Every week, more than a dozen U.S. teenagers lose their lives to fentanyl. James Fishback reports on the unwitting victims—and the parents they’ve left behind.
If we had a country that was shelling and killing 7500 American kids per month, there would be a no holds barred, scorched earth campaign against them. But there isn't.
Citizens are literally begging their political leaders to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs that are now flowing across our borders at record levels.
To add insult to injury, this is being facilitated with the help of the United Nations, and dozens of US based NGO's (many backed by the US government) and religious organizations. IMO, these organizations leaders and staff are complicit and should be criminally prosecuted.
Meanwhile the current administration is asking us to send 80 billion more to Ukraine to protect their kids instead. This would be added to the 120 billion sent 18 months ago. That's almost 10 times the amount of funding our government spends to protect our own borders.
Its clear that our political leaders hate us. Individuals will take a lot of abuse, but when it comes to murdering our children, society and the people must hold the ground and provide no quarter. Something has to give.
I don't know folks......but it feels like its almost time.
5 years ago in Davis, CA, I went out to dinner late with a colleague after spending a few hours at a kava bar. We walked 3 blocks. In that distance there were 5 college age kids down on the sidewalk. Each with an ambulance team. I approached one team who told me they'd given 5 doses of narcan. The kid was still, not visibly breathing.
I asked if how often this happened. The EMT looked at me like I was crazy. "All night. Every night." They had been carting ODs off for hours. It was a bit after 11 pm.
So I looked for news reports about. It the next day. Looked for police reports. Nothing. Not a single word.
I asked a friend about why. She said, "University and city don't want parents thinking their child isn't safe here."
I had the same experience years before after interrupting a kidnap attempt at 7:30 am on a Sunday morning. (I pursued the Honda Element with blacked out windows at almost 100 mph. But the license plate was stolen. I had 2 women in the car. So we went back to the victim who was terrified.) University police chief wouldn't put out a notice. Local papers wouldn't report it.
Davis has a reputation to protect. And the small town papers survive by not angering powerful locals. UC Davis, for instance has a yearly budget larger than the GDPs of 40 nations.
In my parents day they called it "A confederacy of dunces." It's mostly well meaning. The Davis police chief knows which side of his bread is buttered. So do others.
I went to UCD in the 70s.. Sleepy Ag school consisting of farm kids and kids desperate to get into the one Vet school on the West coast. Kids studied. There was weed, but I was never aware of anything stronger.
I just googled UC Davis drug overdose and immediately got an entry from the official UC Davis health organization, health.ucdavis.edu, advocating that everyone everyone should carry Narcan or whatever it is. It is official, everyone in California should carry In case you overdose or come across someone who has. God save America.
The left sobs crocodile tears about to civilian deaths in Gaza but you never hear them decry the fentanyl deaths of US citizens due to the border negligence of the Biden Admin. It is not just negligence. It is criminal. They lie about it by claiming the border is secure but it wouldn't be this open if it weren't for the criminal support of the ever senile Joe and his minions.
Where are the university and street protests to close down the border and stop the fentanyl slaughter of US citizens?
Pills are not proven to be coming over on asylum seekers, Lonsesome. It sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think - to allow yourself to be stopped by Border Patrol to ask for asylum - and have a few hundred fentanyl tablets on you? It's coming over concealed. Over seventy thousand Americans died in 2019 due to this scourge. That is under Trump. This is an American failure belonging to all politicians, of all stripes - it is criminal negligence belonging to this government no matter who leads it. Yes, Joe is senile. Yes, Trump is a narcissistic idiot. And they both deserve shame - for it is on their collective watch these numbers have soared.
Asylum seekers are not coming over at border checkpoints. They’re crossing elsewhere and then when on our soil wait to be picked up. They’re not the ones with fentanyl. Don’t confuse illegals who hide with asylum seekers who want to be found.
Yes - we should devise strategies to attack the cartels, absolutely. They are involved in both fentanyl and asylum trafficking - though it is hard to say which cartel is doing what. However this gets done, Mexico has to get on board - and good luck with that.
How would you tackle the problem though? Education in schools seems a pretty good start. More arrests and sentencing of drug dealers? Special forces sent to Mexico to destroy the cartel trade (these are very nasty people, you better not f around if that's your mission). All of the above?
