Kevin Sabet has another OpEd as part of the New York Times Room for Debate: How to Treat the Epidemic
Second, our governments must lead a more coordinated and vigorous attack on this problem.
Our governments’ coordinated and vigorous attack is what got us into this mess.
Finally, industry has a part to play in this too. The formulation of drugs that cannot be abused (yes, “abuse-deterrent†drugs are possible)
Whoa. That sound creepily like adding methyl alcohol to alcohol in prohibition to poison people who used it recreationally, or like adding acetaminophen to pain pills to destroy people’s livers. Yeah, let’s save people by killing them.
It’s not like the others in the Room for Debate group are much better (see links on the left of Sabet’s article). Linda Simoni-Wastila advocates a national monitoring program even without any evidence of effectiveness. Andrew Kolodny thinks patients in pain should be given less pain medication and just suffer through it. Jonathan Caulkins says absolutely nothing in four paragraphs.
I know that there are a lot of people out there who want to treat prescription drug abuse as a completely separate issue from illicit drug abuse – after all, prescription drugs (within certain tightly controlled parameters only) are legal. But it’s all interrelated. The war on drugs has affected all drug abuse, because the entire pharmacology has been put out of whack. There will always be some people who will look to drugs as a way of dealing with life. What we need to be doing is coming up with better and safer options for those people (combined with education and treatment, of course) rather than trying to ratchet up enforcement in a zero-tolerance system.
The failed system we have of constantly increasing enforcement has only driven people to more dangerous activity rather than reducing harm, while also indiscriminately sweeping in all the responsible drug users who don’t need assistance. A responsible system of regulated legalization of drugs, with different regulations for different drug harms, would leave the responsible users alone, reduce the harm to all, and free up the system to focus on helping abusers before they die.
Not a single one of the debaters in the New York Times Room for Debate is willing to address a system that will really change things for the better.
Re “Jonathan Caulkins says absolutely nothing in four paragraphs”: well, he never does; it just usually takes (much) longer.
Encouraging physicians to give confidential medical records to the police, absent any indications of abuse or criminal intent….
There are goddamned good reasons we (used to) keep that information confidential. And physicians are forbidden in this state to share information on patients WITH OTHER PHYSICIANS, even when they are treating the SAME patient!! The days of the single most beneficial tool in treating a patient, thier complete medical histories, are over. But still, it’s okay to give all this information to the cops…just not another caregiver.
Well, of course! The cops are agents of the State, and the State, by definition, is the will of the people and can do no wrong.
Our right and just police officers would never, EVER misuse that information by, for instance, conducting a drug raid on a patient whose doctor informed on him, or by trying to take away a patient’s children.
Noble police officers are employed by the government to help and protect everyone, even if a little tough love has to be employed from time to time, by kicking your door in at 3:00 in morning, shooting your dog, and hauling you off to jail, where you will spend all your wealth they somehow forgot to confiscate trying to shave a few years off your lengthy prison sentence.
Most doctor’s offices now have received notice that courtesy of Section 215 of the (choke, cough, puke) PATRIOT Act that a citizen’s medical records can be seized on demand by Fed agents.
Admitting to a physician of an addiction to an illicit substance may be used by the government against you.
Doctor/patient confidentiality is dead in these United States. As is the 5th Amendment.
I am hearing the ghostly laughter of the Commies we supposedly fought the Cold War from becoming like. Because this is the 21st century’s version of (said sneeringly) “Vasha boomahgah, tovarishch!“ (“Your papers, comrade!“)
Hey, they’re just medical records! If you don’t have anything to hide…
I wonder which other rights we thought we had, but really don’t?
Well, they can arrest (or kidnap) you without charge anywhere in the world, including America and regardless of whether you are an American citizen or not. They do not need to let you see a judge, they can hold you as long as they want, and they don’t have to tell anyone where they’re holding you, or what they are doing with you.
