Heroin epidemic: Why Heroin availability/use has spiked under Obama presidency?

[enhanced_deficit]

While in the past Obama years have been associated with sharp spike in deaths from global terrorism, there is not much discussion why heroin availability/overdose deaths have spiked and various parts of US are facing herion epidemic under Obama presidency.














Is it due to false/correct perception created that because he himself used some drugs in the past, Obama administration is going to be lenient on drug dealers? Or some other policy/non-policy factors like Obama's escalation of Afghan war causing this spike in heroin availability/use in the US?







Related

Heroin 'apocalypse' shadows New Hampshire primary


Maine's governor blames heroin epidemic on men with nicknames like "D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty"

[Zippyjuan]

Does a president have control over the supply of heroin? Should we send the military into heroin producing countries to force them to halt production?

https://recoverynavigation.com/drug-epidemic/

Krokodil and Heroin: Russia’s Terrifying Drug Epidemic

You may be surprised to discover that as of 2011, Russian citizens used more heroin than anyone else in the world. Conservative estimates say that there are currently 1.5 million heroin users in Russia, and tens of thousands who die every year due to one drug addiction or another. In addition, HIV contraction due to needle-sharing is on the rise, in contrast to most other countries.

Who is to blame? Well, Russia’s close proximity to world-wide heroin producer Afghanistan definitely isn’t helping. Beginning in 1979, Russia entered a ten-year-long conflict with the Afghans, who in turn began the opium trade in effort to fund their defense. Ironically, the Russians quickly became their biggest consumers. For example, Kovokuznetsk, which lies near the Kazakhstan border, was once a successful industrial city. Now in near ruin, the city exemplifies Russia’s drug problem, with as much as 20% of its population addicted to heroin.

Krokodil

But Russians are dealing with a drug that is even worse than heroin – krokodil. So-called because of the effect to the user’s skin, turning it scaly as it is literally being eaten from the inside out. This occurs due to the extensive damage done to blood vessels and tissue. But bad skin isn’t the only problem – eventually small appendages and even entire limbs will rot away or need amputation. In addition, it causes severe brain damage that is non-reversible. Speech and motor skills can be severely affected, so even those who survive this drug may be permanently incapacitated for the rest of their lives.

Krokodil is commonly described as a sort of heroin moonshine/designer drug, as it is cooked with desomorphine (a synthetic opiate), formic acid, and eye drops, among other strange and dangerous chemicals. These increase the initial effects of the drug.

By the way, formic acid is a naturally occurring acid found in ant venom.

The physically destructive effects of krokodil are mainly due to poor synthesis, which renders the drug as mostly toxic by-products. Comparatively speaking, there is a rather small amount of the actual painkiller desomorphine, which is roughly three times more potent than heroin. Simply put, the drug is not refined or purified correctly. Withdrawal symptoms can last as long as a month, and result in pain so severe some addicts are put into induced comas to escape the living hell.

Many of the desperate and destitute people of Russia have turned to krokodil because it’s less expensive than heroin. It’s also more addictive, faster acting, and easier to manufacture. Most of the ingredients can be purchased at any number of Russia’s 24-hour pharmacies. The average time from first use to death is approximately two years.

The government and authorities have done little to nothing to curb this threat. What’s more, this drug may have reached the United States. During the last two years, one case was reported St. Louis, Missouri, and two others in Phoenix, Arizona. Other possible cases in Illinois and Ohio have not been confirmed.

If you suspect you or someone you know is an addict, please seek help immediately.

Krokodil is very nasty. There are very graphic images of how it effects people but I won't post any here. Do your own search if curious.

[enhanced_deficit]

Does a president have control over the supply of heroin?

Does a President have any control over "war on drugs"?


If there were more terror attacks in the US/West since creation of ISIS in Syria/Iraq, would you ask:

Does a President have any control over "war on terror"?

[puppetmaster]

Does a president have control over the supply of heroin?

certainly could.

[enhanced_deficit]

certainly could.

