Foundations and Waggener Have Guts to Confront Prison Industrial Complex

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

09/30/2014 -ATIN – Finally someone in the treatment industry has had the courage to confront the powerful grouping of Drug War interests known as the “Prison Industrial Complex,” a take-off phrase on the growing group of industrialists, standing military and federally paid scientific community members dubbed the Military Industrial Complex that a fearful President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell speech back in the 1950s. At this year’s Palm Beach Moment’s of Change conference, the conference’s owner, Foundations Recovery Network, and it’s CEO Rob Waggener, have had the guts to make the subject of the 40^th conference’s keynote address the famous “Portugal Experiment,” where back in 2001 officials in that country, fed up with filling their jails with addicts, decriminalized all forms of drugs – taking the police out of the equation when it comes to addiction and putting the problem in the healthcare system where it belongs.

Important Keynote Address

By inviting journalist Glen Greenwald to deliver the conference’s keynote address on the Portugal Experiment, addressing the many hundreds of influential treatment industry leaders attending the conference on “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies” Waggener and FRN are one of the first major treatment providers to dare mention that profound change may be needed in this nation, change that could shut down expensive prisons and prison guards so that perhaps that money could be shifted to treatment and drug counselors could be paid living wages. And dealing with the absurd and totally unfair reality that its perfectly legal to sit at a bar and slug back Martinis – the hard liquor contained in the drinks are POWERFUL drugs – but you can get arrested with felony charges for taking a few snorts of coke or opiates, drugs that some medical experts will tell you are FAR less dangerous than the legal drug alcohol, which kills more people by a factor of 20 than all illegal drugs combined.

READ OUR EDITORIAL “A Nation of Prisoner Addicts”

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