Congress just passed that law, and our liberal president just signed it. Presumably, our spineless supreme court will decide it is constitutional, a decision which will be SO unconstitutional it will make their institution plainly illegitimate, too.
But that won’t matter, since in truth might makes right and nobody will do anything about it. The villains have won, they occupy the highest seats of power and command in the land, and they are bent on conquering the world, too. Not entirely by military force–persuasion, law, and agreement are used first–but the intent is to impose the will of the ruling class and American law on the rest of the world, and to see there is nowhere in the world their writ does not extend.
So, no, you have no rights now. At the moment, though, the masquerade continues, and OF COURSE the president will only use these new powers on genuine terrorists, so you still have some rights in practice. But the presidents who follow will pick up this handy tool and use it on whoever displeases the establishment next. And away we’ll go.
matthew: all of them. if we can be punished over the acts we choose to direct solely upon ourselves, then we don’t really have any rights at all.
it would seem to be the most self-evident right that you can choose to commit acts upon yourself free of punishment by disapproving others, yet here we are.
Remember to a prohibitionist gravy train grifter or drug cartel gangster thug the war on drugs is a great success.
I recently read an excellent article on “opiophobia” and the associated problems e.g. the conscription of doctors into the drug war.
Highly recommend it: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18768306
It’s staggering really that people like Sabet, who has presided over arguably the most costly policy failure in the history of man, is still considered an authoratitive voice and that people continue to listen!
It’s very simple, really.
Think of this: government drug policy is the absolute nadir of ‘sexiness’ when it comes to political opportunism and ladder-climbing.
It’s a sinkhole, career-wise. The only reason why it exists at all is because the vast majority of Americans are oblivious to the fact that a huge bureaucracy has grown up almost completely silently WRT to drug prohibition these past 30 years, and that that bureaucracy has been allowed to grow unfettered because that lack of ‘sexiness’ kept it in the shadows – and conveniently out of public scrutiny – for decades.
Why do you think that Lyin’ Leonhart is still the DEA head? Nobody who really wanted to advance up the political ladder would touch it, as it’s poison to their careers.
And why do you think she took on the job? She’ll knows she’ll never be plugged into the real Elite power structure, as that is based on money laundering from illicit drug proceeds, which kept the big banks afloat when they sunk the rest of us. She doesn’t even enjoy the position of being a tool or a puppet; she’s a figurehead meant to seem like something is being done about illicit drugs for the sake of placating the rubes, that’s all. It’s all such a farce.
But she happily accepted the position, as she knew she could not expect to get anything better; she’ll always be a handmaiden of the Big Money Boyz, but never get a whiff of the real power they have, so she settled. “Always a (political) bridesmaid, never a bride.”
Sabet, IMHO, is pretty much the same way. He found an ultra-specialized niche for his (useless) degree to be applied to, and unfortunately, because organizations like ONDCP have very, very low political silhouettes due to that lack of ‘sexiness’, and thus are allowed to continue when cost/benefit analysis would scream for its’ immediate disbanding, people like him are able to influence national policy negatively while largely remaining invisible to the electorate.
And, of course, we cannot discount the value of being, in effect, the government apologist for the Prison Industrial Complex. Like it’s bastard big brother the MIC, you can make lots and lots of lucrative contacts that come in handy when it’s time to leave(gag) ‘public service’. As has just about every head of ONDCP. As has Sabet.
But…the day is coming, brothers and sisters. The day of the Long Knives. The day of fiscal butchery. As the public demands for repairing the social safety net grow louder and less patient, enterprising, opportunistic pols have already made their private lists for budgetary re-allocations. The OMB reports of the past 20 years have shown repeatedly the ONDCP is chronically ineffective at affecting drug use in this country…and their attempts at propagandizing the American people were amongst their worst embarrassing failures. The only reason why they had not been disbanded was that the DrugWarriors have been able, in fat times, to use kids as human shields to deflect criticism.