It’s not “as if”. They are totally, openly destroying our country. If Hunter Biden died from fentanyl I bet there’d be some democrat support. It is a partisan issue. Trump shut the border down like no one else before and if you care about this fentanyl problem you should support putting the people back in charge who will really DO something about it.
It’s not about whether you like DJT or not, it’s about saving Americas youth.
And what does that say about the voters who continually elect (and re-elect) the same corrupt sociopaths year after year? Elected officials are supposed to be accountable to the people, but what happens when the people can't be bothered to even pay attention? Meanwhile the big money interests continually have their needs attended to.
I grew up on the outskirts of WDC and saw the citizens there re-elect Marion Barry year after year. He was caught in scandal after scandal and they just voted to keep him in power. There were many times where a more competent black American would run against him yet they never cared to try another leader. It was baffling but not terribly unusual.
My parents told me that the same phenomena occurred in Chicago with Daly. Look at Ca re-electing Newsome in the recall. Like WTF?
There is a limit to how much government can do, even a perfect and well-intentioned one which we don't have. And democracy creates perverse incentives since most politicians want to gain and retain power and so must do what pleases voters.
All you can do is raise your kids to be wise and work for changes in politics and culture toward what you think are best policies.
This is not directed to you Evans W. This is for all the readers, please watch Mark Levin on Fox, Sat. and Sun. at 8 pm and read his book The Democrat Party Hates America. This fentanyl problem is on Biden and his administration.
Thanks......I'll check it out. The fentanyl problem is not JUST a democrat problem as it was raging during the Trump administration too, but your point is not lost on me. Democrats definitely are much much more complicit in what's going on right now at the border and in blue cities. My wife and I returned from a weekend trip to Philly last night. I'd not been there in over 15 years. We were both shocked at the decline. The place is a literal shithole.
I just got back from a in-and-out trip to San Jose. When I was younger I loved California, but it is unrecognizable now. Filthy doesn't begin to describe conditions there; as I crossed the border back into Nevada I reflected that a successful trip into Mexifornia consisted largely of not stepping in anything.
It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to recognize that all these failing cities - and failing states - have one thing in common.
As strange as it may be to believe, this has all happened before and we made it just fine. My kids are freaking out, so I share:
Ever hear of Travis Bickle? The NYC of my youth was much worse.
Ever read about the 68 DNC convention? Daley's thugs clubbing the crap outta everyone on camera.
Miscagention laws still existed.
LSD, Speed, Barbs - Stones called them mothers little helpers' - were mostly LEGAL and available OTC (not LSD, it was mostly free).
Active duty - not Guard - troops in US cities.
And like then, young folks believed whatever their peers told them over the adults because 'you can't trust the man'.
Oh, and a little war in Indochina...
So I tell them to calm down, this too shall pass. It could be much worse. At least there isn't any serious nuke sabre rattling between US/RUS these days. I thought we were done for in the mid-80s for a while - then the USSR collapsed.
I'm afraid that you are sadly mistaken. While the 60's and 70's had problems, the fentanyl poisoning of the country, rampant illegal immigration and purposeful installation of progressive DA's determined to undermine the rule of law are part of a plan to overwhelm our system as we know it. We are seeing Cloward-Piven in action as China works with the useful idiots to destroy America from within.
NYC in the 70's was rough, but got cleaned up. Today, the majority of the City Council from the Democrat Socialists of America; their charter seeks to destroy the capitalist system. They have stood in the way of any reform needed - there are almost no ramifications for criminal actions at this point. The drugs available then were mostly as advertised, not Fentanyl. As a matter of fact, the weed was about a quarter as potent as it is now. The Black Lives Matter protests full of Antifa made Daley's Chicago look like pikers as they burned cities throughout the country. At least Daley tried to stop the riots, unlike contemporary mayors who felt the need to "give them space to destroy". Then the dementia riddled occupant of the white house and whoever is actually running things (Obama?) allowing Mitch McConnell and military industrial complex to start wars up as soon as Trump was gone. Yeah, I think we have a problem that is on a scale far larger than the 70's.
