This Time article really gets it almost entirely right. Nice to see in a mainstream media piece.
6 Ways to Fight America’s Heroin Epidemic
Law enforcement has responded by cracking down on drug traffickers to cut off supplies of heroin and synthetics. But beyond the typical law-and-order response, some areas are taking unique approaches to battle drug addiction. Here’s a look at what cities are trying across the U.S. and beyond:
And the six things listed are:
- Safe-injection sites
- Prescribe heroin
- Medication-assisted treatment
- Naloxone for all
- Marijuana as medicine
- Don’t arrest addicts, treat them
I also liked the fact that the article referred to “heroin-related overdoses” rather than “heroin overdoses.”
I really have to believe we have made a dent. When this sort of thing emerges in TIME magazine of all places, all I can do is fish-mouth. This is what we’ve been sowing all over the WWW now for years. And the discussion is actually changing. Keep it up, couchmates.
Walls are falling.
And a shout out to the other people banging at that wall. DPA et al. Progress is being made. Seattle is fighting for safe injection sites as I type. Hooraay, us!
You can forget all that; Matt’s gone and pissed on the couch.
So Pete, the song remains the same at DrugWarrant it seems. When a solid-gold piece of propaganda containing the prototypical lies of a human rights abuse is described as “gets it almost entirely right†then something is obviously disturbingly amiss. You have known for a long time that there is no such thing as (fatal) “heroin overdose†or “heroin-related overdose†yet you continue to be either obstinately gullible or an outright propagandist yourself. You have known for a long time that the concept of “too much†heroin leading to death is an absolute falsehood. Yet for some reason you just can’t come out and say it. And by not saying it makes you complicit in the “drug warâ€. If you can’t say it, then I will. Any death of a person that has morphine in their bloodstream due to heroin ingestion is either due to a non-drug related cause or airway obstruction (suffocation) usually due to the person losing control of their airway because of sedation caused by an interaction of multiple substances. You put yourself out there as an “expertâ€, but therein lies a responsibility to actually tell the truth. Please start doing it in relation to opioids.
Matt, I thought you’d be happy that I pointed out that they used “heroin-related overdose” instead of “heroin overdose,” but no, you won’t be happy until I use my site to convince the world that there is no danger from any kind of use of heroin – not even irresponsible use. I’m very happy with the ideas being presented in this article, and, if adopted, they would save countless lives, but no, you’re not interested in that. Take your agenda somewhere else, if you’re not happy with what I’m willing to do on the subject.
Yawn…..zzzzzzzzzz
Matt, try some stealth and quit bugging Pete.
That is, change your name and spill your guts. People see Matt? They see conflict with the couch. I admire your persistence but perhaps a change of tactic might be more productive?
Pete, like ALL good teachers knows that good discussion and debate can educate. It’s not his role to be YOUR advocate. Besides, we like Pete because piano players are useful to know whether or not the stage is level.
If Pete’s drooling from both sides? Level. Sorry Pete, perhaps if your read this you can help explain my B-minor fixation. Before quitting a 20-year run of morphine I never played in B-minor. Now after quitting the dope? B-minor is kind of where I live. Why B-minor? Is it an ECS thing?
My coolest musical encounter? Having Tom Waits six-feet away playing pinball while I was playing in a local blues club back in the early 80s.
Nice one. My coolest musical encounter – sitting close enough to touch Oscar Peterson while he was playing at the Blue Note in New York in the mid-1980’s. (I had an extra ticket that night that I sold to Quincy Jones).
Cool story. I’m in awe of the musical genius of Quincy Jones.
I recently visited an old friend I used to work with, he teaches guitar at a local music store. I walked into his office and grabbed a git and started playing. Then I hear laughing, and I’m thinking WTF?
The guitar teacher said “dude, you’re Zen.” He was right, I had completely gone into a trance-like state and that’s where the time-distortion and “in-the-moment” psychoactivity of cannabis comes into play.
I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day.
In 1980 I made it backstage after a Jimmy Buffett concert – we snorted a big rock of pure Peruvian in the men’s room and discussed the recent births of our children.
And in a more obscure encounter, I hung out with Watermellon Slim on the island of St. John, where we smoked a few joints and talked about our LSD experiences.
