Broken record in Orleans County: Out-of-state drug dealer enlists young local woman for ‘home base’
Daniel Banyai (left), accused out-of-state drug dealer and attempted murderer Michael Valverde, and Valverde’s accused accomplice Jessica Robishaw of Orleans County
To the Editor:
So according to our “free” press, “calm” is now restored in Pawlet after a resident who purportedly is guilty of zoning violations on the property he owns was arrested? As a resident myself who sat for seven years on a local VT Planning Commission, I remain personally unaware of the apparent highly dangerous perils typical zoning violators impose that would result in such terror.
Where is the litany of violent crimes Mr. Banyai has been convicted of over the years that would cause the media to describe him as such a contemptuous outlaw? If the answer is a firearms training center which he attempted to establish on his property years ago, such use was potentially perfectly legal in this Constitutional Right-to-Carry state until merely last year when this current super-majority of Second Right’s Amendment-loathing legislators passed a bill prohibiting such facilities statewide. – Kathleen Gaffney
Broken record – The story is becoming a broken record. A young male in his twenties moves into the state generally seeking drug buying customers. That person enlists the help of a young woman either in her late teens or early twenties as a girlfriend but more of a person to provide a home base.
From there the visitor feeds the addiction and has the young girl enlist several friends who will sell the product usually to support their own habit. Within a year all are severely addicted except for the dealer and generally someone will die while working for the dealer either via an overdose or violence.
I think all residents of Orleans County would agree enough is enough. It’s time for a strong arm approach to this menace. Forget the idea of having an injection site. They have been proven to never work and just serve as a place for addicts to hang out and ply their trade. Our local state police, county sheriffs and city police forces are smart but under financed and under equipped to handle the wave of drug crime. They are further impeded by soft judges that grant bail the day after they are arrested. Let’s get serious here.
Get more financing for local equipment and manpower for law enforcement. The towns of Orleans County should use more local sheriff and state police patrols of local law enforcement for businesses and law abiding residents 24-7. When a bust happens or an arrest, keep these idiots locked up and impose severe penalties to the maximum level of the written law to contain the problem. No injection sites and more counseling centers and education units. And most of all incarcerate the offenders. Some just do not respond to counseling. They will respond to jail time and while in jail can get cleaned up. There is a bill in the Vermont general assembly to jail a person for 10 years for selling 1000 doses of fentanyl. Now that sounds like a deterrent.
I speak to many individuals in the law enforcement profession regularly. They know who most of these criminals are. They need our help to enforce the capture and corralling of these drug houses which, sadly enough, we have in every town. In some cases all they need is a solid lead and they can do the rest. Law abiding Local citizens need to stand up and report illegal activities when they see them and not look the other way.
And while out of state and region dealers command the most attention there are plenty of local dealers as well in Orleans County and for the most part, neighbors and folks living near them know who they are. They are committing the robbery crimes to maintain their habit through stealing from local folks.
Working together as residents with local law enforcement is the most direct and immediately effective way to curb this scourge. We need to help the local law help us. Now. Before it’s way too late. Thanks for your time. – Ken Wells, Newport. Republished from the Newport Dispatch
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Letters to the Editor
did anyone post mr. banyai bail/// where is the n. r, a. and other gun rights operations///
There is only one deterrent for these in state and down country “Pharmacists” pushing their poison.
Your solution to the druggies is to spend MORE MONEY making a police state. You realize this investment will be use against you for whatever the politicians in power what to use it for? They set the priorities, not you.
Strong arm tactics have been used for over 50 years with not a single dent made in the drug war. Why would you expect your idea to work any differently? The higher the risk, the more hardcore criminals you generate, the increase in violence, and the more dangerous the products. There were some places where a bag of weed would get someone life in prison. This did nothing to stop anything, and only created extreme costs and violence.
We have more people in prison in this country than any other country, and often times the prison industrial complex made records in monitory growth charts. We have to pay for all this crime we created. The government doesn’t have it’s hands clean. The government itself deals guns and drugs to these criminal cartels and use our resources in a bunch of black budget racket. The government cannot be trusted to fix the problem. The government IS the problem.
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insane. The only solution is freedom and responsibility. Allow people to do what they want with their bodies. Remove all enabling welfare programs for those who make poor choices, and stop forcing working people to subsidize poor choices. Hold accountable people who are providing products that are adulterated. Let freedom ring! At the very least allow legal drug dealers (doctors) to write prescriptions. No more drug war! No more cartels! No more police state! This is the only answer that isn’t insanity.