But with things getting ever worse, economically, and parents having to increasingly worry about feeding and housing little Johnny and Suzy Whitebread, they won’t want to hear some self-serving bureaucrat make crocodile tears about their fear of Johnny and Suzy getting their patty paws on weed. They will want the money said bureaucrat has been getting…and in these times, it won’t be a good idea for some pol to try to make the same noises as those bureaucrats. The wind is not only shifting but picking up in force. The hurricane cometh, and ONDCP will be shown for the house of cards it has always been.
I am on the email list for any budget hearings for the DOJ and expect a lot more grueling budgeting process this year,,recent predictions by Justice Dept analyst report cuts in all “treatment/demand” programs in order to sustain mmj/illicit drug interdiction and enforcement.
In other words,,the nice guy balanced approach is being chucked in the trash(no one built the req’d rehab centers,Kevin may have to go back to work in the office) and the gloves are coming off towards enforcement.
Something tells me it is going to be a tough sell,,with prisons closing and all.
The gloves may come off…but they won’t be able to buy anymore afterward. Or anything else, for that matter.
A few articles back, I gave a link to a presentation by a financial group that warned that when America’s foreign creditors decide to pull the plug, the result will be a nation-wide catastrophe. This Sword of Damoclese is hanging over the heads of all but the 1% that hung it there.
But if they honestly think that they’ll succeed in the long run, then, given the public’s outrage at the police response to Occupy movement is any gauge, trying for martial law in this country on the heel of that kind of collapse will prove to be the final straw. Revolutions are not started by the poor and the downtrodden but the former Middle Class that’s been relegated to that status. So far, they’ve just been walking around in ‘shell shock’ at the reversal of their fortunes; when the inevitable anger sets in, it will be incandescent.
People are starting to realize that they must really, truly take charge of their own lives, and band together for mutual support and survival (Occupy, again)…and not expect any help from the very forces that seek to further oppress them. Which is, of course, exactly what Uncle does NOT want: a politically and socially atomized society at its’ mercy is what it prefers.
But in the end it won’t get it. The very forces the Elite have unleashed are at work in this society to coalesce that atomization into a society that’s a lot harder…and meaner. Survival issues tend to focus people much better than any abstract concept ever can. Said newly-rising society will have zero patience with doing things the old way, as it knows that the old way was what led to the downfall.
And that means rejecting formerly unquestioned institutions and programs…like drug prohibition. Particularly if, as I fear may happen, things get so bad that people are forced back into what I call ‘suburban herbalism’…in which indoor cultivation of cannabis was only the vanguard. Under such conditions, people will have to grow their own medicines. Some Gub’mint goon seeking to take from them what may be their only way of treating a medical condition due to inability to get to a hospital – if any are left – will probably learn the error of his ways punctuated by a bright orange muzzle flash.
A good video on Opiophobia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KREufd4t0vo
Seriously? Who could be afraid of that?
A rehab worker recommending spending more money,,on more rehab centers,,a pharmacist recommends implementing programs that will drive medicine prices up,,a psychiatrist telling medical doctors how opium based medicines are not the answer,,no wonder the war on drugs has failed.
“The formulation of drugs that cannot be abused”?
How about a drug with analgesic and anxiolytic properties that’s not addictive and is also incapable of causing a fatal overdose? It’d be pretty great if something like that existed, wouldn’t it?
I know you’re talking about cannabis, but this also reminded me of Thomas Szasz’s point that such a quest is probably chimerical, like trying to separate the two halves of a coin.
Comments are now showing up at the article,,the feeding frenzy has commenced.
Get thee to the comments section! There’s only seven posted so far. This is red meat -tear it to shreds!
“Not a single one of the debaters in the New York Times Room for Debate is willing to address a system that will really change things for the better.”
Hmm. When only one side of the issue is discussed by people who all agreed on the particulars of the issue before they entered the room, can we really call that a “debate”?
