I like this. I just read a blurb about how scientist who have used psychedelic drugs and study said drugs are viewed with less credibility regardless of the quality of work they've done. Not only do confirmation bias', preconception, and personal bias's affect everyday happenings and people, they affect the data and research we use to learn more. In todays society it feels like personal affirmation is more important that objective reality and truth, which is a concerning trend

A specific example of this is a female patient, Ill call C. C's mother was methamphetamine abuser, leading up to and even during C's birth. Immediately following C's birth, as in before they left the hospital, her mother was arrested for felony possession. When I arrived at the center, C was 15 and reading at a 6th grade level, and doing math at a 5th grade level. This was not the consequence of a malformed brain, or a lack of general education. She just wasn't emotionally capable of handling the stress of school and condemned herself to failure in a self fulfilling prophesy. She explicitly stated that she was going to end up like her mom so why even bother.

This whole paragraph just lends more credence to the belief that the war on drugs was created specifically to disadvantage and manipulate the non white citizens of the nation. It's snowballing effect. With more parents in jail, children are put on the path of failure, legally, emotionally, and prospect wise. This leads to greater rates of incarceration and thus the issue exponentially increases. A question that I have is, what would the world look like, and more specifically would the world that which minorities exist in look like. How many more POC professionals would there be, would perception change. How would much more would we have progressed, had millions of children been forced into such circumstance and set up to fail. How many great minds, beautiful lovers, and revolutionary creatives were lost due to targeted attacks on minority communities.

From personal experience I can speak to this. Many of the people in treatment, including myself have experienced one or another of the traumas listed, and all suffered greatly because of it. I saw numerous examples of the consequences of either incarceration of a parent or trauma in myself and the other patients. An interesting note is that a lot of the STD/STI can be linked to sexually inappropriate behaviors, which are often used because they crave approval and love.

These are both important points. I know many kids that have been expelled or faced disciplinary action at the hands of a school that had no idea the complication the child faced at home. For many of these kids school is an escape from home, and events like this can really negatively affect one perception of justice, authority, and education.

Alicia mentioned that she suspects her fathers absence was beneficial for her brothers healthy development

In 1971, President Nixon began the war on drugs. This is a direct correlation between incarceration spikes. The war on drugs also disproportionately affected POC. It's not hard to imagine that the effects on the children were known and disregarded, or even encouraged the war on drugs.