Let freedom ring? Sit back and do nothing? Go back to school.
@Ray Dauphinais – Really thoughtful reply, I much appreciate that. Super high intelligence, I can tell you thought a lot about it. Where did I say sit back and do nothing? I suggested replacing hundreds of millions of crimes, with druggies getting prescriptions, and to hold everyone accountable for their actions and/or negligence, as well as disqualifying people that make bad decisions from welfare/subsidies.
You do nothing with the majority of the population on big pharma psychoactive drugs that have homicide listed in the side effects, where no one giving them those drugs are responsible for the fallout. You sit back and do nothing when 5 year olds are given meth by their doctors to help them in school. You do nothing when drug cartels and terrorists organizations are created with unlimited funding sources. You do nothing with the insane costs we have to pay for a drug war that was lost the moment it started. Go do your homework. Freedom doesn’t mean “do nothing”. Freedom is a much higher standard of excellence. Freedom is a requirement we were born with, guaranteed to us by our constitution.
Oh I miss Kathleens unhinged comments so much. To think that Banyai is some innocent wanna-be GI Joe. Take a minute to educate yourself.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/one-mans-war-against-a-small-towns-rules
Innocent people talk to their professors like this: “Banyai had been expelled after allegedly threatening violence against a dean who refused to help him reverse a failing grade. The dean had received texts including one that read, “You and your family are going to suffer a miserable tortuous event and then you will die.”
The State of New York revoked his pistol permit, and Banyai was ordered to surrender his firearms…When police caught Banyai with a loaded .40-calibre pistol, they charged him with felony possession.
as Banyai faced felony charges in New York, and was asking heavily armed supporters to attend a Select Board meeting in Pawlet—the agency warned law-enforcement officers in both states that Banyai was believed to be “unlawfully in possession of a large cache of firearms and ammunition.” He had “refused to follow the order to surrender” them.
The comment section is lame without you calling everyone names and occasionally threatening violence. Hey! I see why you like Banyai
Well then, let me fulfill your very disturbing fantasies and remind you that:
Vermont is a Right-to-Carry State as per the US & VT Constitutions. With few restrictions, one may discharge firearms on one’s acreage – unmolested – by you or your malcontents of Montpelier. And yes, the right to carry can be synonymous with being “heavily armed” as you describe it – though of course you neglect to distinguish exactly what such your description supposedly entailed. And presently, there are NO state laws that mandates that one “disarm” themselves when attending a PUBLIC open-door select board meeting, though you apparently, and incorrectly, assumed that there was.
Firearms Training Centers were allowed in VT until the year of our LORD (just to make you experience that twinge of burning sensations you might only experience when passing by a house of worship on your way to an Antifa meeting) 2023…conveniently passed in order to directly avenge Mr. Banyai.
In conclusion, your unmethodical & disordered diatribe – coming from a guy who ought to instead be facing a blackboard right about this time according to his own self-professed “occupation” – substantiates nothing except for the fact that you very obviously know little to nothing about zoning and permitting in the State of VT, nor do you appear to be aware of Mr. Banyai’s right to arm & protect himself.
And to further add insult to your self-inflicted injuries, YES, I concur FULLY with President & Founding Father Thomas Jefferson’s ideology: The Tree of Liberty Must Be Refreshed from Time to Time with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants. I trust all your “students” have been schooled in this truism by this long-passed “nationalist”. LOL!
Ah yes, Chris: the dastardly “Boomers” that so many leftist kiddies have been taught to loathe – the group of American patriots & successful financiers who make your generation of basement-dwelling momma’s boys look so bad comparatively. I’d recommend snipping those apron strings as soon as possible, and perhaps striking out on your own once your generation reaches the age of consent and accountability – which appears to be right at about age 42 or so.
And as a “teacher” with lots of “responsibility”, I would think that my repeating the words of one of our most accomplished & courageous military tacticians & leaders would impress you.
But thank you, again, for the opportunity to repeat his resounding words once more, particularly for those VT legislators who somehow don’t appear to be familiar with it:
“The Tree of Liberty Must be Refreshed from Time to Time with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants!”
Actually, I think Nancy Reagan had it right back in my era. Just say “no”. If there’s no demand, they’ll be no need to supply anyone & these ruthless drug pushers can all go crawl back under those crack rocks.