If I were to choose one word to describe the reason for our country’s gradual decline, it would be ignorance. Sometimes it’s willful, but I believe before it reaches that stage there’s an opportunity for enlightenment. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity has been slowly closing in my lifetime.
Many of our children are being poisoned by fentanyl, but I’d argue that’s the last stage of their death. Beginning with kindergarten, they are continually bombarded with dystopian decrees – “the world is going to end in 10 years if we don’t stop utilizing fossil fuels”, “your daddy can become your mommy”, “if you have the wrong skin tone, you’re an incurable racist”, “if you’re another skin tone, you’re doomed to oppression…” We’ve entrusted our children to twisted people determined to undermine family structure and crush the innate inquisitiveness they are born with, lest their evil intent be recognized.
There is no doubt that more can be done to stop the flow of fentanyl across our border, but it’s painfully obvious that Biden and corporate flunkies of both parties in congress aren’t interested. We’ve witnessed their true priorities, as well as the extreme injustices they can inflict on anyone daring to effectuate priorities contrary to their own. Our children are our future. As a society we’ve entrusted them to those intending to do them harm. Unless parents regain control of what they’re taught, and not taught, they’ll be susceptible not only to fentanyl, but the many other scourges evil people want to inflict upon them.
Ah yes T247. "They need space to destroy" -- the damnable words uttered by the former mayor of Baltimore during the Freddie Gray riots -- are the Left's mantra, invoked every time civilization seeks to defend itself against those who would reduce it to rubble.
There are some differences. Those drugs of the 60's were not as dangerous as today. And these children, as the author says, did not od. They were poisoned.
The Viet Nam war started out long before the 60's with good intent. The '68 DNC convention was an escalation of civil & political unrest.
But the situation at the border was brought on by Biden, who refuses to address and fix it. Unlike circumstances in the 60's, we're completely doing this to ourselves.
The USSR may have collapsed but Russia is still there, has formed an alliance with China and Iran, and is reportedly taking it to space. No saber rattling at all. Good times.
I couldn’t tell if he was being tongue in cheek when he said that! It feels a lot like deja vu all over again, which also isn’t comforting because you’d think we would learn from the past, not repeat it?
Don’t forget their other BFF, North Korea. At some point, if you’re an isolationist and believe America should withdraw from involving itself in the world, you need to ask yourself what a world without the US as number 1 would look like. China will fill that void. And we can’t even tolerate China sending fentanyl our way, can you imagine it replacing us?
I also lived through the nightmare of the 1960s. It was just the beginning, the seeds planted then are bearing fruit now. It seems like things can't get much worse.
Well, what do you expect of a country that can’t tell shit from Shinola, one that expects greatness from a President who was trained by the leader of the Weathermen, whose spiritual leader was a pastor who was most famous for telling his flock, “ God bless America? No - GODDAMN AMERICA!!!”
When problems get fixed, a good plan is to make sure they stay fixed. If the problems recur, the question is: who or what broke this again? And then make sure that those responsible never get near the levers of power again.
We're of the same generation. I'd love to believe as you do...that the American people are smart and eventually a Ronald Reagan style leader will emerge and we'll get things back to normal. But, I don't think it's going to happen again. This time, unlike the '60's and '70's, the major corporations have thrown in and endorse the cultural rot. Even in the '60's major corporations wouldn't have censored information as a course of doing business, nor would they have joined hands with the CCP to make money. Now, they do.
Think again. We have never been closer to nuclear annihilation. We have ground down Russias army using Ukraine. Russia is now left with nothing but the largest ICBM arsenal on the planet. And Russia is the only nation prepared for nuclear war.
And we have stupid children like Nuland and Blinken who have no idea what war really is.
Btw: speed (the pharmaceutical kind) was never OTC. Barbiturates and opiates weren’t either. There was a lot of crime but not tent cities in urban parks and streets or feces strewn sidewalks. Those are new phenomena in America.
There was lots of LSD. Did my share but it wasn’t free. Those mothers little helpers were handed out like candy by doctors who were trained to do so. They’re still trained to medicate problems away but the medications are different.
In Europe Valium is OTC as well as a few other drugs we need an RX for here. I think that the medical community and the government would make ibuprofen RX only if they could. I actually heard someone propose that last year.