Seems that way.
As of now, not all these reports have been confirmed by more trusted MSM outlets.






http://www.cato.org/blog/afghanistan-obamas-war



How Obama Came to Plan for 'Surge' in Afghanistan
www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/asia/06reconstruct.html
The New York Times
Dec 5, 2009

The Real Afghanistan Surge is in Heroin Production and Tripled Opium Cultivation since the US military arrived/ UN and US Government documents

September 13, 2015

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/...documents.html









https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgKmJESBFsw

A Conspiracy Theory that became a “Conspiracy Fact”: The CIA, Afghanistan’s Poppy Fields and America’s Growing Heroin Epidemic

By Timothy Alexander Guzman
July 01, 2016

http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-consp...idemic/5533673

[Zippyjuan]

So let's invade the Asian Crescent where most is produced.

In Afghanistan, there are two ways to make money. Join a military or grow heroin. Heroin accounts for 35% of their GDP. US tried destroying crops but then since they had no other income they joined the Taliban.

In Tajikistan (Russia's main source) it accounts for half the GDP.

[enhanced_deficit]

So let's invade the Asian Crescent where most is produced.

In Afghanistan, there are two ways to make money. Join a military or grow heroin.

NH and Maine are quite far from Afghanistan though.
So are you seeing a connection between the two developments under Obama Presidency?

Heroin 'apocalypse' shadows New Hampshire primary

Maine's governor blames heroin epidemic on men with nicknames like "D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty"

[Zippyjuan]

How should a Libertarian respond to the problem?

[enhanced_deficit]

How should a Libertarian respond to the problem?

Don't escalate war in Afgahnistan and don't make a bad situation worse.

But you know that SWC lobbies funding Obama would never have taken a Libertarian path. It is not how neocons play.

[Zippyjuan]

Don't escalate war in Afgahnistan and don't make a bad situation worse.

But you know that SWC lobbies funding Obama would never have taken a Libertarian path. It is not how neocons play.

How does that change supply/ demand for heroin? Doing nothing? How did Obama increase supply/ demand for heroin?

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.rt.com/news/171348-russi...s-death-crime/

100,000 lives annually: Drug death toll triples in Russia



Around 100,000 people die from drug overdoses in Russia every year, worrying statistics from the country’s Federal Drug Control Service

“28.7 people out of 100,000 among [the] urban population have died from overdose and drug related diseases in 2013. That’s 2.7 times higher than a year before,” Olga Mishina, deputy head of the Federal Drug Control Service, said, as quoted by Itar-Tass news agency.

The social groups that are the most vulnerable to narcotics are young people and teenagers, she stressed.

Mishina was speaking at the annual All-Russian Congress of the Anti-Drug Volunteer Movement, which took place on the shores of Lake Baikal in the Irkutsk Region on July 1-7.

Rehabilitation and socialization of drug addicts were among the main subjects discussed during the event.

According to Mishina’s data, many try out drugs for the first time at the age of 11 or 12, while becoming acquainted with toxicological substances even sooner, at 9-10 years of age.

About 18 million people in Russia have tried drugs at least once in their life, with around eight million using different narcotics with varying degrees of regularity.

The Federal Drug Control Service's deputy chief warned that the stats for drug crimes show a tendency for rejuvenation.

“Out 108,700 people convicted for drug-related offenses in 2013, 46 per cent were young people aged between 18 and 29, with another 2,100 being minors,” she said.

Despite over 250,000 drug-related crimes investigated annually by law enforcement officials, there’s over a billion cases of drug sales registered every year, Mishina stressed.

“It’s a tremendous amount. And it’s impossible to investigate everything,” she acknowledged.

Mishina believes the police are doing everything they can, adding that stricter measures won’t help stop the spreading of drugs.

US had about 10,000 heroin overdose deaths- only one tenth as many despite having more than twice the population. That means that the drug problem in Russia is twenty times that of the United States. What is Putin doing about it? How did he cause it?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/heroin-over...ry?id=40205697

Vodka is considered the leading cause of death in Russia. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-25961063

[presence]

I'm of the opinion that all the recent "heroin" overdose deaths have nothing to do with heroin proper and everything to do with chinese fentanyl analogues entering the market for the first time. "Research" is the word I hear again and again. Sketchy.

[TheCount]

I thought it was because after they changed the prescription opioids so that they were harder to abuse, people who had been abusing prescription drugs changes to other non-prescription opioids.

[69360]

It's because so many people go hooked on Oxy when the doctors were handing them out like candy. They are harder to get now and the pills can't be crushed anymore.

So they all switched to heroin since it's cheaper and easier to get.