Life is difficult. For mostly everyone. From grief to unemployment to disabilities to mental health issues – such is life. Turning to drug abuse and addiction has never resolved any personal/professional/familial issues for anyone. So choosing to use & thereby engaging in the same action over and over and expecting different results is ultimately the root of this societal catastrophe.
To add to that basic premise, drug addicts and users don’t just cause injury & death to themselves. They directly & indirectly cause suffering incurred by family/friends, injury & death to innocents via DUI’s, and the massive financial toll it costs society as a whole when addicts cease to be able to function & become seriously y ill, homeless, and involved in criminal acts in order to feed their addiction.
The new craze of “allow everyone to do anything they wish with their own bodies” is leftist drivel. Having millions of Americans doped up & homeless is ravaging this nation. Having them commit crimes or cause vehicular manslaughter is heart-wrenching. The same can be said for legalizing prostitution – the sex trade HURTS women. It OBJECTIFIES them & ENSLAVES them and EXPOLITS them.
John Adams stated: OUR CONSTITUTION WAS MADE ONLY FOR A MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. IT IS WHOLLY INADEQUATE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF ANY OTHER. To better paraphrase: Your leftist hogwash is NOT the solution, son!
So sorry for all my typos! That’s “exploits” in the 4th paragraph & please ignore the various other typographical errors……TYPING, GRADE 9: “C” (And I’m pretty sure Mrs. Grodsky was more than overly generous).
You are listing very real issues related to drug use in society. However, your solution 1. doesn’t fix or even change the real issues of drug use in society. 2. Adds and additional trillion dollar criminal syndicate responsible for murder, terrorism, rape, and any other side crime you can think of. – This doesn’t take a very smart person to see the effects. I’m sorry about your cognitive dissonance and failure to reason or observe reality. You will never get rid of demand. There is nothing I can think of more blatantly obvious than the failed drug war.
How is that “just say no” been working out? I guess you will ignore everything I said and go back to your “please government save me” leftist mentality. I specifically addressed all your points. None of the problems you stated have been solved by anything you proposed. You are supporting a 100% PROVEN FAILURE! You support criminals, terrorists, and the police state. How much more proof do you need that you are living in a fantasy? Do you comprehend basic economics and crime? Your mentality is that you want to feel powerful through government’s violent force. Well, this comes with great cost, zero positive results, you have zero control, and you are giving up all your power.
YOU are the leftist that begs the criminal government to help save you from the big scary druggies. Then immediately complain about how the criminal government is using strong arm tactics against your friend that put up a water tower.
In case you haven’t noticed, the druggies don’t give a crap about what you want. What you want has been tried for over 50 years with NO RESULTS! They will do what they want no matter if you want to generate a multi-billion/trillion dollar crime industry to have your way, or not. Your idea has created the crime. Your idea has created the costs. Your idea is the biggest leftist idea that exists. You support the killing of millions of people, murder, rape, slavery, swatting innocents, spying, illegal searches, government racketeering, and all the other things that get generated with YOUR drug war. All those tools YOU are creating for them will be used against YOU. Keep licking the boot and then complaining about the results to infinity.
Just keep building that machine until it runs over you. I could see if this was a brand new idea that we are just now trying out, but over 50 years there is just no forgiving this sort of leftist mentality and ignorance. Freedom and liberty is always the only solution. That includes the freedom to fail, and the freedom for us to not pay for other peoples failures.
Kathleen,hate to disappoint you, but I don’t get triggered by fairy tales. I know most boomers like you need the threat of eternal damnation from the sky lord to get you to behave, but that hasn’t really seemed to work for society. Anyhoo, I don’t even know how to respond to your rambling pontifications that have little to do with what I’m talking about, so I’ll leave it with if there were militia playing Meal Team 6 in your neighborhood I guarantee you you’d be screaming for the cops to protect your Jeffersonian privileged experience away from any real conflict. For real though, glad they let you out and you’re back, it’s so boring without you.
Well, I’m sorry for your typical intolerance to listen to other’s opinions and respond in a civil manner. Regardless of your political party’s propensity to chronically claim that they are all about tolerance, they tend to exhibit none.
