"Just Say No" Trump offers Plan for Opioid Crisis

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017...s-a-death-trap

In 2016, more Americans died of drug overdoses than were killed in the Vietnam War. The horrific opioid epidemic sweeping the nation has reached its peak under Donald Trump, whose much-hyped announcement Thursday regarding how the administration will deal with the crisis fell somewhat short of expectations. Instead of declaring the epidemic a national disaster, which would’ve unlocked access to billions in FEMA relief funding—the kind of money that experts suggest is needed to address the largest public health crisis in decades—the president declared a nationwide public health emergency. The Public Health Emergency Fund contains just $57,000—a mind-boggling disparity that may be the starkest illustration of the woeful inadequacy of the Trump administration’s plan.

As a whole, the plan carries unmistakable echoes of the “Just Say No,” campaign that was instituted during the War on Drugs in the 1980s, but which had no discernible impact. As Trump put it, it will rely on “really tough, really big, really great advertising” aimed at dissuading Americans from using opioids at all. “This was an idea that I had, where if we can teach young people not to take drugs, it’s really, really easy not to take them,” [the president said], referencing the way his late alcoholic brother, Fred Trump, had implored Trump to never drink. But experts immediately pointed out that opioid addiction—which often begins with a doctor prescribing painkillers to patients—would not be effectively addressed by ads. “I can tell you, my son did not decide that he wanted to become addicted, much less die,” Jim Hood, a founder and C.E.O. of Facing Addiction, told The New York Times.

To the objections even of those on the president’s opioid commission, who had pushed Trump to declare a national disaster, the rest of Trump’s plan is shot through with the conservative-leaning politics of personal responsibility. While the plan emphasizes training for federally funded prescribers and an expansion of telemedicine services to underserved rural communities, it does not expand health-insurance coverage or increase federal funding for medication-assistant treatment (MAT) plans.

If anything, the White House’s broader budget priorities would actually make the opioid crisis worse. Currently, Medicaid pays for roughly half the costs of addiction treatment in states where the opioid crisis has landed the hardest, yet Medicaid is often the first thing Republicans slash when they begin looking for subsidies to cut. Trump himself recently cut cost-sharing reduction subsidies that were aimed at helping low-income Americans—many of them his own voters—afford out-of-pocket medical payments. And while Trump said Thursday that he would suspend a rule preventing Medicaid funds from being used at drug rehabilitations centers, current Republican plans to repeal and replace Obamacare, put forward by the House and Senate, would cut Medicaid by about $800 billion.

Ironically, it will be Trump’s own voter base that suffers from his shortsightedness. Studies have found that people who voted for Trump live in areas that have been hit particularly hard by the crisis: rural America, the Rust Belt, and places in the South that straddle the two. In fact, the two are so closely correlated that Shannon Monnat, an assistant professor at Penn State University, told NPR that places where Trump performed more strongly on election night than expected were states that “have seen major upticks in drug overdoses and other deaths of despair over the past decade.”

[RJB]

Just say no has a lot to work against.

[Zippyjuan]

Countries which have legalized drugs and seen reductions in use- like Portugal- required people caught using them go to mandatory treatment. Trump offers no money for any treatment. "Just say no" doesn't work. It was tried. (Personal use in Portugal is not a crime but selling will send you to jail).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-10301780.html

Portugal decriminalised drugs 14 years ago – and now hardly anyone dies from overdosing

Portugal decriminalised the use of all drugs in 2001. Weed, cocaine, heroin, you name it — Portugal decided to treat possession and use of small quantities of these drugs as a public health issue, not a criminal one. The drugs were still illegal, of course. But now getting caught with them meant a small fine and referral to a treatment program — not jail time and a criminal record.

Among Portuguese adults, there are 3 drug overdose deaths for every 1,000,000 citizens. Comparable numbers in other countries range from 10.2 per million in the Netherlands to 44.6 per million in the UK, all the way up to 126.8 per million in Estonia. The EU average is 17.3 per million.