ODs are a huge problem here in Maine. It's out of control. LePage gets a lot of crap, but what he says is right. All the heroin comes up from NY CT and MA and is sold by black and hispanic dealers from there. Maine is 95% white so they stand out. It is what it is, there is no way to be PC about it. The comment about impregnating women before they leave is also true, it's very common to see a white trash junkie with mixed race kids. LePage gets called a racist by the liberals for pointing out what we all know and see. I don't think he is, he doesn't claim that all blacks are bad or think whites are better. He just points out the behavior of those who come here.

[oyarde]

Democrats are good for at least three things , food stamps ,abortions and heroin ....

[tod evans]

The idea that government should be permitted to 'control' pain medication is insane!

Every person over 6 y/o knows that shooting dope into your veins can kill you, most people don't know that government expects you to mend that broken arm or impacted wisdom tooth with 12 pills...

I'm not, and have never been a junkie, never even liked pain pills but when I need some I'm hurting. 2 Percodan every six hours will make torn back muscles bearable, problem is my back doesn't heal in 36 hours.

Even terminal patients are being restricted to the point hospice facilities sound like Vlad's dungeon.

Maybe hot pokers and bamboo shoots could be used on lawmakers to force the repealing of the current drug laws.....

[RestorationOfLiberty]

While in the past Obama years have been associated with sharp spike in deaths from global terrorism, there is not much discussion why heroin availability/overdose deaths have spiked and various parts of US are facing herion epidemic under Obama presidency.














Is it due to false/correct perception created that because he himself used some drugs in the past, Obama administration is going to be lenient on drug dealers? Or some other policy/non-policy factors like Obama's escalation of Afghan war causing this spike in heroin availability/use in the US?







Related

Heroin 'apocalypse' shadows New Hampshire primary


Maine's governor blames heroin epidemic on men with nicknames like "D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty"

Open borders/mass immigration+crappy economy=bleak future=hopelessness=people trying to escape the $#@!tyness around them.

[presence]

Another thing that I think is contributing to the spike in "overdoses" is what exactly qualifies as an "overdose".

Recently the standard has become.... "I'm a cop and I found someone high on opiates and unable to defend themselves.... I dosed the $#@!er with naloxone so they'd break their high and begin suffering withdrawal because its fun to watch; tally an 'overdose' ."

When an officer doesn't know if a person has overdosed on heroin, it's OK to hit them with a dose or two of naloxone, said Dr. Erik Kochert, program director in York Hospital's emergency room. Police in the Pennsylvania county of almost 450,000 already have administered the opioid antidote almost 250 times this year.

Even if the patient didn't overdose, naloxone won't cause any harm. It would just make a person wake up and experience withdrawal, Kochert said, which is better than not breathing.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...y-nj/89409942/


...so are these people really "overdosing" or are uncle's agents really just having sadistic fun zapping them out their high and into withdrawal symptoms?

[GunnyFreedom]

How should a Libertarian respond to the problem?

Of heroin?

End substance prohibition.

Supply becomes cleaner and less toxic.

Addiction becomes a medical problem with no legal consequences.

More people get treatment and recover.

Lower rates of addiction and abuse within 3 years.

Lower crime surrounding the drug within 1 year, since without the stigma of a drug conviction fewer people will have to turn to a life of crime.

5 years later, addiction rates are halved, those who do get addicted can get treatment without fear of jail or death.

Problem solved.

[tod evans]

Of heroin?

End substance prohibition.

Supply becomes cleaner and less toxic.

Addiction becomes a medical problem with no legal consequences.

More people get treatment and recover.

Lower rates of addiction and abuse within 3 years.

Lower crime surrounding the drug within 1 year, since without the stigma of a drug conviction fewer people will have to turn to a life of crime.

5 years later, addiction rates are halved, those who do get addicted can get treatment without fear of jail or death.

Problem solved.

Don't forget the big-un.........

People who suffer pain would be able to self medicate.

Given my druthers all poppy derivatives would be readily available without any governmental oversight.

Opium>Morphine>Heroin.........How badly have you hurt yourself, weigh your options and treat yourself accordingly.