Maybe you’re not paying attention but there is nuke saber rattling. There were idiots in DC commenting that it’s an option with Russia just last year and they’ve like wise made overt threats themselves. We have never been closer to nuclear war.
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. There was a drug problem but nothing like it is now. Not even close. While we might survive as a nation, millions of our citizens will not. That is the point.
Jim, Californian here. What has happened to our state's cities is both heartbreaking and an outrage. When I moved to SoCal from NYC in the 1970's there was a huge sense of pride in the cleanliness of the streets. Few homeless, quality public schools, a sense of newness and optimism compared to the blighted NYC I had left. How times have changed and voters in the big cities here have stupidly brought all the destruction upon us. We are a completely Democrat run state with the exception of some small areas away from the large population centers of LA, SF, SD and Sacramento.
California still has so much natural beauty and so many positive features that we stay here but we avoid going into LA unless we must.
If any fault attaches to Californians themselves, it is their credulity and naïveté in electing these goobers who are destroying what I have always believed is the prettiest and friendliest state in the nation.
100%. And it's the rest of us here who have to deal with their cluelessness. Although some are beginning to wake up - not fun to find someone camping out in front of your small business.
You’re right. Both parties have failed to do what’s necessary to end this problem. Declare war on the cartels and wipe them off the map. SOCOM could do it in a weekend if they were turned loose in Mexico. They want the problem to campaign and fundraise off of. They’re all complicit.
Except they are no longer located in Mexico. They are fully operational in the US and have divided it up into distinct territories. I am convinced some of the DAs are compromised and probably other gover ment officials as well. Mexico has demanded a US investigation into why their forces are encountering US military grade weapons (including rocket launchers) in the hands of the cartels that are still there. You can't buy those at gun shows in Texas. Exactly how bad was Fast and Furious?
Again. Accept that illegal cartel drug cash spends in D.C. just like "legal" cash and you'll sleep better. Remember the journalist Gary Webb, Oliver North, Freeway Ricky Ross and the CIA pumping drugs into poor communities en masse? Gary is dead for uncovering it. The rest of the gang on to glory, adventure and whatever's next.
They are here but their command and control and labs are still in Mexico. If you cut the head of the snake the rest of them will scramble to fill the power vacuum and if they’re over here, and we actually take the gloves off, it won’t take long to smash them. Here or there if we wanted to crush them we could do it and do it quickly. My point stands.
I would have thought that too even a short five years ago. I am not convinced now. I suspect the leadership is living the good life in South Beach, Yarrow Point and upper crust enclaves between. The Hamas model if you will.
When my kids were little 19 years ago- we lived in Wilmington, De- and used to go to Baltimore often . Just me and the kids in the minivan driving down 95 to the zoo or museums or aquarium for a day trip. It was fine. My friend who still lives in DE and had to got there for swim meets said it’s literally disgusting and I’d never go now. What a shame
One of my customers owns a janitorial business and has contracts with some downtown Baltimore office buildings. I asked him what it was like down there since I hadn't been in several years. He replied "It's the wild west. Homeless are everywhere and the police aren't doing anything to stop crime."
Drive down Kensington passed K&A? Democrats policies helped advance problems and Republicans seems to mostly care about photo opps. Gov has failed.
I’m sorry your visit to Philly was so terrible. I was also there and walked around 8 miles Saturday. There are plenty of very lovely places to explore.
You nailed it Dems caused the problem and the GOP is eithert too lazy or too stupid to challenge the Dems on the problem.
This is a golden opportunity for the GOP to run ads showing the degeneration of our once great cities and challenge the Commy/Dem thugs on what they have done to our country.
But the truth is, both parties suck. It is criminal negligence and a lack of due diligence.
The GOP’s focus is fixed on fetuses despite their screeching about the real issues we all see every day. As long as they are fixated on an issue that should not even be political (women’s health care) they will continue to lose elections.