Perhaps more significantly, the report notes that the use of "legal highs" – like so-called "synthetic" marijuana, "bath salts" and the like – is lower in Portugal than in any of the other countries for which reliable data exists. This makes a lot of intuitive sense: why bother with fake weed or dangerous designer drugs when you can get the real stuff? This is arguably a positive development for public health in the sense that many of the designer drugs that people develop to skirt existing drug laws have terrible and often deadly side effects.

Drug use and drug deaths are complicated phenomena. They have many underlying causes. Portugal's low death rate can't be attributable solely to decriminalisation. As Dr. Joao Goulao, the architect of the country's decriminalization policy, has said, "it's very difficult to identify a causal link between decriminalisation by itself and the positive tendencies we have seen."

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallel...ue-not-a-crime

Under the 2001 decriminalization law, authored by Goulão, drug dealers are still sent to prison. But anyone caught with less than a 10-day supply of any drug — including heroin — gets mandatory medical treatment. No judge, no courtroom, no jail.

Instead they end up in a sparsely furnished, discreet, unmarked office in downtown Lisbon, for counseling with government sociologists, who decide whether to refer them to drug treatment centers.

"It's cheaper to treat people than to incarcerate them," says sociologist Nuno Capaz. "If I come across someone who wants my help, I'm in a much better position to provide it than a judge would ever be. Simple as that.

Every day, a government van pulls up and gives him a dose of methadone, an opioid that helps wean people off of heroin. It's a step toward harm-reduction. He still does cocaine, but no longer shoots up.

Drug-related HIV infections in Portugal have dropped 95 percent.

Drug workers hand out packets with clean needles and condoms and listen to another addict, Antonio, describe his anxiety.

"If the drugs hurt too much my body, I escape a little, and then I come back again," he says. "But it's a world I cannot escape! If I turn there, it's there — it's everywhere. I cannot escape."

For every person in Portugal who cannot escape addiction, there's daily methadone, counseling and free treatment. A generation ago, these addicts were put in jail. Now they're on the street.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017...s-a-death-trap

So Zip, you're reading girl periodicals now and quoting them here?

What's next? Foreign policy from O Magazine?

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Did anybody check the links of this pop culture article? The sources are just links to other pop culture articles. It cites sources like Vox and The New York Times.

The woman author's LinkedIn accounts say this about one of her job descriptions:

Editor at Mediaite
Abrams Media
December 2013 – June 2015 (1 year 7 months)Greater New York City Area

I cover politics, current events (domestic and global), the media, fools and trolls. Sometimes I analyze them. Often I mock them.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-nguyen-956bb11a




This is what passes for serious discussion and analysis? Sounds like a thread for The Vent.

[angelatc]

This type of substance abuse is what happens when you take jobs away. These people have nothing: nothing to look forward to, nothing to do and nothing to lose.

If Zippy is to be believed the jobs aren't coming back, either. So it makes total sense to pour a bunch of money nobody has into the substance abuse industry, so they can get rich too.

[Zippyjuan]

Did anybody check the links of this pop culture article? The sources are just links to other pop culture articles. It cites sources like Vox and The New York Times.

The woman author's LinkedIn accounts say this about one of her job descriptions:

Editor at Mediaite
Abrams Media
December 2013 – June 2015 (1 year 7 months)Greater New York City Area

I cover politics, current events (domestic and global), the media, fools and trolls. Sometimes I analyze them. Often I mock them.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-nguyen-956bb11a




This is what passes for serious discussion and analysis? Sounds like a thread for The Vent.

Perhaps you can discuss the content with us then?

Is there a problem? What should the solution be? Is there a free-market solution?

Building a border wall hasn't helped. More police hasn't done much. Putting people in jail for drugs isn't helping. Just fills up the jails. "Just say no" doesn't work. Billions of taxpayer dollars spent with no real results. Success has only been seen with programs like Portugal's which involves mandatory treatments to help people stop abusing drugs.

[devil21]

Presidents sure do like declaring national emergencies. Funny timing on when it became a thing...