And in another somewhat ‘rock star’ encounter, I spent a long afternoon with Albert Hofmann in his Swiss home, where he got me drunk on his homemade plum schnapps. That one might have been the best of the three!
Matt, quit pissing your pants all over the couch. Do you have to be reminded again that there is NO such menu item as pure heroin on the streets. It would last about two minutes and then be cut to double the money. Or spiked with Fentanyl. In any case there are NO people dying from pure heroin because there are no bodies doing pure heroin. So your political correctness is lame as it has been since you started trolling. As for the MSM, “heroin-related overdoses†is about as real as they get at this time. Do something useful. Stop whining about what doesn’t exist. You aren’t saving anyone from overdoses by spewing venom over their terminology. Educating people doesn’t mean ridicule and brow beating. Pete could teach you a lot about the drug war. But most of us already know your interest lies in diversions. I’d wager not one of the parents of the dead victims of overdose give a shiny rat’s ass about the proper terms that killed their kids. To them its all heroin. Maybe even Ganja too, that has never taken a life by OD.
“Former Tory justice minister says he was told to stop asking how much drugs prohibition actually costs….
“In a ministerial discussion I was told that it might be singularly unpolitic to pose this question because it might unpick the Government’s entire drugs strategy and any suggestion that the criminalisation in the UK should be challenged would then begin an exercise of unpicking drugs law and sending the wrong message.â€
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/crispin-blunt-drugs-legalisation-difficult-questions-former-justice-poppers-a7343511.html
There is more opioid news in the news. The AAP calls for filling the transitional gap between pediatric and adolescent opioid addictions by involving additional categories of health care workers in medical treatments of young people’s opioid addictions:
Now that the Harrison Narcotics Act is in its 102nd year of prohibiting medical physician assisted treatment for drug addicts, its time has come. It’s fitting the baby doctors be the ones who pull Harrison’s plug.
Eat your heart out Newt Gingrich. This is the model he’s had in mind for America for decades:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/philippines-secret-death-squads-police-officer-teams-behind-killings
H.R.4170 – Drug Importer Death Penalty Act of 1996
https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/house-bill/4170
Although the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has mostly blamed its cronies over at the Food and Drug Administration for its unwillingness to downgrade the Schedule I classification of cannabis, a new report has found that the FDA is somewhat perplexed by the federal rescheduling process and believes the policy should be amended.
~ FDA Letter Reveals New Advice
Sent to the DEA about Marijuana
☛ Survey: Doctors’ Political Views May Affect Patient Care
Politics in the exam room? A new study suggests patient care may vary depending on whether the doctor is a Democrat or a Republican.
☛ No US medical schools have a department of endocannabinoid science or an ECS director. None of them taught the endocannabinoid science as an organized course. Only 13% of the medical schools surveyed mention the endocannabinoid science to our future doctors
☛ Who’s Really Fighting Legal Weed
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1974
☛ Corrupted Science: the DEA and Marijuana
…No US medical schools have a department of ECS science or an ECS director…
OT
I recently wrapped up my medical education courses through The Medical Cannabis Institute (TMCIGlobal.org).
I finished the comprehensive program for physician’s and added 9/10 elective courses for 17.5 AMA continuing medical education credits.
I probably should finish the remaining course but in truth this blog, links, and comments have covered Paul Armentano’s course work titled “Is your patient impaired?” Pete especially has made this a featured issue.
Other than running-the-table on available courses I don’t see the need to take it. I’m undecided at this point.
I did want to say thanks and acknowledge the role you played in my educational pursuits. Guys like you make California a great place for weed.
Like my favorite Republican congress critter from SoCal, Dana Rorhbacher said recently…”Let’s make cannabis GREAT again.”
I used cannabis while studying cannabis and I used cannabis before and during my exams. I function at a HIGH level while high. I don’t think that’s unusual at all. EFF the prohibs and their I.Q.-loss bullshit.
You never know when a link is going to set off a spark. Toke one for me will ya?
Maybe I should have posted No AMA authorized Medical Schools. This just makes me wonder how all of these “physicians” got to be such “experts” without being taught. The “experts” have been growing and studying cannabis 4 decades or more. The “doctors” are little more than pill pushers for fat pharma. I was actually told by a nurse that they would get in deep shit if they recommended hemp oil let alone Ganja. I ask them what part of do no harm is that? I know they are caring intelligent people and most likely depend on the paycheck more than integrity. Its just that when someone calls them an ass they might shrug it off. Now hundreds of sources are calling them an ass. Maybe they should reflect on the summation and stop being asses.