It seems that is America’s overwhelming problem – the side with all the power holds meetings to self-congratulate – and loudly calls it an honest discussion. Then they continue to do what they want, self-assured that they have “debated” their way to some kind of mandate. Those who disagree are criminalized.
Like a police state.
The New York Times is a fully dues paid and invested part of the Establishment. Don’t expect anything but support for the standard solutions to problems.
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Recently Purdue Pharmaceuticals got a newly patented formulary of their Oxycontin® brand oxycodone approved. It’s a “time release” pill that Purdue is advertising as not able to be abused. I understand a quick Google search of the ‘net will locate tutorials of how to defeat this so called “abuse proof” method.
After all the oxycodone that Purdue has produced for non-medicinal use it amazes me that anyone puts any stock in the company’s claims of their new formulary being “abuse proof.” Particularly when we consider that this new, patented “abuse proof” version of Oxycontin® was so conveniently invented just as the old version’s patent was due to expire. Would anyone be shocked to find that the tutorials that show how to defeat their new formulary were written and posted by agents of Purdue, and with the company’s “unofficial”? I’d be shocked to find that they came from anywhere else. If you’re interested in the method, it involves a freezer and a microwave according to this webpage.
Just one more example of how prohibition causes manufacturers to make drugs more dangerous. Drug warriors like Sabet can then wave the death figures around and say “look, told you so…”
Formulated with naloxone.
Well digging holes then filling them in is the classic solution of government, so why not?
A comment from JDKJJKNY nails Sabet’s dishonest use of statistics:
“In addition, you imply that opiod drug deaths outnumber traffic deaths when the truth is that the overall number of 50K is the number that outnumbers traffic fatalities. These fatalities include deaths caused by OTC drugs such as NSAIDS and prescription drugs such as statin based drugs to reduce cholesterol, both of which are major causes of liver failure. I doubt either of these drugs would be included in your call to the industry to produce abuse deterrent drugs.”
Presumably the figure of 50K includes accidental poisonings caused by any number of substances other than opioid drugs, as well as suicide poisonings and even murders? Sabet really is an expert at lying with statistics.
here are the numbers and types of drugs specified in “drug induced deaths” for 1999 through 2007:
http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/death/icd10-drug-induced-drug-tallies.htm
Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/01/deadly-medicine-201101?currentPage=all
“An estimated 770,000 people are injured or die each year in hospitals from adverse drug events (ADEs) defined as an injury resulting from medical intervention related to a drug. Not all, but many, IF NOT MOST, of these adverse drug events are preventable.”
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Patient_Safety_and_Medication_Errors.asp
* The number of deaths from drug poisonings in the U.S. has increased sixfold since 1980.
* In 2008, more than 41,000 people in the U.S. died from intentional and accidental poisonings – Nine out of 10 were due to drugs. These deaths exceeded the number of deaths from automobile accidents making poisoning the leading cause of injury death. (CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics 1980 to 2008)
Fully 40% of these deaths in 2008 involved the use of prescription opioid pain relievers such as codeine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, and oxycodone, (was 25% in 1999) – In 2008, Cocaine was involved in about 5,100 deaths and heroin was involved in about 3,000 deaths.
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20111220/deaths-drug-poisoning-in-us-jump-sixfold
* PRESCRIPTION PAINKILLERS: drugs like oxycodone and hydrocodone, the main ingredients in Oxycontin and Vicodin, landed 305,885 Americans in emergency rooms in 2008 — more than double the 144,644 visits in 2004, (2010 study by Samsha and the CDC)
Overdose deaths involving these opioid pain relievers (oxycodone and hydrocodone; and synthetic narcotics such as fentanyl and propoxyphene) now exceed deaths from heroin and cocaine combined (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Prescription drug overdoses have been increasing in the United States over the last decade, and by 2008 had reached 36,450 deaths – almost as many as from motor vehicle crashes (39,973).