From wiki:

Starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, presidents asserted the power to declare emergencies without limiting their scope or duration, without citing the relevant statutes, and without congressional oversight.[2] The Supreme Court in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer limited what a president could do in such an emergency, but did not limit the emergency declaration power itself. A 1973 Senate investigation found (in Senate Report 93-549) that four declared emergencies remained in effect: the 1933 banking crisis with respect to the hoarding of gold,[3] a 1950 emergency with respect to the Korean War,[4] a 1970 emergency regarding a postal workers strike, and a 1971 emergency in response to inflation.[5]

[parocks]

It seems like Trump is sht on this issue.

Trump seems to following retard policy.

Most drug overdoses these days are Fentanyl related. Heroin junkies want heroin, can't buy uncut heroin legally, they buy heroin laced with Fentanyl from street dealers and die.

And Trumps response to all this is pure sht.

[Zippyjuan]

Presidents sure do like declaring national emergencies. Funny timing on when it became a thing...

From wiki:

Trump declared it a "crisis" but not an "emergency". Small semantic difference but in terms of the government, if it was an "emergency" they would have to spend more money on it. As a "crisis" they only have to talk about it and pretend they are doing something.

[dannno]

Trump declared it a "crisis" but not an "emergency". Small semantic difference but in terms of the government, if it was an "emergency" they would have to spend more money on it. As a "crisis" they only have to talk about it and pretend they are doing something.

Would you rather they spent more money and "did something" ?

[Zippyjuan]

Would you rather they spent more money and "did something" ?

If they changed what they spend the money on, they could be spending considerably less and actually deal with the problem. Spending money for the sake of spending money won't help. This was just political theater.

[Ender]

Perhaps you can discuss the content with us then?

Is there a problem? What should the solution be? Is there a free-market solution?

Building a border wall hasn't helped. More police hasn't done much. Putting people in jail for drugs isn't helping. Just fills up the jails. "Just say no" doesn't work. Billions of taxpayer dollars spent with no real results. Success has only been seen with programs like Portugal's which involves mandatory treatments to help people stop abusing drugs.

Yep.

Get rid of the WoD-

THAT's the only answer.

[Danke]

Perhaps you can discuss the content with us then?

Is there a problem? What should the solution be? Is there a free-market solution?

Building a border wall hasn't helped.More police hasn't done much. Putting people in jail for drugs isn't helping. Just fills up the jails. "Just say no" doesn't work. Billions of taxpayer dollars spent with no real results. Success has only been seen with programs like Portugal's which involves mandatory treatments to help people stop abusing drugs.

Give the wall more time...

[Swordsmyth]

If they changed what they spend the money on, they could be spending considerably less and actually deal with the problem. Spending money for the sake of spending money won't help. This was just political theater.

The problem is government, they destroy lives and opportunities, reduce government in all aspects of life and drug use will plummet, we don't want them doing anything more, we want them doing less.

[Zippyjuan]

Give the wall more time...

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/07/18...rder-security/

U.S.-Mexico Drug Tunnels Evolving Amid Increased Border Security

Under the corrugated steel plates that divide the U.S. and Mexico in Otay Mesa, dozens of clandestine cross-border tunnels slash through the soil.

As President Trump looks to build new barriers along the border, criminal organizations in Mexico are improving the tunnels they use to smuggle people and drugs under the border fence — making them smaller and maintaining a high level of sophistication, featuring electricity and railways.

Smuggling tunnels vary in shape and size, but generally fall under one of these three categories, according to U.S. Border Patrol:

Rudimentary tunnels, or “gopher holes,” are cheaply made and stretch short distances, maybe 50 feet. They are used to smuggle humans or small quantities of drugs under the border.

Interconnecting tunnels exploit existing municipal infrastructure, linking up with storm drains and sewer lines. They are used to smuggle humans and drugs under the border.

Sophisticated tunnels can stretch for long distances (the longest ever found was equivalent to the length of eight football fields) and are often equipped with lighting, electricity, ventilation, water pumps, railways and more. They are used to move large volumes of drugs under the border.