Evans, kids are dying in states not blue, too. Yeah, you may say that 'progressive' cities are shitholes, Trump said the same about Africa - but less visibly and more quietly, the majority of deaths are in the Corn Belt, the Plains, and in hamlets in the South. No Dem in sight..And what are local authorities doing there? They're as hapless as the shitholes you mention. This is a national problem. A national emergency. Both parties are to blame. We're too much in the habit in this country, echoed here in all the comments here every single day, in singling out one side or another - usually it's the evil Biden's fault. And if we continue to do that, to stay eternally divided - we have to expect more deaths due to fentanyl as each side attacks the other. We have an Administration doing nothing. We have a GOP run Congress doing even less - because they mutually hate each other. And that hate is echoed here - sorry to say.
Both parties have ignored it. We also can't ignore the economic incentives. Lockdowns forced many people into the underground economy to survive. Those networks remain.
I'm also not sure if all of it is just greed. I know for certain that Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan with the Blind sheik attacked Russia with highly pure heroin distributed there nearly free. The aim was to kill the young men before they can enter military service.
But at least Trump attempted to do something about it. This admin seems to be facilitating it. BIG DIFFERENCE. As with any contra band you’ll never stop all of it but the quantities coming across weekly are enough to kill every teen/young adult in America.
Sorry but this fentanyl crisis has been escalating for years, before Biden, too. No doubt the border crisis is another major hole in this battle but I have seen story after story for years - often the kids are mentioned briefly and then - move on. I’ve read heartbreaking pieces by mothers, especially. It’s a horrendous way to be losing so many kids.
It’s true that it’s been around for years, and likely decades, but it can’t be argued that since Biden took over and millions have crossed into our country illegally, so has fentanyl crossed over. The cartels now control our border…not the USA. This is on Biden and administration as they have no interest in doing anything about it. Harris is the one supposedly in charge, and she is currently on her reproductive healthcare tour (eye roll). This admin is filth. And the republicans are not far behind. Very few leaders care about this country anymore. Heartbreaking to hear these stories.
The "cartel's" control sections of every American city and the cash flows upward. And always has. Imagine a 2000 sq.ft. home every room stacked to the ceiling with cash. Cops to the top that buys a lot of influence and a lot of people looking the other way.
Will someone please refresh my memory? Which recent president attempted to get control of the border but was blocked and relentlessly attacked as racist by which political party?
Not sure I understand what you are getting at - if you are responding to my comment(s), looks like you are - the issue with this drug is NOT solely a border issue - the drugs are in the country and have been circulating for years and years. As I said in my comment, the border crisis is a disaster - and no doubt contributing, but the problem has been here a long time and like any other issue, until the SPECIFIC issue is highlighted (how potent the drug is, how little it takes, who is gettting their hands and why), there won’t be a targeted solution, until that mantle is up, as a priority. Sadly there are many priorities but that’s why pieces like this are so valuable - so people really get it.
But you can’t fix the fentanyl problem without shutting the border. Otherwise you’re bailing out of one end of the boat while the other end is taking on more water.
Right - but again, until people are aware of how dangerous and how much of a crisis this is - and how and why it kills so easily, a TARGETED solution, (not just controlling the border, which again I have said is an issue) to the crisis that is already here, isn’t possible. These drugs will get in no matter what and highlighting how deadly this is, like this piece, IS part of the solution, at least a step. Things get prioritized once people really get how dangerous it is.
Remember that there is also a northern border which is a lot less surveilled than our southern. And two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. Drug deaths are the symptom not the disease. It's time to get clean and our shock at the filth emanating from the hog trough on the Potomac won't wash it off. It's a one person at a time wake up and a brand new American national dialogue.
Have you heard this administration talk about fentanyl? I’ve hardly heard the word come out of Biden’s mouth (off topic, in a similar way he has not once talked about the murders of Americans by illegals)…but it became part of Trump's message before his term ended. He talked about how it was killing our kids. I often have to remind myself that he didn’t even have his own party backing him to get things done til late in his term, so he had little help in taking care of this problem.
Linda - sorry, I am NOT defending Biden - and Trump may have acknowledged the issue but a drug issue with something this deadly is not ONLY fixed by border control, although it is necessary, obviously. I’ve left other comments on here so won’t keep repeating myself. You may spot them on other threads.
Agreed...there needs to be a multi-pronged approach leading from the top which most likely will not happen because it would mean actually taking a strong stand against China, the source of the ingredients. This is a serious national security issue. Closing the border is one important step but absolutely not the only one needed .