http://www.acep.org/MobileArticle.aspx?id=82888&coll_id=720&parentid=740
* VIOXX: On January 24, 2005, the medical journal The Lancet published on its website a report on Vioxx risks that was previously blocked by the FDA. The study found that Vioxx may have caused as many as 140,000 cases of heart disease in the United States and as many as 56,000 deaths during the five years that it was on the market. The newly published study of 1.4 million patients shows that that low doses of Vioxx increased the risk of heart disease by about 50%, and higher doses increased it by 358%.
http://www.vioxxnews.com/
* ACETAMINOPHEN: ( found in more than 300 products with sales in the billions of dollars annually) overdoses are the leading cause of acute liver failure (ALF) in the United States, Great Britain and most of Europe. Acetaminophen toxicity accounts for approximately 50% of all cases of ALF in the United States and carries a 30% mortality. -More than 100,000 calls to Poison Control Centers, 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths are attributed to acetaminophen in the United States annually.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hep.21926/pdf
* ANTIDEPRESSANTS: The respected journal, PLoS ONE, published a study in June 2010, showing that men who are depressed and take trycyclic, SSRI, or any other antidepressants die at a significantly greater rate than those who don’t. – Performed in Australia, the study followed 5,276 men aged 68-88.
“The results of this study indicate that the 6-year adjusted mortality hazard is twice as high for men with depression compared with non-depressed men and that the use of antidepressants is associated with an independent rise in mortality of 30%. .. We found that antidepressant treatment increases the mortality hazard of men by 30%, and this association is independent of the presence of clinically significant depression. .. It is also important to consider that the use of antidepressants has been associated with numerous potentially harmful effects, some of which may increase morbidity and mortality. For example, antidepressant treatment has been linked to increased risk of injurious and non-injurious falls in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, and there is some evidence that the use of common antidepressants increases the risk bleeding in various body systems, including the central nervous system, as well as the risk of incident diabetes. In addition, recently published findings from the Nurses’ Health Study showed an increase in the number of sudden cardiac deaths associated with the use of antidepressants, a result that is consistent with our observation of an excess of cardiovascular deaths amongst men using antidepressants.”
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011266
Postmenopausal Women on antidepressants are 45% more likely than those not on such medication to have a stroke, and 32% more likely to die of any cause. – There is an increased likelihood of Hemorrhagic strokes (bleeding in the brain) which is possibly the result of the anti-clotting effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) which are most frequently prescribed for depression. The authors of the study noted that since post-menopausal women make up the largest segment of patients in the United States on antidepressants, the resulting increases in strokes and deaths across the country could be significant.
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/169/22/2128?home
A study published in 2009 found that SSRIs interfered with the breast cancer medication tamoxifen, with tumors more than twice as likely to return after two years in women taking antidepressants compared with those taking tamoxifen alone.
Children whose mothers take Zoloft, Prozac, or similar antidepressants during pregnancy are twice as likely as other children to have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/04/antidepressant.pregnancy.autism.risk/index.html
It’s fairly surprising to see this come out of Nanaimo.
Huh, comments are really slow to show up there…mine must be in que, but don’t these sorts of pieces in the Times usually have two hundred responses by this time? there were still only seven on my last visit…
You guys shouldn’t be so hard on poor little Kevie, it’s not his fault he was born morally retarded…Oh, he wasn’t born that way, THAT’s what he Piled higher and Deeper! In that case, carry on your good work.
Curmedgeon, I’ve followed the career of this textbook example of intellectual prostitution since I first saw him being figuratively short-stroked in a Congressional hearing back in the early 1990’s, and had his range immediately.
He’s a sort of hive drone whose only value is to service the hive royalty…as, unlike the workers, he produces nothing of any value but his ‘labor’…which is wholly intangible. In the old days of monarchies he would have been called a ‘courtier’, a hanger-on with no intrinsic value, seeking to advance his position via flattery. In this case, by writing speeches for an organization officially empowered to lie to the public as its’ mandate.