Nonetheless, your leftist notions to simply legalize or decriminalize just about any & every unprincipled, unethical, & dangerous behavior and then claim “success” in advancing a society WITHOUT a Rule of Law under which to live have already been, as your yourself describe above, PROVEN FAILURES in both foreign countries AND within this very one. As this is being written, the state of Oregon’s largely LEFTIST & DEMOCRAT Party majority legislature is RECRIMINALIZING the use of hard drugs because the great utopian “reset” they imagined they would create by allowing people to poison themselves because “they should be able to do with their body what they wish” did NOT prove to advance the greater good. It made their drug crisis exponentially worse.
Decriminalizing drugs in Oregon – Measure 110 – saw a RISE in homelessness AND in Overdose Deaths. As far as decriminalizing or legalizing prostitution? Oregon is now retracting the very bill they believed would “fix” their disaster. The effects are identical with regard to legalizing prostitution. As per a major research study published in “World Development” as showcased & dissected at the 2024 Harvard Conference at Harvard’s Law School campus, the study in question encompassed One Hundred and Sixteen Countries that researched the effects of legalizing prostitution had over the course of a decade. The study – inclusive of countries like Demark, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland amongst the many others – once yet AGAIN, evidenced the exact opposite of leftist predictions in that permitting prostitution, much like permitting drug use, abuse, & addiction – were associated with “higher human trafficking inflows” than in countries where this long degrading & injurious practice is deemed ILLEGAL. Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden, as but one example: “resulted in the SHRINKING of the prostitution market and the DECLINE of human trafficking”.
Needless to state, much like choosing to STEER CLEAR of Oregon’s already FAILED legalization of hard drugs and hundreds of countries mostly-failed legalization of prostitution, the VT legislature is chomping at the bit to pass both. It takes truly vapid people to ignore the history of where US law emanated from and to then further ignore the results of other countries/locales who have attempted to implement such foolhardy measures —- and do the SAME right HERE.
While continuing to police and imprison and eventually force rehabilitation isn’t perfect, the fact that your party’s “outlaw” style policies with a POTUS who has continuously DEFIED Federal Law and has illegally opened the borders to the drug trade & to the Cartels who openly flout their organized crime dealings in both dangerous & often deadly drugs AND in sex trafficking of destitute women and in minor boys and girls — is not merely sickening to behold, but has directly created and is intentionally causing the worsening of addiction and deaths within this sovereign nation each & every day. And by simply proclaiming that the citizens no longer be guided by law & order based upon our Judeo-Christian ethics & ethos which the USA was founded upon in order to purportedly establish “better” law & order is ridiculous.
I note that Vermont has experienced a recent influx in speeding, & that numerous articles on VDC have documented individuals driving at rates of speed in excess of 110 mph and more, thereby creating dangerous & sometimes deadly hazards for not just themselves but for other motorists using the same public roadways. In keeping with your line of thinking, and especially knowing that speeding has existed since the beginning of the automotive industry itself & certainly since the building of the highway infrastructure within the USA, a similar solution would be to abolish all speed limits and simply “allow people to drive the way they wish with their own cars”. Certainly, abolishing laws & permitting a freewheeling populace to drive without encumbrances should make roads somehow safer than establishing limitations, policing the roadways, and handing out punitive measures to try to thwart reckless behaviors, correct?
It doesn’t. Matters become worse.
Law is order and good law is good order.
“WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
You don’t seem to have a problem with doctors prescribing methamphetamines to 4 year olds. You don’t seem to care that the majority of people are currently taking legal medications that have homicide listed in the side-effects, and are much more damaging than most illegal drugs. You don’t seem to have a problem empowering and creating criminals on a mass scale with an unlimited funding source. You don’t seem to care about giving the state an unlimited power source to thwart the rule of law. I’m not sure of any other opinion or mentality that is any more leftist and anti-American than yours. You advocate for the very lawlessness you are creating, but then pull a 180 when that lawlessness you created is used against you or what you allegedly support. You don’t seem to care about the monetary costs to the working people ether. Just like the left, “Please spend more money we don’t have for no results! Oh it hasn’t worked for 50 years? MORE MONEY!!”
I never advocated for the decriminalization of drugs as a solution to the drug war, read more carefully. Before the government power fetish took over the U.S. , you could get opium and cocaine from a drug store without a prescription or any oversight, and guess what? You didn’t have an unlimited funding source to start wars and create all the racket that I previously mentioned. Doctors, lawyers, mothers, and all kinds of respectable people used these drugs. The drug war made them stronger and more dangerous. You obviously have your priorities messed up if you are fine with mass terrorism and all the other things that the wonderful loving drug wars give us.
