Let Freedom Ring
- suehomola
- Jun 29
- 2 min read
“Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is. The destructiveness and human wreckage mock our heritage.”
-- President Ronald Reagan, 1986
As we stare into the mirror on 250 years of our national identity, we must ask ourselves one question: Do we like what we see?
In May 2026, a mere ten days after marijuana for therapeutic purposes was reclassified as a Schedule III drug, the National Drug Control Strategy report was released. This federal report documented how 20.6 million Americans had a cannabis use disorder. This number represents 7.1% of Americans over the age of 12, and marijuana use was the #1 stated reason for addiction treatment for those under the age of 20.[1]
Drug addiction is a trap. It enslaves the user by disabling their dignity and autonomy. It causes extreme heartbreak in families, which can include wounds that never heal. It also subjugates communities, because sober, hardworking taxpayers are left to pay for the clean-up that widespread drug misuse leaves in its path.
This week, the DEA begins its hearings on the rescheduling of marijuana. (It makes no sense to reclassify "therapeutic" marijuana and have the hearings for marijuana reclassification afterward, but that's where are right now.)
This reclassification discussion comes at a time when meta data shows how marijuana-induced psychosis and schizophrenia rates are piling up in proportion to the skyrocketing THC potency of today's drug. To make matters worse, the federal government decided to exclude one of its own leading voices on this topic from the federal hearing. Dr. Luli Akinfiresoye is a DEA pharmacologist who authored a 2024 report that is considered to reflect the most comprehensive scientific knowledge on how harmful this drug has become.[2]
A nation is only as healthy as its next generation. Our upcoming generation is struggling under the oppression of addiction, and marijuana use is just one of those addictions. For years we have allowed drug misuse to ride roughshod over our citizens, fueled in part by the misplaced banner of libertarianism and freedom of choice. However, our hard-fought American freedoms, earned through the blood and sacrifice of those before us, were never intended to resemble a drug-addled national rave party.
A nation that crafts laws and administrative policies that allow corporate systems to plunder citizens with addiction-for-profit schemes is a recipe for cannibalism. Not only is this an inversion of prosperity, it is a formula for enslavement. This is not the future that our founding fathers envisioned. More importantly, this is not the birthright that parents want to pass down to their children.
As we celebrate our nation's milestone anniversary, we must recommit ourselves to the ideals that made us a free people. We cannot turn a blind eye to the public-private addiction partnerships encircling our citizenry and stealing our future.
It is time for our nation's fathers and mothers to draw a clear line in the sand and say "Enough." We must pressure the laboratories of democracy -- our states -- to recommit themselves to true freedom by divesting from drug addiction.