Posted on 12/15/2016 7:14:25 AM PST by Kaslin
Robert Charles, a political appointee of George W. Bush, sounds the alarm that "we are nearing the falls."[1] Supposedly all we need to do is "care." Apparently this will miraculously cure "the problem."
Others have declared that "Fentanyl is the reason why deadly overdoses from painkillers continue to climb in the US."[2] Like Charles, they commit the logical error of declaring that the last step in a multi-step process is the source of a problem.
Such an assessment is simply wrong. Pundits use factual but context-free language to paint certain drugs as somehow evil. Fentanyl is "illegally made" and "synthetic." It is "50 times as powerful as heroin." As Herman Cain notes in his new book, we have to tackle The Right Problems.
In my thirty-six years in anesthesiology, I administered literally gallons of Fentanyl. It is a very safe drug, primarily because it's a pure narcotic with limited and very well understood side effects. Its more potent relative Sufentanyl is similarly useful. Each has a specific niche. The fact that they were synthesized in a lab is irrelevant.
Narcotics exist because we need them. Your body makes them in forms called endorphins. Various plants such as the opium poppy have been found to make narcotics, and those plants have been used for millennia to treat pain. They have been an important cash crop for almost as long. As our knowledge of chemistry has advanced, we have learned how to purify and modify them, creating synthetic narcotics.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I’d like to see a serious study on what the impact of legalized marijuana has been on in-state marijuana consumption in Colorado and Washington in the last few years. No idea how that data could be compiled, but it would be interesting to know whether making the drugs legal and easily accessible led to more usage, or if instead it meant the romance went out of it and people stopped finding it exciting.
The problem is that there is no right and wrong anymore. If it feels good, do it. If you don’t agree with it, then you are a racist, homophobe, drugphobe, whatever crap they can come up with to justify a damaging and sick behavior. If everyone followed biblical Christianity, there would be no drug addiction, venereal diseases, abortions, murders, assaults, etc. Biblical teachings aren’t there to keep people from having fun and living their lives, it’s there to keep people safe, happy and out of trouble.
There are two types of people concerned about excessive drug use. The first kind is focused on the pharmaceutical industry and how it managed to hook Americans on enormous amounts of drugs - many times what citizens of any other country consume.
The other kind is still trying to fight the drug war, and those types should receive no response other than the cocking of a shotgun, as anybody who can’t prevent themselves from sticking their noses in other people’s business deserves.
The veterinary version of fentanyl is showing up on the street. Dealers are cutting heroin with it, or are using it outright and selling it as heroin. Not a lot of repeat customers though. People are dropping dead while taking it.
CC
So true. And that is the ultimate solution. Enough of your customers die and you lose your base. Then somebody hunts you down for killing their relative. Both problems solved.
Keep your kids close, love and train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and they will not need that kind of emotional pain relief.
The data is IN, here in Colorado.
Homelessness and crime are UP, with potheads flooding into the state.
Kids are using MUCH more, since any stigma is gone.
If anybody wants you to believe smoking dope doesn’t lead to hard drug use, just come and check it out.
I’ve got family members from young to middle-age caught up in this death grip.
Our Church is across the street from an affluent high school and they use our parking lot.
The kids flood off campus at 9:30 a.m. (at some ill-conceived break) and begin their daily toke.
Looking around, consumption went way up. We are also inundated with people in their 20’s and 30’s begging on the street corners.
The current epidemic is horrific.
It is easy to just tell the addicts to stop. Saying it is easy. Doing that? Not so easy.
The math on these things is staggering. My daughter is a first responder in a town of 40,000. She runs at least 2 ODs per shift. The Advanced Life ambulance is casting the town between $250 and $300 per run.
So, in that town you are paying for 5-8 ODs every day. That’s is nearly $500,000 a year in ambulance costs alone. In a fairly small town. The more urban you get...the more daily runs.
Basing the low ball figure of about $15 per capital in a suburban town across the 350 million people in the country and the costs for the ambulance service is $5.25 Billion for the country.
Battling this epidemic has to be fought on three fronts: Mental health services for the addict, Education for the non addict, and interdiction of the product.
We should be reading about drone strikes in Mexico hitting the cartels. Not hearing about Obama taking out ISIL’s third in command. Again.
No, Fentanyl really is a problem. It has been killing lots of people here. The law didn’t kill them or we would all be dead.
The third kind are the ones trying to navigate through the cesspool of living garbage wandering through the streets after the drugs are legalized.
The last study I saw was the marijuana use was up in Colorado. Likely it is because people go there to smoke weed.
Illegal sales of marijuana are still going strong. The government blessed weed is still too expensive.
The real reason that people die from overdoses is that they are addicts. Doesn’t matter what drug it is
I’d like to see that as well. I have a feeling that people who smoke weed will continue to do so. People who don’t will continue abstaining from it.
To my understanding fentanyl lowers exposure to the cartel’s operations, fewer poppy fields in Mexico means less chance you will have your fields burned or workers turn on you. Less workers also means less overhead. Also, I guess heroin cut with fentanyl is also more desirable because once an addict survives, non fentanyl cut heroin doesn’t do the job. So if you have a ready supply you cut out all the competition that doesn’t have easy access to a supply of fentanyl.
Freegards
That is true. I know a former co-worker who planned a vacation to Colorado for that reason.
Got it. The third kind is batshit insane and lives in a paranoid and delusional dystopian fantasy that has never existed and never will exist.
Living the reality in Colorado dude.
The numbers for alcohol dwarf those.
Are you advocating for a reinstatement of prohibition, or for hypocrisy?
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