[tod evans]

Long but educational for those who don't know;

History Of Opium, Morphine, And Heroin

http://www.intheknowzone.com/substan...n/history.html

As long ago as 3400 B.C., the opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians called it as Hul Gil, the 'joy plant.' The Sumerians’ knowledge of poppy cultivation passed to the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and ultimately, the Egyptians.

By 1300 B.C. the Egyptians were cultivating opium thebaicum, named for their capital city of Thebes. From Thebes, the Egyptians traded opium all over the Middle East and into Europe. Throughout this period, opium’s effects were considered magical or mystical.

Some eight hundred years later, the Greek physician, Hippocrates, dismissed the idea that opium was "magical." Instead, he noted its effectiveness as a painkiller and a styptic (a drug used to staunch bleeding.)

Around 330 B.C. Alexander the Great introduced opium to the people of Persia and India, where the poppies later came to be grown in vast quantities. By A.D. 400, opium thebaicumwas first introduced to China by Arab traders.

During the Middle Ages in Europe, when anything from the East was linked to the Devil, opium went unmentioned and unused in Europe. However, the surge of seafaring and exploring reintroduced the drug in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors are thought to have been the first to smoke opium, around 1500. As with any drug, smoking opium has an instantaneous effect, contrasted with eating or drinking the drug.

Laudanum, an alcoholic solution of opium, was first compounded by Paracelsus about 1527. The preparation was widely used up through the 19th century to treat a variety of disorders. The addictive property of opium (or laudanum) was not yet understood. A leading brand of laudanum, Sydenham's Laudanum, was introduced in England in 1680.

Purely recreational use of opium gained some prevalence in the early 1600s in Persia and India, where it was either eaten or drunk in various mixtures. The heavy traffic of trade and exploration by sea continued to spread the traffic of opium around the world during this period. Opium was traded everywhere from China to England. In fact, in 1606 ships chartered by Elizabeth I were instructed to purchase the finest Indian opium and transport it back to England.

The eighteenth century saw greater incursions of the opium trade into China, along with the practice of smoking the drug in pipes. The British undertook creating a demand for opium in China in order to create a trade balance for all off the tea from China they required. The opium problem became widespread enough to inspire a Chinese ban, in 1729, of the use of opium for anything other than licensed medical use. Beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century, the British East India Company dominated the opium trade out of Calcutta to China.

The amount of opium sold into China was approximately two thousand chests of opium per year by 1767, and by 1858, that number had risen to 70,000 chests of opium. By the end of the century, the British East India Company had a complete monopoly on the Indian opium trade. In 1799, all opium trade was banned in China, but by then millions of Chinese were addicted. In some coastal provinces, 90% of Chinese adults were opium addicts by the mid-1830s.

Not to be outdone, the British Levant Company began, in 1800, to purchase nearly half of all of the opium coming out of Smyrna, Turkey for export to Europe and the United States.

In 1803, Friedrich Sertuerner of Germany synthesized morphine (principium somniferum) for the first time, and discovered the active ingredient of the opium poppy, which Linnaeus had first classified in 1753 as papaver somniferum. The discovery of morphine was considered a milestone. The medical community declared that opium had been "tamed." Morphine’s reliability, long-lasting effects, and safety were extolled. In fact, despite its potential for addiction, morphine is still the premier drug used for extreme pain in hospitals and for end-of-life care.

Following the 1799 ban on opium in China, opium smuggling began to be a crowded industry, with several well-known Americans entering the trade. Charles Cabot and John Cushing, of Boston, worked separately to amass opium-smuggling wealth. John Jacob Astor of New York City smuggled ten tons of opium into China under his American Fur Company banner, but later confined his opium selling to the English trade.

English artists, writers, and other luminaries were famously experimenting with and becoming addicted to opium in the early 19th century. By 1830, British use of opium for both medicinal and recreational purposes was at an all time high. 22,000 pounds of opium were imported from Turkey and India that year.

Laudanum continued to be popular, and was actually cheaper than beer or wine. Patent medicines (non-prescription "cures" of all descriptions,) and opium preparations such as Dover's Powder were readily available. The incidence of opium dependence grew steadily in England, Europe, and the United States during the first half of the 19th century by means of these treatments. Working-class medicinal use of products containing opium as sedatives for children was especially common in England. Those using opium for recreational purposes seem to have been primarily English literary and creative personalities, such as Thomas de Quincey, Byron, Shelley, Barrett-Browning, Coleridge, and Dickens.

