty, Self-Respect, Reason and Science. Without foundational knowledge, it’s difficult to convince people of the need for higher knowledge, and it’s precisely this lack of education and development that lead to situations in which they can be abused and taken advantage of by unscrupulous individuals, governments and corporations who know better.

So congratulations to Ms. Manne, who’s clearly a motivated “go-getter” not just in the realm of business, but in the realm of ideas that work to elevate humankind to a better way of living.

According to her boss, Jim Kennedy, “Ann’s a real rising star here at Sony,” said Kennedy. “She’s creative, collegial and smart. She knows business, entertainment, technology and the importance of helping the media get what they need accurately and fast.”

As with the executive promotions at Fox and ABC, I see this as important because it marks a shift in high level corporate culture–a place traditionally dominated by men exclusively. When women are able to work their way into these positions and find success, they very fact of their presence in a highly respected and important role affects a cultural shift that begins locally and expands outward like ripples in a pond after you’ve dropped a stone in.

Taken one at a time they can seem insignificant, but in the age where information about these kinds of happenings travels far and wide via the internet, seeing more of these occurring helps convey the message that women are capable of holding positions of significant responsibility, capability and pay. Over time their presence becomes a simple fact of life and ceases to be a “threat” to their male counterparts–this is the essence of cultural change. As a further benefit, seeing women achieve in these ways is inspirational to the young, who, particularly in more strictly traditional families, may not have many strong female role models (strong in the modern, independent sense–even women in traditional roles demonstrate a kind of strength, which I don’t want to completely discount).

Can you hear that sound? It’s like…glass…cracking!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve made some substantial changes to the “back end” of Eve is My Hero today, resulting in some substantial performance improvements. You’ve probably noticed the sluggishness of the site recently, and today I finally had time to do something about it.

Additionally, I’ve also performed the upgrade to our Facebook page. I hope you’ll join us over there, Like us and begin to share the word about the site as we drive forward with our mission to highlight the many courageous and heroic women who make positive changes to the world we live in and overcome gender stereotypes to do so.

Last but not least, we’ve added support for the worldwide standard Disqus commenting system to the site. That’s right, if you’ve got  Disqus account, you can just sign in to the commenting system with that and comment away on Eve Is My Hero, no need to register a local account!

So what is it that makes Buffy so incredible? First, it’s about subverting tropes of all sorts. Buffy herself is the typical little cheerleader you’d expect to be the “Damsel in distress,” waiting for some well-heeled jock to come save her–but instead of being that, she’s the hero of the whole damn story. She’s smart, sassy, strong (literally–she’ll kick the crap out of said jock if he messes with her), a natural leader, and the quintessential, classical “hero” in the sense that she always ends up doing what’s right.

But she’s also very grounded, in spite of the fantastical world in which she lives. She copes with the same pains we all do–relationships that turn sour unexpectedly, friendships that don’t always align well, conflict with family, illness, money troubles and so on, and she deals with these within the framework of metaphors that align with the real life versions of problems we all face. She does all this believably, growing from the innocent and hopeful girl to the tough adult and leader of an army she eventually becomes.

If you’re a lover of heroic tales of any kind, Buffy is for you. And the good news is, it has enough humor, fun, action and drama to appeal to just about any audience.

Source

In her new role, Ms. Bowman will oversee production of both original movies and original television series’ being produced at ABC, a role whose influence is sure to be substantial.

Following up my previous posting on the Fox promotions, I’ve decided it’s a bit “wafflish” to not directly include women who achieve in business as “heroic.” As I mentioned before, some will disagree with the designation, preferring to reserve it solely for activist types, or writers or speakers, but upon reflection I’ve decided that view is a little short sighted, and that my previous hesitation in just outright declaring the heroism of these women in business was unwarranted. There are many flavors of heroes and heroism in this world, and the woman who manages to succeed against the odds in what’s traditionally been viewed as “man’s territory” has absolutely earned the designation of hero. To get to her position, she’s had to work twice as hard as many of the men she’s worked with, and been twice as competent in order to earn not just their respect, but their admiration and trust. That she’s moved to this level is nothing less than evidence that she’s earned that trust, and as more women rise into these ranks and succeed, they can’t help but change attitudes and perceptions of both men and women along the way.