Get a daily rundown of the top stories on Urban Milwaukee

Do we hate our kids so much that we want to send more of them to the morgue?

I am a clinical pharmacist who has watched and studied drug use for 50 years, and this idea scares me to death.

The FBI predicts 65,000 overdoses for our kids this year, and tolerance of marijuana and recreational drugs is putting them in morgues. A Wall Street Journal article this fall wrote about morgues filling up with so many victims they have to rent refrigerator trucks to store our dead kids.

Here in Wisconsin? A headline in the Kenosha News, “Ten overdose deaths last month in Kenosha.” Front page stories in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about fathers losing their kids to overdose deaths. Or the personal stories I’ve heard from friends about relatives and kids they knew who overdosed. They all had been using pot to start.

And if that’s not enough, drug-impaired driving is way up, with Colorado leading the way. You may have seen the video of Tiger Woods, arrested for a drug DUI.

The fact is that among those who use recreational drugs to get high, a certain number will then experiment with harder drugs and some will eventually go to the morgue. Media coverage blames prescription drugs, but the overwhelming research shows that most started on pot, from curiosity and peer pressure. Does everyone really think that prescription drugs in grade and high school are causing the problem, or is it pot?

The opioid problem is mainly people older than 30, who take narcotics, morphine or oxycodone for burns or any kind of nerve pain. They become dependent, but we can cure dependency and you don’t have to go cold turkey, because they want to get off.

But addiction is something that comes from something you take because you like it: alcohol, cigarettes or pot.

Pot by itself, for those who can control it, does not lead to heroin deaths. But those starting out looking for a high start looking for a bigger high and peer pressure pushes many kids who are way too immature to handle this to try other drugs. Check out the HBO special “Addiction,” or the classic Frank Sinatra film, The Man with the Golden Arm, or musicians like Chet Baker and Ray Charles.

It’s simple logic: Kids try pot due to peer pressure or curiosity, get excited about the high, then go on to a bigger drug, get hooked, and eventually overdose. Who knows what’s in the dose they’re injecting? How about those pills? Quality control is nonexistent.

Do people really think they can inhale something into their lungs, and it is not going to adversely affect their lungs and brains? The high you get is because something in your brain has changed, so why would you think this is not going to cause long-term changes? And don’t forget girls and young women are more vulnerable because of smaller size and weight. Women digest drugs differently.

And now Rep. Melissa Sargent wants to legalize pot, then tax it so we have more money for the state to spend. Maybe dead kids don’t bother her.

Why would we want to do this? To fill up our morgues, like Colorado, where they have seen giant increases in overdose deaths and DUIs?

The last few years have seen an explosion of drug-related deaths because of tolerance for recreational drug use. I’m sick of watching people die in rehab, from drug-destroyed bodies. I think we can all agree we don’t want to lose 71,000 kids to opioids. The question is how is this happening, and what we can do about it?

Bob Dohnal, RPh, is the Publisher of the Wisconsin Conservative Digest and has worked as a Clinical Pharmacist in nursing homes and rehab for 50 years.