clair014

The media hysterics against opioids, such as The New York Times, ought to be ashamed of themselves! http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2016/jun/08/opioid-epidemic-drug-mix-overdose-death Bob Bee- It's prohibition that serves to ensure opioids are more dangerous than they otherwise would be, due to uncertainty of purity and dosage of unregulated, black market drugs. Thus prohibition makes fatal OD's more likely, not less. Opioids should be legalized, regulated, and taxed like tobacco and alcohol. That way, users would know exactly what they were buying and the dosage. Also, opioid legalization would mean good, old, natural opium would be legally available. Users could opt for opium (active ingredients include morphine & codeine. It can be eaten, smoked, or consumed as a tea) as a safer alternative to ultra-potent pharma-junk powders & pills. Opium's safer as it's less concentrated and is harder to fatally OD on. End the counter-productive,...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/opinion/sunday/opioid-use-and-abuse.html?_r=0 To the Editor: Re “ A Strong Response to the Opioid Scourge” (editorial, March 17): There are longtime users of low-dose opioids, like me, who never require an increase in dose and who find that this medication provides quality of life. How? By addressing chronic pain, sleep disorders and associated depression. The alternatives proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, like aspirin and ibuprofen, can cause long-term damage to body organs and short-term stomach pain. For many of us, spare use of a low-dose opioid is the very best alternative. Unfortunately, voices like mine are not heard often. Why? Because the media climate right now is so fiercely anti-opioid that those who rely on this drug can feel hesitant to speak out. More reporting should be done on the lives saved and enhanced by opioids, in addition to the terrible consequences of addiction. Policy should reflect a m...

by building a wall with the said goal to stop contraband drugs as his response to heroin   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfWidZH0xBs#password The "success" of this sort of policy would be to favor domestically produced bathtub "heroin" that would be likely spiked with the far more potent synthetic opiate fentanyl, in of course vastly varying potencies, unregulated thus promoting even more fatal ODs. By banning Opium and its derivatives, the market availability was shifted to the more concentrated forms of opiates as Heroin HCI, and with the price likewise artificially increased to be pricier per weight than gold, encouraged its use in the way with the greatest 'bang for the buck" of injection- also the most addictive and potentially dangerous- further exacerbated by the variable potency of such a substance in an unregulated black market of uncertain purity and adulteration perhaps with something even stronger such as fentanyl. By failing to address any of...

if the polices towards opiates are really so valid, why not then apply them to other drugs, such as nicotine?   http://www.borgenmagazine.com/opium-cultivation-rise/ https://prezi.com/dfx5tfc7mnf_/opium/ Virtually anything and everything written about the various "epidemics" of heroin and opiates or opioids treats the policy as if it were written in stone by God. Regular use of such can not be tolerated. People must be gotten off opiates, or rather off of their regular opiates and onto something longer lasting and stronger and more physically addictive. From what one would gather, this is because the regular use of their regular opiates must be associated with various sorts of diseases and/or ill effects upon health.  That staying on say pain pills or heroin is intolerable because such invariably harms health.  Perhaps as that with the excessive use of alcohol causing cirrhosis of the liver.  Or that of the regular use of Tobacco, particularly the type bred for ciga...

a re-post from 1997 about the Drug Policy Foundation's denial of a proposed panel on Opium and Coca for their conference that year in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Drug Policy Foundation (DPF) was the predecessor organization to the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), that was created in 2000 with the DPF's merger with the Lindesmith Institute that was headed by Ethan Nadelmann- current DPA Executive Director.   The President of the DPA's Board of Directors, Ira Glasser meanwhile served on the Board of Directors of the DPF.  The DPA had been founded by Kevin Zeese from the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML), with Dr. Arnold S. Trebach of American University in 1986, who had left the organization in 1997. The Drug Policy Foundation, and the Drug Policy Alliance have been advised through the bro bono program of Covington & Burling , Washington D.C.'s leading corporate food, pharmaceutical and Tobacco industry law firm founded by an instrumental figure in est...

Less addictive than Tobacco and non carcinogenic, Opium was nonetheless demonified by the twentieth century pharma-cigarette criminal mercantilism - with a regimen that would otherwise be seen as silly if applied the methadone model to nicotine. http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/20/if-you-know-too-much-about-poppies-you-c Last July the Kennewick, Washington, Tri-City Herald profiled Poppydog Farms, a new local business selling dried pods from poppies grown on 40 acres in Pasco. The operation had attracted 2,400 customers from across the country, including wholesalers as well as consumers. "Every single day we're getting new customers," enthused co-owner Ken French. "It's turned out to be a lot more successful than we ever dreamed." The paper explained that "crafters use the pods for ornamentation," while "florists grow red, pink and white-and-purple flowers with the seeds." French described the flowers as "stunningly beautiful." Th...

O'Reilly makes a valuable mis-step/half-truth, which Nadelmann neglects to answer "cocaine and meth incapacitate" (3:23) Nadelmann could have at least mentioned the interply of pharmakokenetics and prohibition's iron law regarding Opiates and Cocaine in shifting markets to infinitely more concentrated forms of drugs and more problematic modes of drug taking.   For instance cocaine is a stimulant alkaloid found in small amounts in Coca leaves, as are caffeine and nicotine respectively in Coffee/other beverages and Tobacco.  But how much of the later two are consumed in white powder form, essentially unmeasured, of unstandardized potency, and in modes of taking that invite overdosing leading to the very incapacitation O'Reilly cites.   Do a tiny line of cocaine hci or chrystal meth and perhaps one is still within a range of enhancement -- aka a milder effect not interfering with life but rather the role of a gentle uplift.  But do a slightly larger amount, an...

A serious flaw of the drug policy reform movement- limiting attention to Marijuana while acting afraid of Coca-cocaine and Opiates; from a comment at Drug War Rant that quotes this article : "When we talk about legalizing marijuana, we inevitably have to decide what other drugs should be legalized. Do we legalize cocaine, crack, ecstasy, meth, heroin? If not, why not? Shouldn’t we legalize all drugs, regulate them and tax them like alcohol? I’m all in on legalizing marijuana. Tax it and we can retire the deficit overnight. Smoke it in bars and coffee houses and have laws governing where it can be used. I don’t know about the other drugs, though . We can debate it, but it seems futile to try to outlaw stuff that people want no matter the cost. At least maybe we could have a sane drug policy that recognizes reality.” Why do we continue to hear/see such nonsense. There’s NO reason not to legalize Opium and Coca, indeed no reason they go un-mentioned- the plants and products represen...

43rd annual July 4th Smoke In - A Movement  Stalled Since Summer 1971 EVENT WEBSITE: http://www.smoke-in.org/mj/ RALLY with SPEAKERS at NOON to 3 PM Lafayette Park north side of the White House MARCH 3 PM to 4:20 PM to Constitution and 23rd CONCERT with SPEAKERS at recreation field at Constitution and 23rd just to the north of the Lincoln Memorial from 4 PM to 9PM - I shall be at this entire event with other drug legalization activists This is the annual July 4th Smoke In to Legalize Marijuana , in Washington D.C.at Lafayette Park immediately north of the White House, held every year since 1971. Held annually on July 4th in Washington, D.C. for the past 43 years, this rally, march and concert is one of the oldest demonstrations advocating drug policy reform in the United States. The Smoke-In has undergone several changes since being created out of the BE-IN era of political movements. During it's history elected politicians in Washington DC have tended to view...