Treating Doctors as Drug Dealers: The DEA's War on Prescription Painkillers

CATO.ORG ^ | JUNE 5, 2005 | Ronald T. Libby

[mugs99]

There's a book, called something like "The good old days weren't so good". It covers some of the gritty details your history books apparently did not

And there is also the "History of Prohibition" that gives the facts that the "good old days" leaves out. Fact: Prohibition caused teen use of alcohol to skyrocket. Teen deaths from alcohol overdose and bad hooch reached epidemic proportions. Prohibition did not save kids, it killed them!

We are in the same situation today.
Has the drug war succeeded in reducing teens access to drugs?
Since 1975, the federal government has been asking high school seniors how easy it is for them to obtain marijuana. In 1975, 87% of youths said it was “very easy” or “fairly easy” to obtain marijuana. That number has risen to 89.6% even after the millions of arrests since 1975.

Has the drug war reduced the supply of drugs and raised their price?
According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the price of heroin has instead dropped significantly over time, while its production has risen greatly. The price of cocaine has similarly dropped from $275 per gram in 1981 to $90. Despite massive investments in border patrols, overseas crop eradication efforts, Department of Defense involvement and arrests of drug smugglers and drug dealers, the drug war has not reduced the supply of drugs nor made them more costly to obtain.
...

[augggh]

We humans love our intoxicants, and no war on some drugs is going to stop that.

Bears repeating.

[mugs99]

It's all over the net from different sources and studies

ROTFLMAO!!!
Your "source" is John P. Walters, the drug czar. It is 99.44% pure propaganda. This claim was first made in 1937 and "a new study" discovers it again every year since. Post a real science source that I can verify, and please don't waste my time with a bogus religious school "study". I check and verify every source when they're given to me. I follow every link and read every review. I've been doing this a couple of years now, on FR, and not one single poster has ever came up with a legitimate scientific study the connects pot and scizophrenia. Just more albino alligators in the sewers of New York City!
...

[slowhandluke]

Prohibition, both alcohol and drugs, has always been based on religious morality. Exageration, myth and dogma has always trumped truth, science and fact. That was true then and it's true today.

I don't get your point. The point I was making was that there was lots of drunkeness at the time; are you saying it was a sober period? The argument was the big effort to reduce the problem. Some went overboard in arguing for prohibition, somewhat like today's conjured obesity problem (where they want to draw the line below that level corresponding to max life span).

Are you calling the problem of alcoholism itself a myth, or the idea that it was rampant back in the early to mid 1800s? It was one of the few escapes from a grinding life in that part of the industrial revolution.

Or did you mistakenly think I was advising prohibition? My point is only that there wasn't any libertarian nirvana in the first part of the 19th century. Lot's of people drank without discipline, but they (and their children) paid for it directly, no gov't subsidy. And most historians paid them little attention.

If you argue to change the drug laws to those of 1860, the historians among your opposition will pay a lot of attention to the problems of Demon Rum back then.

[slowhandluke]

Can't say I've read "History of Prohibition", but the title suggests it might have an agenda. But judging something by it's title is probably a bad idea.

By the time prohibition rolled around (1920s), we were past much of the troubles of the 1860s, which was the time the original post was arguing about. Prohibition came after the problems of the early industrial revolution had already been resolved, mostly by more wealth due to the industrial revolution, some by moral persuasion.

I'm not arguing for or against prohibition. My point was that using the 1860s as an argument for legalized drugs might be shooting yourself in the foot. Your comments on Prohibition are from 60 years later.

[A CA Guy]

Yep, that was a good beginning for you to go read. You can find others on google, but this one would be the one the government probably relies on stating where the studies come from and all.
Figured it's a good place for you to start.

[traviskicks]

Libertarian Ping! IMO our drug laws are a violation of the separation between church and state. Since we own our bodies, not the government, we therefore answer to God, not the government, for whatever good or ill WE decide to do with our bodies.

[SoVaDPJ]

Same with insulin and heart medication.

Perhaps if some of the no-drugs-ever crowd found themselves with chronic pain, they wouldn't be so glib about pain medication.

[SoVaDPJ]

"has connections to schitzophrenia"

One, it's spelled "schizophrenia."
Two, please cite a source for that information.

[SoVaDPJ]

For many, weight loss would help a bunch. Some who have real spine damage really don't have lots of alternatives to drugs. One of my friends is an orthopedic surgeon who was rather prominent here in California, then his back ended his career. Nothing can be done, he has severe spine damage from being required to help remove patients from the operating table. It's a tortured life, and I don't envy people in that condition. I had a broken neck once by a drunk driver that ruined me for several years of recovery, though I used no drugs, I am familiar with the pain.

I don't believe you. I don't believe you didn't use any drugs through recovery of a broken neck.

[SoVaDPJ]

Never mind citing the source for which I asked. I just remembered you're the guy who uses "My mom worked with inmates" as a source.

[pepperdog]

And what pain killer would that be?

[FreeKeys]

"has connections to schitzophrenia" One, it's spelled "schizophrenia." Two, please cite a source for that information.

Three, I knew some crazy people who smoked pot once. Four, I knew some ignorant people who insisted wet sidewalks cause rain.

[SC DOC]

Have you tried Palladone?

[Wolfie]

He's probably referring to a recent "study" from New Zealand, the methodology of which wouldn't get you a passing grade in an 8th grade science course.

Psychosis, Hype, and Baloney

[SoVaDPJ]

I'm not sure why people don't get this but--people who have medical or mental health issues frequently self medicate. That doesn't mean the substance or behavior they use caused the problem.

[Wolfie]

Its worse than that. If you read the methodology of the study, they simply asked pot smokers if they ever felt, for example, paranoid. If they said yes, that was one for the "Pot Causes Psychosis" column. No actual diagnoses of mental illness were made.

[SoVaDPJ]

I've spent a little time with young people--IMO, most of them think the world is against them and that other people are watching them. Women have that reaction all the time to being in a bathing suit.

[Haru Hara Haruko]

For many, weight loss would help a bunch. Some who have real spine damage really don't have lots of alternatives to drugs. One of my friends is an orthopedic surgeon who was rather prominent here in California, then his back ended his career. Nothing can be done, he has severe spine damage from being required to help remove patients from the operating table. It's a tortured life, and I don't envy people in that condition. I had a broken neck once by a drunk driver that ruined me for several years of recovery, though I used no drugs, I am familiar with the pain.

I don't believe you. I don't believe you didn't use any drugs through recovery of a broken neck.

As well you should not believe a line of crap like that. I would encourage everyone who thinks "A CA Guy" is credible to read his statement above and wonder "What color is the sky on his planet?"

People like this are what the Drug Warriors are like. Deluded, cruel, ignorant, filled with hate, and leading lives of misery themselves. If there is any class of people worth grinding into the dust of history, it is these. They are no better than Stasi or Pol Pot's goons.

[marty60]

No, I take Lipitor(600 cholesterol), Welchol (to help Lipitor), Arthritec,(arthritis in spine), Soma (muscle spasms from torn ligiment in back) Lortab, (the one that makes me sick) for pain, Ultram (pain)(keeps the Soma from putting me to sleep). And on nights when none of it works Lunesta so I can sleep.

I have tried getting rid of some of the meds, I hate taking pills. But who wants to be unable to function. I can't even think straight from the pain if I don't do something about it. When I reached 3000mgs of aspirin a day, I gave up and went to the Doc. Oh I forgot, I have a herniated (inoperable) disk in my lumbar area, which is pushing on my sciatic nerve.

But according to the DEA, I'm a druggie.