“Lie down with dogs; get up with fleas.” And if the bureaucratic ‘dog’ is rabid and the ‘fleas’ it’s infested with carry The Plague? Then you’re no better than said rabid dogs, regardless of fancy college degree and having “Doctor” precede your name.
I’ve come up with a term to describe his modus operandi:
Sabetage: a derivation of Lysenkoism, in which established studies that disprove widely held misconceptions supporting entrenched bureaucratic and commercial enterprises are marginalized for personal profit. The process often requires the attempt to use false equivalencies and data cherry-picking to justify government policy based upon misinformation and falsehoods. (See: ONDCP).
Paul McCartney announced that he’s quit cannabis…again. You’d think by now he’d at least have learned to not announce it.
but then he never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. mind you it beats me to see governments in britain and the us falling all over “sir” paul when joe public with the same convictions would have nothing but obstacles put in his path.
Francis, was the following rather brilliant observation yours?
Let me see if I can get this straight. Big Pharma is the business of pushing these pills and profits when people get addicted, same with doctors because they are paid by Big Pharma. Mr. Sabet’s solution to to this rather obvious and blatant conflict of interest is to increase prosecutions, create more government programs and of course keep Big Pharma in control of the drugs. The result is that law enforcement profits from all of the oversight, prisons and corrections companies (and the drug testing facilities that Kevin works for) profit from putting abusers and doctors into the system, while big Pharma still profits and the original conflict of interest that brought on this mess is conveniently never solved.
This means that Kevin and all of his friends get to parasitically profit from his solution at the expense of the lives, civil liberties and tax payer dollars of everyone else. Makes perfect sense to me.
No, I can’t take credit for that one, but thanks for thinking of me!
lol that was me. i’m flattered:)
OT, but, well… you know…
Is Mexico’s drug war strategy working?
the comments are… interesting…
Mine still hasn’t posted. This tablet has to be at fault, it sometimes takes four or five tries to post something to facebook. (and it won’t support chat, so I’ve been missing my chats with Malcolm, it really sucks)
There were no comments when I submitted mine and it still has not been published. I don’t think its your machine. They’re just not approving them – good God just look at the NYT times editors picks: “my son could’ve become a heroin addict if he followed his doctors advice!” and “medical records should be shared with everyone!”
I think clay and da captain should get married. Both preach over and over that money will run out…it wont cause too much money is involved. Get a different arguement, please. Tired of reading the same crap comments on various sites about running out of money when in reality thats how the gov gets alot of money. Must be idiots or work for the gov.
The basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. The Greeks are is the process of learning this lesson; a government that acts in the sole interest of entrenched bureaucracy eventually collides with the reality that there’s nothing left.
speaking of “crap comments” yours is a tad short of eloquent.
I too get tired of reading “crap comments.”
Especially like yours. Actually since it has no substance I misspeak. Odious, gaseous… plus I could prolly use child-like, ign’ant… there must be more adjectives that fit.
I do find it a tad amusing, in that you prance grandly yet ya got no rhythm, no funk to your tune… like PeeWee Herman imitating Michael Jackson.
… and not to be totally rude, if there is something substantive you’d like to share, we appreciate that sort of thing much more than the doggy-leg-lift you offered up.
Jack, try it on somewhere else!
Stating a fact repeatedly usually has the result of causing even the most recalcitrant and/or ignorant of people to consider that they may have to adjust their world-view to accommodate a reality they don’t want to believe.
Economics is only a ‘boring science’ during fat times; when the financial fox gnaws, and bites deep, people sit up and take notice. As they are now. They can’t help it; every time they go to the grocery store or gas pump, they are reminded. But they don’t know how much of that daily pain is being caused to them deliberately. Intentionally. As the lawyers say, ‘with malice aforethought’.