The constitution doesn’t legitimately grant this authority to the government. This was a manufactured authority through the illegitimate interstate commerce clause. Therefor you don’t support the rule of law. You support quite the opposite. The rule of law is there to serve us. The rule of law would be holding those accountable for their individual actions, and where restitution goes directly to those who are injured by those individual actions. The rule of law doesn’t allow the government to steal our money to pay for your opinion. The rule of law also doesn’t allow the government to steal our money to pay for people’s drug habits. I’m sure if the druggies didn’t have food stamps to sell in Oregon, or were supported by government stolen money, it wouldn’t be nearly as rampant.
Freedom is always the answer, always the solution, and it’s the true American way.
Learn the difference between legalize/legitimize vs decriminalize. They have vastly different outcomes. Decriminalization just reduces consequences for the criminals/cartels/other undesirable circumstances of the drug war. In some ways reducing the police state, but advancing crime that feeds back into the ramping up of the police state and continued costs for working people.
Legalize, or a forms of legalization – would likely give the money to the big pharma cartels that you love so much, which has already been drugging the nation into zombies right under your nose, but without any of the issues associated with the current selective drug war chaos control grid. Why does a drug coming from a guy in a white jacket make it seem okay with you, when someone on the street is just doing a dirtier form of the same drug?
They have been giving meth to children for almost 30 years, and for some reason you are okay with it because the government told you it’s Christian and “moral”. You might even want to take a look at the side effects your government approved drugs you are taking, and compare them to illegal ones. The same thing happened with alcohol. It’s not the drug that’s the problem, it’s the legality of the drug that’s the problem.
Don’t be fooled into false riotousness. I dislike both legal, and illegal drugs. I attempt to surround myself with people who don’t take legal or illegal psychoactive drugs. But you are attempting a double-standard and siding with the the government, much like a communist, instead of siding with the people and harm reduction.
Kathleen, in regards to the speeding analogy, I gotta respectfully disagree. What a great economic boon it would be if we expanded our interstate system to function more like the autobahn in Germany. It would be a parallel roadway to the existing interstate. All users would have a different qualified registration (higher price tag), special plate, mandatory driver training. Good employment for the road builders, extra money in the local economies and state coffers. Only those qualified and willing to pay the extra fee could use them. And as in Germany, you screw up, you own it. But have no fear the Marxists in Montpeculier would NEVER allow it, and so alas I must operate within the acceptable margin of excess and be content, sigh, oh well. 😉
Lock up drug dealers for long periods of time and they’ll leave Vermont alone. It’s inexcusable for a state like Vermont to have the second highest murder rate in New England and it’s because of drug trafficking.
And legalizing their abominable craft will ultimately only make it worse, though I believe that may be precisely what some of these legislators are looking to accomplish.
I’m puzzled as to where you are garnering your very peculiar & particle opinions that have nothing to do at all with the issue at hand with regard to the letter to the editor I wrote that was published in the Bennington Banner & which a portion of which was published by Guy today in the VDC. Just so you – and Chris – (who also doesn’t possess the tenacity to use his/her actual name as the guidelines for posting on this dictate) can attempt to settle yourselves, none of my comments had anything whatsoever to do with potential pharmaceutical side-effects or physicians providing pharmaceuticals to four-year-old children or the rest of the accusations you accuse me of in your diatribe.
And despite not being a physician or playing one on TV, I am of course acutely aware of the rigorous hands-on training & years-long education these professionals have undergone in order to attain their advanced degrees in medicine; therefore, I leave the prescribing of all medicines up to their learned discretion – as opposed to placing one iota of credibility or trust in the unscrupulous & treacherous predators from the inner cities who troll throughout mostly rural VT seeking to ply their trade at any cost with unregulated, and often toxic substances that hold NO medicinal benefit to their users whatsoever. Drug cartel and gang members offer absolutely nothing honorable or admirable to society. Whether they practice their deplorable trade under either legal or illegal conditions, just as with legalized prostitution, these merchants do nothing more than exploit those who are deeply troubled in one or more ways. Conversely, such is opposed to highly trained & skilled M.D.’s who utilize fully regulated & tested drugs that treat conditions, and which either save or prolong the lives of people suffering from diagnosed medical conditions. For those professionals, acting under the law & proper licensure, I am not in the position, generally, to question their decisions for patient care. Further, I disagree that legalizing drugs, prostitution, and all else that currently ails America & simply going after “dealers” or perhaps “pimps” once their hapless victims die, or can no longer function in society, resolves anything.
