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,...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization. Shills can carry out their operations in the areas of media, journalism, marketing or other business areas. Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that they are an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) for whom they are secretly working. The person or group who hires the shill is using crowd psychology to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shills are often employed by professional marketing campaigns. "Plant" and "stooge" more commonly refer to any person who is secretly in league with another person or organization while pretending to be neutral or actually...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/health/opioid-prescriptions-drop-for-first-time-in-two-decades.html?_r=0 (excerpts) "...for each of the past three years — 2013, 2014 and 2015 — prescriptions have declined, a review of several sources of data shows." " IMS Health, an information firm whose data on prescribing is used throughout the health care industry, found a 12 percent decline in opioid prescriptions nationally since a peak in 2012. Another data company, Symphony Health Solutions, reported a drop of about 18 percent during those years. Opioid prescriptions have fallen in 49 states since 2013, according to IMS, with some of the sharpest decreases coming in West Virginia, the state considered the center of the opioid epidemic, and in Texas and Oklahoma. (Only South Dakota showed an increase.)" ... ... One important development that may have helped propel the decline came in 2014, when the federal government tightened prescribing rules for one of the most c...

Trump has abandoned his earlier idea of being self-funded. http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/US-GOP-2016-Trump-Money/2016/05/24/id/730470/?ns_mail_uid=7499169&ns_mail_job=1669680_05242016&s=al&dkt_nbr=tiwkw91r Trump and the RNC on Tuesday announced new additions to the financial operation, including New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, roofing company owner Diane Hendricks and former Ambassador Mel Sembler, who helped raise major money for previous presidential candidates. About Mel Sembler's assault on freedom of medicine and diet, particularly Cannabis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Sembler In 1976, Sembler and his wife Betty founded Straight, Inc. , an adolescent drug treatment program which has treated more than 12,000 addicts. The group now operates as the Drug Free America Foundation. [18] In May 1983, Straight, Inc was convicted of false imprisonment after being sued by then 20-year-old Fred Collins Jr, who alleged he had been held captive by the program a...

The Drug Policy Alliance is the successor to the Drug Policy Foundation founded in 1986, in response to the hysteria over cocaine, to go beyond the mandate of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws. Yet it continues to stifle serious discussion about the details of legalizing drugs other than Marijuana, such as Coca-ine and Opiates, despite the lip service to 'Harm Reduction', as I have written about previously. http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/dpa-under-sells-harm-reduction.html This sad situation would be highlighted at panel held at the November 18-21 2015 D.P.A. Conference Panel 'Beyond Marijuana: Legalization and the Movement to Reform Other Drug Policies' , held that Friday at 11:30AM. From the conference description: http://www.reformconference.org/sites/reformconference.org/files/docs/2015_DPA_Reform_Conf_Program_v6_REFERENCE.PDF Despite the growing social acceptance of marijuana nationwide, marijuana law violations still make...

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...