I have been warning about the dire consequences of our economic policies on online fora since 1998…and have been vindicated repeatedly by what has finally happened in the past 4 years, as the government has, indeed, done exactly as I predicted it would, by engaging in inflation which, right now, is one step short of the hyperinflation that ruined Weimar Republic Germany…and ushered in the Nazis.
The plans for martial law that an economic collapse would trigger have been in existence since at least 1961, and have, indeed, been expanded upon (PATRIOT Act, MCA, NDAA, etc.) and are just waiting, like trap-door spiders, to leap out and fasten their fangs on the last of our shredded liberties. Liberties shredded mainly because of the DrugWar.
That will happen the moment the stock market takes its’ final dive after our foreign creditors finally pull the plug. At which point Uncle Sam will, while ‘taking measures’ to ensure ‘continuity of government’ (that will probably include gunning down protestors in the streets) will probably also reveal a (much less valuable) currency to replace the trashed dollar…and destroy whatever savings you may have.
At which point, all bets are off. But one thing is certain: we will wind up with a government, and a society, that will be basically unrecognizable from what we presently know. And the DrugWar will have played an enormous, if hidden, role in creating this situation.
Still find this as being so ‘ho-hum’?
Speaking of Mexico’s drug war strategy, here’s an awesome analysis from Stratfor talking about that 15 ton meth bust in Mexico. The title, “Meth in Mexico: A Turning Point in the Drug War?” sounds as though Stratfor is going to say Mexico is going to smash the cartels, but that’s not quite where they’re coming from:
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/meth-mexico-turning-point-drug-war
Trust me, the article is well worth the read. Stratfor is currently giving away their content for free, and they follow the Mexican drug war very closely. Have a look!
Interesting, but it really doesn’t say much. Seems to say that meth wins the drug war, and creates a supercartel. Yippee. It also says the violence gets worse before, and the organization left standingwill be even tougher totry to defeat. There’s a prognosis only a drug warrior could love.
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Are they still using the canard if “instant” “life long” “addiction” in the methamphetamine division over at the Bureau of Hysterical Rhetoric? If so have they ever explained how it happens that there are approaching 4 million Americans that have given it a try but less than 1/2 a million “past 30 days” users?
Since the 1970’s I have seen how drug prohibition legislation has had exactly the opposite effect than intended. Police chiefs and politicians speaking out against drug laws have been silenced.
Millions have died, not as a result of consuming drugs, but as a result of the laws prohibiting consumption, and the war on drugs itself.
Meanwhile ‘approved’ drugs manufactured by big pharma are freely available without the dangers of addiction and side effects being publicised.
My own take on this subject – being constantly updated with links to press articles and blogs – ‘The Myth Peddlars- how the war against drugs has failed’ can be viewed here:
http://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/the-myth-peddlars-how-the-war-on-drugs-has-failed/
Great page! – I’ve left you a comment.
I have been warning about the dire consequences of our economic policies on online fora since 1998…and have been vindicated repeatedly by what has finally happened in the past 4 years, as the government has, indeed, done exactly as I predicted it would, by engaging in inflation which, right now, is one step short of the hyperinflation that ruined Weimar Republic Germany…and ushered in the Nazis.
Hmmm…since 1998? Is that a joke? Man, u got balls for spouting such bs while at the same time claiming that u have been “vindicated”. Great stuff. Shit, if i had such insight, well…nevermind…
At which point, all bets are off. But one thing is certain: we will wind up with a government, and a society, that will be basically unrecognizable from what we presently know. And the DrugWar will have played an enormous, if hidden, role in creating this situation.
Still find this as being so ‘ho-hum’?
On the contrary, but ‘ho-hum’ is not what freedom says. Freedom says: we already have a government, einstein; and a society, though brittle–last time i checked. We all know the drug war is the catalyst for control and Money. U said nothing…with the veil of overtly-complex word structure, while neat in appearance, gives nothing but words with little substance. I often wonder
Like others, that perhaps your’re a bit disingenuous?