And despite the fact that you accuse me of wanting to continue on the path of NOT accommodating people’s addictive tendencies & in not wanting to enable their abuse & addiction to exceptionally harmful substances in light of this tact “not working” for the past 50 years, I see you yourself have no responses whatsoever, very conveniently, to the FACT that your recommendation for “allowing people to do with their bodies what they want” does NOT address or take into account how this:
1.) impacts their family & all alternate loved ones
2.) impacts all of society fiscally
3.) endangers the well-being & lives of innocents who contact them
4.) has NOT worked at all within the vast majority of countries who have attempted it & in fact increases addiction/trafficking
5.) enables crime
6.) creates and/or exacerbates mental health illnesses
7.) has not worked in the US states that have attempted your philosophy – each which are themselves in violation of Federal Law to begin with – as is “retail Marijuana”.
8.) The REALITY that your democrat POTUS and his far left, radical administration’s policies that DEFY Federal Law by opening sovereign borders to millions of unknown/unvetted gang & cartel members, criminals, & indigents who transport & disperse these destructive & deadly substances throughout this nation.
Insofar as mass terrorism – the Director of the FBI has admitted publicly under sworn oath in front of Congress that it is certain that the USA is now sheltering likely dozens of terrorists whose sole intent is to engage in domestic terrorist attacks against US citizens within this country in the near future. Thanks, Joe!
As far as “freedom” goes, freedom is NOT synonymous with a “Free-For-All”. And you & Chris appear to merely respect the “freedoms” that you both wish all should be able to avail themselves of which include access to abortions, allowing under-aged minors (even without parental knowledge and/or permission) should commence injecting artificially rendered hormones into their developing bodies in order to supposedly alter their immutable sex that can never be changed no matter how many types of man-made chemicals over however long a period are introduced. These “rights” in addition to imbibing in taking whatever drugs they wish & sell their bodies to the highest pleasure to satisfy the perverse physical pleasures of men. Where within the US Constitution do you find wherein the Founding Fathers describe any kind of “right” that Americans have to murder or to end pregnancies? Where does the Constitution allow or enable sanctioned prostitution wherein one group uses, objectifies & abuses another group?
All civil societies, as this one, are indeed guided by rules and laws. Preventing utter chaos and resultant calamity is not obstructing freedom. The Constitution is the foundation for laws within these states and rights are protected under that document.
But again, none of this has anything remotely to do with my letter to the editor nor does it alter my opinion about Mr. Banyai being persecuted & prosecuted by a rogue state government doing all it can to upend Vermonters’ actual rights as detailed in those founding documents and within the VT Constitution. And that’s my own right, under my right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
I’d suggest doing more research and being more critically observant. Learn the basics of cause and effect. Review all my replies and do a little digging. I have a feeling you can be persuaded once you realize the lie of false authority. Don’t be so trusting of what authority tells you. You put way too much faith in the criminal judges, leftist colleges, CIA, and big pharma cartels. The politician is your enemy. I guess when a doctor wants to cut off the genitals of your child, or perform an abortion, it’s because the political money schools “teach them good”, and the authority is “more smarter” than you. Yay! Meth for children because doctors are so smart!! Yaaaay!! But at the same time, destroy everything and make everything suck because undocumented meth users!!! Don’t get me wrong, if you do harm on a medication side-effect legal or illegal, you should do your time and pay your restitution.
Yes, decriminalization and legalization are similar under the law, though not identical, which is the very reason I made it a point to often utilize BOTH in my postings, which you may have noticed had you more have carefully read the content as opposed to being solely focused on you & Chris feebly attempting, yet again without any measure of success at all – to silence the voices conservatives on this conservative-minded web site – especially those which emanate from women who dare to possess the courage of their convictions & utilize their actual names which this site’s guidelines direct posters to do AND cannot be silenced under any circumstances.
And I wasn’t banished from VDC whatsoever and you might wish to check with Mr. Page to confirm, I was far too preoccupied attending Pro-Life rallies, writing more letters to the editor re: my political stances and wrestling one of your very favorite Communists in residence, Mr. Brain Cina, into silence & submission. Speaking of getting out or coming out though Chris, you appear to have been conspicuously absent as of late…….too “cool” for school?