In San Diego, tunnels are usually sophisticated, partly because of the highly organized criminal organization operating in Baja California — the Sinaloa Cartel — as well as the characteristics of Otay Mesa, a neighborhood that exists on both sides of the border. In the U.S. and in Mexico, Otay Mesa is crowded with warehouses, providing numerous spaces to hide tunnel entry and exit points.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, in the past three decades, 29 of the 62 sophisticated tunnels that have been found along the U.S.-Mexico border were in the San Diego sector. Meanwhile, of the 197 total tunnels discovered along the border, 62 were in the San Diego sector. These figures exclude about 100 unfinished tunnels found on the Mexican side of the border.

Drug tunnels began to proliferate in response to increased border security, particularly border fence construction launched in the 1990s, according to U.S. and Mexican researchers.

“The more sophisticated our border infrastructure has become, the more the smugglers have upped their game,” said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

Shirk said cartels are going as far as consulting with top engineers in Europe to perfect their tunnel architecture.

Supposedly the new wall is going to be tunnel resistant. Yeah, right.

"Show me a 30 foot wall and I will find a guy with a 32 foot ladder or a shovel".

[devil21]

Trump declared it a "crisis" but not an "emergency". Small semantic difference but in terms of the government, if it was an "emergency" they would have to spend more money on it. As a "crisis" they only have to talk about it and pretend they are doing something.

Hmm....all of the media outlets are calling it a "national health emergency".

So one can surmise that we have been under a constant state of national emergency since 1933. If I didn't know better, I'd think declaring national emergency after national emergency would mean the country has been under martial law since at least 1933

[Danke]

Netanyahu lauds world first in being able to detect tunnels

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netany...nel-detection/

[devil21]

And of course the 800lb gorilla in the room

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Perhaps you can discuss the content with us then?

"Us."

Who is exactly is "us?" And why am I discussing these things with you? What is your purpose in posting the article?

[Zippyjuan]

"Us."

Who is exactly is "us?" And why am I discussing these things with you? What is your purpose in posting the article?

Interesting take on the topic. Care to elaborate?

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Care to elaborate?

Elaborate on what? The question I asked you?

[otherone]

When you turn to government for a solution to a government-created problem, you get a government solution. Medicaid created this epidemic. Medicaid can't fix it.

[enhanced_deficit]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017...s-a-death-trap

Seemslike he is doing more than "Just Say No:

Drug company founder indicted in U.S.-wide opioid conspiracy

Anti-marijuana campaign's biggest donor? Chandler pharma company

A Chandler pharmaceutical company made a $500,000 donation to the campaign opposing the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, making it the largest funder of the effort to defeat Proposition 205.INSYS Therapeutics Inc. makes a fast-acting form of fentanyl that is sprayed under the tongue, and "may provide pain relief in as little as 5 minutes," according to its website. INSYS also touts on its website a "capability to develop pharmaceutical cannabinoids," the active components of the marijuana plant.

In a statement, Insys Therapeutics said it opposes Prop. 205 "because it fails to protect the safety of Arizona’s citizens, and particularly its children."

Related

US tax dollars at work: Top Afghan General Caught Transporting Heroin in Truck

US War In Afghanistan Is Fueling Global Heroin Epidemic & Enabling The Drug Trade

Ironically, it was the U.S. mission to obliterate the Taliban in the “War on Terror” that turned Afghanistan into a “narco state.”

Prior to the War in Afghanistan, the Taliban actually offered subsidies to farmers to grow food crops not drugs.
In the summer of 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar announced a total ban on the cultivation of opium poppy, the plant from which heroin is made. Those caught planting poppies in Taliban-controlled parts of the country were beaten and marched through villages with motor oil on their faces.

The only opium harvest the following spring was in the northeast, in an area controlled by the Taliban’s rivals, the Northern Alliance. That year, as Matthieu Aikins reported for Rolling Stone in 2012, “Opium production fell from an estimated 3,276 tons in 2000 to 185 tons in 2001.”


