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 ...
Pain is horrible. I've witnessed it first hand with my dad and my father-n-law. After a period of time, it'll wear a man down to nothing more than a whimpering shell.
Addicts make up a very small percentage of folks in the grand scheme. Knukka-heads who use not because of a specific treatment, but recreationally.
At the end of the day though, the hypocrisy is deafening. Legislators spend a day figuring out how to deny the population of needed medications and at the end of the day slap each other on the back for a job well done...then meet at the local pub to knock back a few scotch and sodas.
Alcohol...the deadliest, most abused drug on the planet. And it's perfectly legal. lol
Take pictures then and show us.
Exactly
“The data is IN, here in Colorado.”
Please share a link to this data. Thanks.
I’d rather go to Oregon.
The real test comes when you can grow your own. It’s pretty easy to grow. We found a 3 foot plant growing on a roof of the dorm. A guy on the hall dried it and smoked it.
Well written article, though I don’t agree with the conclusions. The war against tobacco has certainly lessened usage without an outright ban. Cheap booze can still be potent, and stronger booze at every price point has been on the uptick despite a lack of laws prohibiting them (e.g. hard soda pop, fortified beers). The legalization of recreational pot has not lessened its usage, and Reynolds $7 billion ad budget for Newport Nirvana will seek to normalize it.
That doesn’t mean that a war on drugs or booze is the answer, but it also doesn’t mean that laissez-faire and decriminalization is the right answer, either.
The ChiComs war on drugs (Opium) in the ‘50s was severe, but quite effective (death penalty for user, dealer and cultivator). I am not advocating a police state or Communism as an answer, but it does mean that social, political and legal coercion do have an impact.
I am actually advocating for the decriminalization for users. Sentence them to treatment on a first offense. For dealers and distributors, harsh penalties without parole. And, death to the cartel heads—in fact, we should literally declare war on them.
“The government blessed weed is still too expensive.”
Of course it is. Legal growers haven’t had a chance to meet the demand for legal cannabis yet. These things don’t go from zero to saturated market in just a few years, especially when current federal gov’t WoD laws are an impediment to banking & such.
I haven’t heard of any shortages in the stores.
That position is as compassionate as forced psychiatry for political dissidents.
What exactly is the problem with leaving people alone?
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/02/homeless-camp-grows-colorado-springs/
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/11/16/the-homeless-vs-the-creek-beds-in-colorado-springs/
“other people’s business”
See post #9
“We should be reading about drone strikes in Mexico hitting the cartels. Not hearing about Obama taking out ISIL’s third in command. Again.”
Agreed on Obunghole. That said, something else is happening in Colorado.
Older veterans who are unable to get treatment for pain at the VA are growing marijuana for their own use.
None of their money goes to criminals, and none goes to pot stores where they would pay taxes.
These men are nearing the end of the trail. They’re not performing duties that would be impaired by the intoxication that pot provides. They’re not out mugging people for their next “fix.” They’re in constant pain, and because the country is in the grip of this “prescription drug addiction” hysteria, doctors will not help them.
Are you going to say to them, “Doctors won’t prescribe oxycodone or dilaudid for you, as they are morally obligated to do, but neither may you legally grow and use the only thing available”?
If I were to go down to the Vet’s Center and start saying that, I wouldn’t blame them if they kicked my butt.
We invaded Mexico for far less that this over Pancho Villa.
There are zero references to cannabis in any of those articles.
Ironically, a grossly disproportionate number of homeless are military vets suffering from PTSD... for many of whom there is no effective treatment except cannabis.
So next time you look with contempt upon that ‘living garbage’, perhaps you should pause for just a moment to consider how many of them are in that condition because they put their lives on the line to defend your right to hold an ignorant, cruel, and tyrannical opinion.
OTOH, ask a senior how their arthritis is doing with no Vicodin now, because the regulators try to stop illegal drugs through regs, the doctors can't prescribe to their patients. I seem to remember pro aborts saying they don't want the gubmint between the woman and her doctor, but everything else seems to be that way today except infanticide. You can murder your baby without any oversight to keep you from getting stretch marks, but someone will be forced to a wheel chair due to pain because the strongest thing they can get is extra strength Tylenol.
It blows my mind that I am having the exact same conversation here as I have with liberals when they talk about banning guns... and am seeing the exact same opposing arguments.
You are very passionate about condoning drug addiction. Are you an addict or a dealer?
I’m a friend of the many vets suffering from PTSD who can find no other effective treatment.
I would like you to come meet some of these gentlemen and tell them your opinion, to their faces.
I would also like to know whether you advocated to send them to war, and what you have done to protest the hideous maltreatment of these returning vets by the VA.
“I haven’t heard of any shortages in the stores.”
Have you been going into the stores that sell cannabis to learn where their product comes from? Any idea on how much it costs to bring cannabis to those stores? I don’t ask to be critical of you, I promise. But I keep running across this, “They told us X would happen” when the “why hasn’t it happened yet” expectations are light years removed from reality.
Till just a few years ago, cannabis was 100% illegal in Colorado (why the focus on Co is another mind boggler to me but that’s an issue for another time) & other states. There was no legal infrastructure to grow or sell cannabis cheaply. There isn’t much of one now. It will be 10 years or more before these infrastructures are completely up & running. As this happens prices will begin to fall gradually.
Right now gov’t WoD laws are an impediment to lower legal cannabis prices. Imagine the difficulty getting the cannabis grown & into the stores in that environment when they can’t use the banking system. Then add the risk of doing a huge cash only business selling retail cannabis when you can’t use the banking system. Stores have to pay big $$$ just for security.
Yes, there is cannabis on store shelves. The cost to put it there for now is not cheap so the retail prices are very high, especially for premium strains based on what I read from people who run the stores.
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