The First Opium War between China and England began in 1839 as a result of a Chinese ban on opium traffic, and an order for all foreign traders to surrender their opium. In 1841, the British defeated the Chinese and took possession of Hong Kong as part of their bounty. The Second Opium War of 1856 finally made the importation of opium into China legal again, against the wishes of the Chinese government.

Dr. Alexander Wood of Edinburgh discovered the technique injecting morphine with a syringe in 1843. The effects of injected morphine were instantaneous and three times more potent than oral administration.

Heroin (diacetylmorphine) was first synthesized in 1874 by English researcher, C.R. Wright. The drug went unstudied and unused until 1895 when Heinrich Dreser working for The Bayer Company of Germany, found that diluting morphine with acetyls produced a drug without the common morphine side effects. Heroin was considered a highly effective medication for coughs, chest pains, and the discomfort of tuberculosis. This effect was important because pneumonia and tuberculosis were the two leading causes of death at that time, prior to the discovery of antibiotics. Heroin was touted to doctors as stronger than morphine and safer than codeine. It was thought to be nonaddictive, and even thought to be a cure for morphine addiction or for relieving morphine withdrawal symptoms. Because of its supposed great potential, Dreser derived his name for the new drug from the German word for `heroic.'

After decades of promoting the consumption of opium, Britain in 1878 passed the Opium Act to reduce opium consumption in China, India, and Burma. Under the new regulation, the selling of opium was restricted to registered Chinese opium smokers and Indian opium eaters.

In 1886, the British acquired Burma's northeast region, the Shan state. Production and smuggling of opium along the lower region of Burma thrived despite British efforts to maintain a strict monopoly on the opium trade. To this day, the Shan state of Burma (now known as Myanmar) is one of the world’s leading centers of opium production.

During the early years of the 20th century, the Chinese leadership worked in a variety of ways to stop the flow of opium into their country. In 1910, after 150 years of failed attempts to rid the country of opium, the Chinese were finally able to convince the British to dismantle the India-China opium trade.

Despite the 1890 U.S. law-enforcement legislation on narcotics, which imposed a tax on opium and morphine, consumption of the drugs, along with heroin, grew rapidly at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Various medical journals of the time wrote of heroin as a morphine step-down cure. Other physicians argued, on the other hand, that their patients suffered from heroin withdrawal symptoms as severe as morphine withdrawal.

Finally, in 1905, the U.S. Congress banned opium. The following year, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which required pharmaceutical companies to label their patent medicines with their complete contents. As a result, the availability of opiate drugs in the U.S. significantly declined. In 1909, Congress banned the import of opium. In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Narcotics Act, which aimed to curb drug abuse and addiction. It requires doctors, pharmacists, and others who prescribed narcotics (cocaine and heroin) to register and pay a tax.

In 1923, the U.S. Treasury Department's Narcotics Division (the first federal drug agency) banned all legal narcotics sales, forcing addicts to buy from illegal street dealers. Soon, a thriving black market opened up in New York's Chinatown.

In the 1920s and 30s, the majority of illegal heroin smuggled into the U.S. came from China. In the 1940s, Southeast Asia, (Laos, Thailand and Burma, referred to as the 'Golden Triangle,') became a major player in the profitable opium trade. In fact, during World War II, the French occupiers of Southeast Asia encouraged Hmong farmers to expand their opium production so that the French could retain their opium monopoly. After the war, Burma gained its independence from Britain, and opium cultivation and trade began to flourish in the Shan state.

In the U.S., the heroin trade between 1948 and 1972 was dominated by Corsican gangsters and U.S. Mafia drug distributors. The raw Turkish opium was refined in Marseilles laboratories (the "French Connection,") and sold to junkies on New York City streets. In the 1950s, the U.S. preoccupation with stopping the spread of Communism led to alliances with drug producing warlords in the Golden Triangle. The U.S. and France supplied the drug warlords and their armies with ammunition, arms, and air transport for the production and sale of opium. The result was an explosion in the availability and illegal flow of heroin into the United States and into the hands of drug dealers and addicts. During the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up a charter airline, Air America, to transport raw opium from Burma and Laos. During this period, the number of heroin addicts in the U.S. reached an estimated 750,000.