Corporal Mark Hickok, a 23-year-old combat engineer from North Olmstead, Ohio, patrols through a poppy field during a clearing mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. John M. McCall)

[Brian4Liberty]

Countries which have legalized drugs and seen reductions in use- like Portugal- required people caught using them go to mandatory treatment. Trump offers no money for any treatment. "Just say no" doesn't work. It was tried. (Personal use in Portugal is not a crime but selling will send you to jail).

It's "legal", but if you do it and they catch you, they force you to go into treatment? That doesn't sound "legal" to me.

[Brian4Liberty]

This type of substance abuse is what happens when you take jobs away. These people have nothing: nothing to look forward to, nothing to do and nothing to lose.

Agree. This is very much jobs related. No jobs equal more substance abuse. Applies to those laid off as well as those perpetually on welfare.

It seems like Trump is sht on this issue.

Trump seems to following retard policy.

Most drug overdoses these days are Fentanyl related. Heroin junkies want heroin, can't buy uncut heroin legally, they buy heroin laced with Fentanyl from street dealers and die.

And Trumps response to all this is pure sht.

Agree with the fact that more decriminlization would take the trade out of the hands of criminals and increase safety. A lot of the synthetic poisons are coming from China, and nothing is done to stop that.

I have nothing against a "just say no" statement from politicians and health professionals, as well as providing realistic educational resources. Most parents would like that. It doesn't cost anything, or very little, and it's better than checkpoints and SWAT teams kicking in doors.

But as Angela said, the jobs problem is the most important factor to address.

And money to treat addicted bums in the street (and take them off the street) is unfortunately required too. But I wouldn't trust Pelosi to spend or administer such funds.

[Zippyjuan]

It's "legal", but if you do it and they catch you, they force you to go into treatment? That doesn't sound "legal" to me.

Legal as in you aren't arrested and sent to jail. You go to "drug court" instead. They have outreach programs on the streets too to try to help people get off them. The program has been effective in significantly reducing the drug problem there. Our system of jailing people with even tiny amounts hasn't. What it has done is expand the police state.

Mises:

The “grand experiment” seems to be the result of two factors. The first is that Portugal is a relatively poor European country and was unable to fight the war on drugs on every front.

The second factor is that the commission was relatively non-partisan and simply adopted the common sense notion that drug abuse and addiction are not criminal problems for the police to solve. Drug abuse and addiction are medical and psychological problems that are better solved by the individual with the help of professionals and social pressures.

Baby Steps Away from the Drug War

Decriminalization is just one baby step away from the war on drugs, and drug smugglers and dealers are still sought out and punished. Individuals are only permitted to possess very small amounts of illegal drugs without being punished as a dealer. Under current laws, you can still be arrested and sent to counselors, but you do not face imprisonment unless you are an uncooperative multiple offender.

While certainly not ideal, decriminalization has straightforward benefits over complete prohibition. First, otherwise law-abiding citizens will not be criminalized for possessing illegal drugs. Second, drug addicts will be more likely to seek professional help when government treats addiction as a medical rather than criminal problem. Third, the police will have more resources to address real crimes and possibly to provide subsidies for drug treatment programs. Fourth, drug addicts will turn away from dangerous synthetic drug substitutes and turn more to the natural illegal drugs like marijuana and cocaine. Fifth, if needles are legal too, then you should see fewer cases of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. Sixth, junkie ghettos will shrink in size and visibility. In sum, decriminalization should result in fewer people dying and being sent to prison and more people living “normal” lives.

[jkr]

PORTUGAL

[phill4paul]

Give the wall more time...

As a military history enthusiast I can tell you a physical wall don't mean $#@!. Sappers have been at work since the first one was built.

[Brian4Liberty]

Legal as in you aren't arrested and sent to jail. You go to "drug court" instead. They have outreach programs on the streets too to try to help people get off them. The program has been effective in significantly reducing the drug problem there. Our system of jailing people with even tiny amounts hasn't. What it has done is expand the police state.

Mises:

So, not really "legal" or decriminalized. Big Mother will take care of everyone...

It's still too much government. If people want to use a certain drug and can do so responsibly without harassing others, there is no need for treatment or "drug court".