CA Marijuana Legalization Faces Unlikely Foe
http://cannabisnews.com/news/28/thread28928.shtml
a href=”http://www.legalizeca2016.com/new_video_shows_california_can_end_discriminatory_marijuana_enforcement_by_passing_prop_64″>New Video Shows California Can End Discriminatory Marijuana Enforcement by Passing Prop. 64
The evidence is clear. Our state’s marijuana laws aren’t simply wrong… they’re discriminatory.
People of color are arrested and convicted at wildly disproportionate rates… something we hope will end when we pass the Adult Use of Marijuana Act.
To help tell the story, Drug Policy Action and Brave New Films teamed up to make this important short film, which we hope you will watch and share.
i think my local prohibitches are getting worried enough to repeat the same ol’ lies: http://tinyurl.com/hv4u6u5
Like many recent studies examining the effects of marijuana laws, this one compared what happened in medical marijuana states before and after the passage of medical pot provisions, and compared them to trajectories in similar states that did not implement medical marijuana. The data come from the Health and Retirement study, a long-running survey of the health and economic well-being of older American adults.
How medical marijuana could help boomers get the most out of retirement
☛ Senior Americans Overwhelmingly Support Legalizing Pot
~ Teaching Seniors the Benefits of Ganja
~ Seniors Using Ganja For A Good Night’s Sleep
~ Kansas Silver-Haired Legislature endorses medical marijuana
McCool’s Rebels with Just Cause wrote:
How Doughnut Bribes Helped Build Opioid Painkiller Addiction
http://articles.mercola.com/…/…/05/us-opioid-addiction.aspx…
My friend Suzanne Wills emailed this to all of us at
DPFT Drug Policy Forum of Texas
Join the discussion:
http://www.dpft.org/contactdpft.htm
Better link:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/10/05/us-opioid-addiction.aspx
Matt takes my style to a whole different level. Chill man. Pete is one of the good guys.
The U.S. isn’t one of the top 10 most free countries in the world, study says
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article105618381.html
According to the Legatum Prosperity Index’s findings for 2015, the U.S. is the healthiest country in the world. However, when it comes to freedom, an ideal most Americans pride themselves on, the U.S. falls to 15.
So what’s the country with the most personal freedom? Canada, followed by New Zealand, Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland.
The U.S. was ranked highly in all categories except safety and security, where it has dropped to number 33. In fact, in the study’s key findings, it said the U.S. is “an increasingly dangerous place.â€
“According to Amnesty International the country has the same level of political violence as Saudi Arabia.â€
Feel safer now?
Drug Cops Raid an 81-Year Old Woman’s Garden
http://cannabisnews.com/news/28/thread28933.shtml
“This raid, and similar raids in recent weeks, exposes the rank falsity of prohibitionist claims that law enforcement resources aren’t being used on marijuana enforcement,”
The program has also been the subject of controversy and ridicule. In the mid-2000s, DEA data revealed that most of the plants destroyed under the program were “ditchweed,” naturally growing marijuana plants that weren’t being cultivated for any particular use.
Procopio said these operations were done under the auspices of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Cannabis Eradication Program, which gives state authorities money to uproot pot plants. This year, the DEA gave Massachusetts $60,000 for marijuana eradication efforts, according to federal documents obtained and published by journalist Drew Atkins.
Cannabis Eradications 99.28% Ditchweed Schwagg!
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/649
Mon$anto’$ WoD on Ditchweed
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1251
Spraying Ditchweed Could Devastate Game Bird Populations
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/430
State Patrol on prowl for ditchweed harvesters
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/565
Safer now in my warm bed, I slept well knowing that the crew of the helicopter received flight pay and all those state troopers were getting a nice little bonus of overtime pay for playing Rambo…not to mention that the innocent children of Massachusets were shielded from the nastiness of that horrid old crone with the cannabis plant
About says it all. The witch hunters of Massachusetts are still in business. Bet she had a cat too!
What’s your cat’s name?
Just re-fresh the page for result after voting.
http://www.lejdd.fr/Societe/Etes-vous-favorable-a-la-legalisation-du-cannabis-816094