“to silence the voices conservatives on this conservative-minded web site – especially those which emanate from women who dare to possess the courage of their convictions & utilize their actual names which this site’s guidelines direct posters to do AND cannot be silenced under any circumstances.”
Hahahaha, straight out of the leftist playbook! Victim groups and identity politics! I highly doubt you are conservative. You support leftist college educated authorities. You support leftist judge rulings on the intestate commerce clause. You support spending vast amounts of money on waste. You can’t be persuaded to take a 2nd look at classic leftist cause reaction solution tactics. There is nothing about what you write that looks conservative to me. You seem very authoritarian, and “I can have power through government” complex to me.
I don’t want to silence you, I want you to take a 2nd look at what you are saying and go do some research on the facts, cause/effect, learn and grow and be a real powerful woman by advocating individual responsibility and power to the people! I think this approach would be much better for your support in the long run. Feel free to keep it standard TV talking points from the 70s though if that’s what you like.
Sure bad things are bad, but worse things are always worse.
As for Chris, I don’t think there is too much we would agree on for the most part. Don’t be so quick to put people in different boxes. I dislike all politicians equally. But at the same time I still love the people I disagree with. I look at things through the lens of cause/effect.
I’m sorry “VermontVermonter”, but I beg to differ immensely with how you find my postings which I know beyond doubt are decidedly staunch.
I will never capitulate on the stances which I have made exceptionally clear over the past couple of years on VDC, the past two decades in guest editorials & letters to the editor within the pages of the Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer, Berkshire Eagle, VT Digger & The Berkshire Eagle. And my voice on my local Planning Commission is preserved for posterity in the minutes of seven years’ worth of minutes for anyone to access in the years to come.
Nothing deters or dissuades my inclination to voice my opinions no matter how other posters impotently attempt to shut it down.
Of course, one must possess that aforementioned courage & tenacity in order to participate in speaking up for that which you believe in without being able to utilize one’s given name for fear of repercussions, I might imagine?
I am not and never have been.
1.) impacts their family & all alternate loved ones
Drug war increases this impact – Proven fact
2.) impacts all of society fiscally
Welfare/Drug war easily verified increases this impact over 100,000% easily, and even more if you include the extranalities. Easily provable. Do some basic research.
3.) endangers the well-being & lives of innocents who contact them
huh? Just compare before drug war, vs after drug war. Do a little basic research. I could write 1000 pages of increase of endangerment to innocents caused by the drug war
4.) has NOT worked at all within the vast majority of countries who have attempted it & in fact increases addiction/trafficking
Incorrect. Do more research, and ask the right questions, such as harm. You are suggesting people going to the doctors to get meth for their 5 year old to pay attention in school would be vastly different than someone going to the doctor to get meth for their meth addiction? Learn more, about specifically how they were legalized. Do you know the difference between legalize and decriminalize yet? I don’t think you understand anything about drugs or the law.
5.) enables crime
Again, you are being purposefully ignorant? It’s well proven the drug war creates an unfathomable amount of crime. This is an absolute fact! Go do some very basic research for 5 minutes even.
6.) creates and/or exacerbates mental health illnesses
The majority of people are on drugs from the doctors. Yes drugs can cause health effects, but your drug war makes it much worse. Along with the government enablement of this lifestyle at the expense of taxpayers.
7.) has not worked in the US states that have attempted your philosophy – each which are themselves in violation of Federal Law to begin with – as is “retail Marijuana”.
Prohibition in the US has never worked. It’s a new thing and it hasn’t worked. My philosophy was never attempted in my lifetime. Learn the difference between decriminalize and legalize. They are different words with different meanings and outcomes. But prior to prohibition – the United States didn’t have these types of problems.
8.) The REALITY that your democrat POTUS and his far left, radical administration’s policies that DEFY Federal Law by opening sovereign borders to millions of unknown/unvetted gang & cartel members, criminals, & indigents who transport & disperse these destructive & deadly substances throughout this nation.
You love the cartel. Your drug war created their existence. Your drug war gave them the entire market. They work with your lovely government and collaborate the distribution. This is both the democrats and republicans doing this with money they stole from you. Congratulations you should be proud. Without your drug war, these cartels wouldn’t exist! Thank you for your wonderful contribution and support for the drug cartels. Keep up the good work, lets help them grow.