After the Vietnam War, the heroin epidemic in the U.S. subsided somewhat. Until 1978, "Mexican Mud," temporarily replaced "China White" heroin as the most common source of heroin in the U.S. In 1978, the U.S. and Mexican governments cooperated to eliminate the source of Mexican opium. They sprayed the poppy fields with Agent Orange. The amount of "Mexican Mud" in the U.S. drug market declined rapidly. Another source of heroin cropped up in its wake, from the Golden Crescent area of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

During the 1970s and 80s, officials tried to eradicate marijuana, coca, and opium poppy farms by introducing crop substitution programs in the Third World, but the technique produced very disappointing results.

In the late 80s, the establishment of a dictatorship in Burma increased the production of opium in that country. The world’s single largest heroin seizure was made in 1988 in Bangkok. The 2,400-pound shipment of heroin, en route to New York City, was suspected to have originated in the region controlled by the Burmese drug warlord, Khun Sa. Khun Sa was indicted in the U.S. in 1990 on heroin trafficking charges, but was still at-large in Burma.

In 1992, Colombia's drug lords introduced a high-grade form of heroin into the United States at prices that severely undercut Asian sources. Despite a 1993 joint operation between the Thai army and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, among others, efforts to eradicate opium at its source remained unsuccessful in the mid-90s. The new U.S. focus adopted the approach of attempting to "[strengthen] democratic governments abroad, [to] foster law-abiding behavior and promote legitimate economic opportunity."

In 1995, the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia was the leader in opium production, yielding 2,500 tons annually. According to U.S. drug experts, there were new drug trafficking routes from Burma through Laos, to southern China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In January 1996, the Burmese warlord Khun Sa "surrendered" to the ruling junta of Burma. The junta allowed Khun Sa to retain control of his opium trade if he would end his 30-year-old revolutionary war against the government. In 1998, it appeared that approximately 18% of the heroin smuggled into the U.S. came from the Golden Triangle.

[presence]

The First Opium War between China and England began in 1839 as a result of a Chinese ban

There is the truth behind war.

“When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will” - Bastiat

[Zippyjuan]

Of heroin?

End substance prohibition.

Supply becomes cleaner and less toxic.

Addiction becomes a medical problem with no legal consequences.

More people get treatment and recover.

Lower rates of addiction and abuse within 3 years.

Lower crime surrounding the drug within 1 year, since without the stigma of a drug conviction fewer people will have to turn to a life of crime.

5 years later, addiction rates are halved, those who do get addicted can get treatment without fear of jail or death.

Problem solved.

Prescription opioid drugs are legal- and there are serious addiction problems with them too. More die of OD's from them than heroin. http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html

Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999,1 and so have sales of these prescription drugs.2 From 1999 to 2014, more than 165,000 people have died in the U.S. from overdoses related to prescription opioids.1

Opioid prescribing continues to fuel the epidemic. Today, at least half of all U.S. opioid overdose deaths involve a prescription opioid. In 2014, more than 14,000 people died from overdoses involving prescription opioids.

[enhanced_deficit]

Very informative posts above on the futile "war on drugs" and "libertarian solution to the problem", a bonus value add to this debate.



As to the primary question of this discussion, a direct comment has been made also:

Open borders/mass immigration+crappy economy=bleak future=hopelessness=people trying to escape the $#@!tyness around them.

EM.
If this is true, that would be far cry from "Hope n Change" that current administration had promised back in 2008.

So let's invade the Asian Crescent where most is produced.

In Afghanistan, there are two ways to make money. Join a military or grow heroin. Heroin accounts for 35% of their GDP. US tried destroying crops but then since they had no other income they joined the Taliban.

In Tajikistan (Russia's main source) it accounts for half the GDP.

Did you look at Obama's Afghan war escalation-heroin epidemic connection theories?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post6296955

Zippy, you have raised few interesting questions but are you/we any closer to understanding the root cause of spike in heroin availability/use in America under Obama Presidency?

In the absence of a logical, informed answer to this question, vacuum will be filled by one sided,extreme narratives like one being offered by Governor of Maine that is causing lot of controversy again.


Caution: Below video clip contains obscene language as used by Maine governor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJfV6sEbO1I

Malloy: Maine’s LePage ‘sounds racist’ on minorities, heroin

By: Mark Pazniokas | August 26, 2016


From right, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Waterbury Mayor Neil M. O'Leary.


