Chance encounters

I've been in such a bleak mood for the last couple of days. The cursed time change has thrown me so off and I still haven't been able to readjust my internal clock. I finally gave up this morning and took a pill at 6:00am so I could sleep in. It seems to have helped. I had dreams -- albeit strange ones -- but I feel more rested than I have in days. And this little piece of news cheered me up some.

Howard Wooldridge is back on Capitol Hill to lobby for drug policy reform. He's just back so no real news to report, but he did have this amusing anecdote.

My first trip Friday into DC yielded no fun stories, just this. Because I was not meeting with politicians, I wore jeans & a windbreaker with the words THIS COP SAYS STOP THE DRUG WAR on the back. As a man exited the Metro (subway), he turned and said, “I agree completely with your jacket. By the way, I’m with the DEA.” Another good start to my new career.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had at the drug store the other day when I picking up my prescriptions. A woman bought some cough syrup for her kid. She had to show ID and get registered in the pharmacist's book. It was a convoluted process and she was clearly irritated about it.

I chimed in with, "Isn't it just crazy that you can't buy cough syrup without being treated like a criminal?" She and I and the two store clerks chatted about it for a while and all agreed it was a stupid way to fight meth. I mentioned that I had read that meth use wasn't even down and now the market had been taken over by organized crime cartels from Mexico. We all agreed that this was not a better result.

Reform. It's all about planting the seeds, folks.