I very unfortunately crafted a detailed and much longer reply to your latest incoherent tirade – carefully answering to each & every point as best as I could despite the rather rambling and often idiotic (as in your “statistic” of something being increased 100,00 percent(??) and hit the post icon and as happens oft on websites, my keen reply appears lost in cyberspace unless Mr. Page can resurrect in the morning and post it – which I will request for your benefit.
But unless and until you can reference actual research as I did in my earlier posts – being that of Harvard & PBS in citing actual, factual data, your “argument” that trained & educated licensed physicians are akin to drug dealing, inner city street corner gangsters is utterly ridiculous and nonsensical.
As a youngster, you have much to learn about medicine, the criteria for becoming a physician, and of illness & injuries that are only mended & treated via the advances in medicine & pharmaceuticals. Your parents alone must be particularly young & healthy as your lack of knowledge is, quite frankly, unbelievable.
BTW, I HARDLY “side with the government” particularly Vermont government, as the majority of my former posts attest to.
But I do certainly DEFER to professionals who hold the credentials, the education, the aforementioned licensure, and the years of academic study & field work – compared to the high school drop-out dope peddler skulking about on the streetcorners.
Moreso than likely you claim to, I protest the fact that Vermont has made Marijuana “legal” – in violation of Federal Law & in complete disregard to the letters from the American Academy of Pediatrics, VT Chapter which was signed by dozens of M.D.’s and directed to the VT Legislators and which detailed the very real & present dangers that potent & hallucinogenic drug poses to children, adolescents, and to all young adults particularly under the age of 26.
Pharmaceuticals provide benefits and can possibly induce side-effects. Unregulated drugs dispersed by gangasta’s from Springfield & ‘da Bronx provide NO medicinal efficacy but do end lives by the tens of thousands annually.
They are not the same.
Yea, you are hysterical. Don’t believe the “authority” so much. It’s a big racket. I feel sorry for people that eat this stuff up. Maybe go take a zanax or something that the leftist college authority tells you is okay safe drugs (don’t read the side effects insert). Marijuana is entirely safe for almost everyone. Keeping it illegal is much more dangerous for sure. I know multiple people that are alive today because high concentrated cannabis oils. People like you want them dead or in jail. That’s not nice.
Kid, your responses are becoming more & more unsound and rather deranged & perhaps it is long past your bedtime. If you knew anything about Marijuana, you would know all about the dangers & permanent side-effects that hallucinatory & addictive drug affords as described by M.D.’s in Vermont who have testified about the hazards the use of the drug presents particularly to youngsters, likely much like yourself, under the age of 26. You can quickly access them right on the internet, but you dare not to as your propensity to blather on about the imagined dangers of long tested, approved, & prescribed drugs and ludicrously lecture on how physicians, their pharmaceutical remedies, and related surgeons & other medical professionals have no standing in society: Your youthful ignorance proceeds both you and your friend, “Chris.”
I realize that my routine practice of free speech and my detailed conservative values disturb you both immensely, but at this point, some of the posts are so truly deluded, I cannot even decipher the nature of what you are desperately attempting to convey.
All I can infer is that you & “Chris” are both incredible angry, with “Chris” again using foul language and outbursts as if a child suffering a temper tantrum & not knowing how to more effectively expel their emotions.
If my push back against your Communist friend Brian up in Montpelier or my courage in defending Mr. Banyai has caused you this degree of distress, all I can suggest is that you both take a break from VDC as they will never be an abatement on my end in my willingness & my propensity to express my opinion & my values and to plod onward without anyone in any position ever being able to effectively silence me.
And this entire thread is MORE than laughable at best & delusional on your parts at worst, as again I bring up the reality that this article has and had NOTHING whatsoever to do with illegal drugs or the pharmaceutical industry at all. The conversion of the topics away from the published article was begun by two boys who cannot accept, I can only imagine, that a Vt WOMAN took on a Communist lawmaker in Montpelier, or that Trump is ahead in the polls in almost every swing state, or that no matter how “Chris” whines and kicks & screams like the aforementioned child, he is never successful at silencing me. Ever.
As I made mention last time, “Chris”, you’re not particularly good at this and I trust “debate” is not your forte at the school where you are employed. Or perhaps instead attend.
Geritol.