Waterbury — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Friday that Maine Gov. Paul LePage “sounds like a racist” when suggesting his state’s heroin epidemic largely is the fault of outsiders, specifically blacks and Hispanics from places like “Waterbury, Conn., the Bronx and Brooklyn.”

At the end of a press conference here to update progress on a project to eliminate a rush-hour bottleneck on I-84, Malloy and Mayor Neil M. O'Leary, both Democrats, were asked about comments the Republican governor of Maine made Wednesday night about out-of-state minority drug dealers.
“Heroin and the use of heroin is not a racial issue,” Malloy said. “Why would you make a racial issue out of something that is not a racial issue to begin with? In fact, more white people are dying from the use of fentanyl and heroin than black people. So why would you make a racial issue out of something that is fundamentally not race based?”
LePage was challenged at a public forum Wednesday night by a New York businessman about the racial climate the governor has created, at least in part by comments in January about out-of-state minorities.
“They come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage said then. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing, because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”
The Portland Press Herald reported LePage defended that comment Wednesday, saying it is backed up by a dossier he keeps in his office of every drug-dealing arrest in Maine since January.
“I don’t ask them to come to Maine and sell their poison, but they come, and I will tell you that 90-plus percent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ringed binder, are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Conn., the Bronx and Brooklyn,” LePage said.
O’Leary, the city’s former police chief, said the availability of cheap heroin laced with fentanyl, an anesthetic, is a public health crisis and a challenge to law enforcement throughout the U.S.


http://ctmirror.org/2016/08/26/mallo...rities-heroin/

[RestorationOfLiberty]

Very informative posts above on the futile "war on drugs" and "libertarian solution to the problem", a bonus value add to this debate.



As to the primary question of this discussion, a direct comment has been made also:



EM.
If this is true, that would be far cry from "Hope n Change" that current administration had promised back in 2008.




Did you look at Obama's Afghan war escalation-heroin epidemic connection theories?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post6296955

Zippy, you have raised few interesting questions but are you/we any closer to understanding the root cause of spike in heroin availability/use in America under Obama Presidency?

In the absence of a logical, informed answer to this question, vacuum will be filled by one sided,extreme narratives like one being offered by Governor of Maine that is causing lot of controversy again.


Caution: Below video clip contains obscene language as used by Maine governor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJfV6sEbO1I

Malloy: Maine’s LePage ‘sounds racist’ on minorities, heroin

By: Mark Pazniokas | August 26, 2016


From right, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Waterbury Mayor Neil M. O'Leary.


Waterbury — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Friday that Maine Gov. Paul LePage “sounds like a racist” when suggesting his state’s heroin epidemic largely is the fault of outsiders, specifically blacks and Hispanics from places like “Waterbury, Conn., the Bronx and Brooklyn.”

At the end of a press conference here to update progress on a project to eliminate a rush-hour bottleneck on I-84, Malloy and Mayor Neil M. O'Leary, both Democrats, were asked about comments the Republican governor of Maine made Wednesday night about out-of-state minority drug dealers.
“Heroin and the use of heroin is not a racial issue,” Malloy said. “Why would you make a racial issue out of something that is not a racial issue to begin with? In fact, more white people are dying from the use of fentanyl and heroin than black people. So why would you make a racial issue out of something that is fundamentally not race based?”
LePage was challenged at a public forum Wednesday night by a New York businessman about the racial climate the governor has created, at least in part by comments in January about out-of-state minorities.
“They come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage said then. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing, because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”
The Portland Press Herald reported LePage defended that comment Wednesday, saying it is backed up by a dossier he keeps in his office of every drug-dealing arrest in Maine since January.
“I don’t ask them to come to Maine and sell their poison, but they come, and I will tell you that 90-plus percent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ringed binder, are black and Hispanic people from Waterbury, Conn., the Bronx and Brooklyn,” LePage said.
O’Leary, the city’s former police chief, said the availability of cheap heroin laced with fentanyl, an anesthetic, is a public health crisis and a challenge to law enforcement throughout the U.S.


http://ctmirror.org/2016/08/26/mallo...rities-heroin/

Malloy needs to shut up, or better yet be throw in prison.

[muh_roads]

The increase probably has to do with depression and joblessness.