So what does the brutal crackdown on prescription pain killers accomplish (other than to keep Americans in chronic agony)? Well, it keeps the loot from Asset Forfeiture rolling into Law Enforcement coffers: Law Enforcement Took More Stuff From People Than Burglars Did.The newer study, published last March in Deutsches Arzteblatt International, estimates that in 2016 there were 166,294 "opioid-addicted persons in Germany." The researchers add that "comparisons with earlier estimates" indicate the number was about the same two decades before then, prior to the dramatic increase in opioid prescriptions. In other words, a large increase in consumption of narcotic pain relievers did not lead to a surge in addiction, whether to those drugs or to illicit opioids such as heroin.What's more, OECD data compiled by J.J. Rich, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation (which publishes this website), show that deaths involving licit and illicit opioids did not rise in Germany either. In fact, both the number of deaths and the death rate declined during the same period when prescriptions were climbing.
The War On Drugs is stupid, and is being run by stupid people.
Will Rogers: The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets
ReplyDeleteCongress: Hold my beer.
May they writhe in agony when the pharmacy dedicated to providing medication to Congress say no, nope, no Jed's for you.
ReplyDeleteYou see there is this law and we have these guidelines...
Yeah, not going to happen, is it?
Evil. The word is evil not stupid. Conservatives need to ban the word stupid from their vocabularies until they stop overusing it.
ReplyDeleteNot sure that asset forfeiture is the only reason however. People have always been been susceptible to moral panics.
I beat this drum years ago: the Opioid Epidemic is heroin laced with carfentanil, and always has been, not granny's Norco and Percocet.
ReplyDeleteThis is yet more proof.
But in the same way the BATFE spends 99% of enforcement time, money and manpower on law-abiding citizens, and 1% (if that) going after actual drug smuggling, the DEA is happy to make criminals out of hometown pharmacists, and leave the amateur pharmacology practitioners and their industry largely unbothered. These is because Pete or Wang at the corner pharmacy isn't packing an AK-47, keeps flawless records, and is much more compliant to no-notice raids and searches.
...gun smuggling...
ReplyDeleteMy wife has been on prescription pain killers ever since we got hit by that illegal alien while out on the Harley. They had to rebuild her face. She has a titanium jaw and severe neck and back problems, part of which are from severe scoliosis that was aggravated by the wreck on top of already having a broken back from getting hit by a drunk driver 20 years before that.
ReplyDeleteWithout painkillers, she cannot function, especially when the weather changes.
That said, she has never run out before her script was due for refill. On top of that, she's learned how to manage her pills so she can build up a small reserve for those times her doc is out of town and unable to call in a refill.
There are a lot of addicts out there who do not abuse their drugs, but need them to function.
Like Aesop said, the "opioid crisis" is a heroin and fentanyl abuse crisis.