Thanks for the link!! Most of the grift is convincing the average citizen that they are powerless. Chaos, fear and confusion serves fascist criminal finance. The "border crisis" is just one more turd floating downstream from the morally bankrupt D.C. sewer. Every day "we the people" are confronted by serious social/cultural/financial problems and it is often hard to remember that there are good men and women inside the system mired in the same confusion as ourselves.
My repeated complaint is our seeming blindness to the parallel between the American border crisis and the flooding of Europe with illegals by the same billionaire organized NGO's now attempting to overthrow the free peoples of Europe. And that there is no "hands across the water" empathy between the Europeans fighting the same fascist criminals as ourselves. Likewise the mutual billionaire complicity and shared profitability with human trafficking/drug cartels who serve their interests. It is a trillion dollar industry and illegal cash has always flowed upward. The criminals are international in scope and we should see it that way.
One problem and a place to start might be the realization that the criminal billionaires dismantling Western Civilization are using our tax dollars to do it. Most of the poseur utopian ideologues who serve and man the NGO/DEI faux Marxist machine do so with tax dollars wheedled out of pay to play D.C. politicians by billionaires. Though the RNC is missing in action a hopeful example is the Republican House holding the line against pressure to fund the Ukraine War while demanding a resolution of the border crisis. We should demand total accountability and transparency on all tax dollars spent.
The ones who try are just shredded by the MSM and crony older republicans like McConnell won’t support them. They are slowly being replaced with younger, more driven conservatives but at a snails pace.
Bull, Mr. Castle. This is an American failure belonging to everyone. In 2019 over 70000 people in this country died due to fentanyl. Under which President was that?
Just as bad, perhaps, as the man he replaced? You blame Biden for not fixing a problem he inherited, okay - yet the Administration where it came from you do not condemn?
The CCP is exacting vengeance for the opium wars. They partner with the drug cartels to distribute fentanyl that kills Americans. The Biden regime does nothing to stop them because it is owned by the CCP and cartels. Bootlicking MSM ignores these crimes because they are fully compromised.
Yuri......I'm more convinced than ever that many American politicians are now in bed with the cartels. There is no other explanation that can pass the laugh test for what is going on.
Well last week I read an article about how the US wont investigate the shady shenanigans of the Mexican president and the cartels because of US/Mexico relations. So they’re good with the Mexican prez being in bed with the cartels?
Mexico (as the U.S.A. may become) is actually five or six cartel controlled "provinces". (The Mexican Federal Government, like that in D.C., is pay to play.) Inside that small militia's arm themselves to keep the cartel's from seizing property, produce and taking lives. Again, considering that cartels control sections of most American cities, that criminal billionaire capital and the CCP (same people) are, with the help of D.C. corruption buying up huge sections of American farmland the end result should be obvious. To understand that in the view of the DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos criminal gang "we the people" aren't actually human beings review the definition for COMMODIFY.
Clearly this admin is. It is complicated. If we just bribed the powers that be more and sent even a fraction of the cash to the Mexican government (or the weapons and a promise of military support) that we’ve spent defending Ukraine they might have the resources to fight the cartels.
The cartels are armed to the teeth and have the resources to obtain state of the art military weaponry. They took over and repelled Mexican authorities in some smaller city in the last year or so.
Invading and taking military action would be an international incident.
I’m not sure if fentanyl is affecting other countries but America isn’t the only country with a drug problem. If it’s not a problem elsewhere than I think it’s proof that the CCP is just targeting America, something I believe to be true anyway. Xi is a bad man who would love to see us in ruins. With this admin we’re closer by the day.
Evan - I think we all need to accept that ultimately it is voters that keep putting these establishment politicians back into office. While their motives may be hidden at times, their action (or lack of it) is on display for anyone that is paying attention. Unfortunately too many people are not paying attention.
Ppl with college degrees went through institutions that indoctrinated them. Unless you are over 50 and/or didn’t get this brainwashing through education or liberal/leftist parents, you can see this nonsense for what it is.
The highjacking of the American mind has been going on since the 70’s. Now all the teachers of grade schools have been converted. That’s why they are indoctrinating children voraciously and want parents silenced. The DNC is all for it but liberal parents (liberals of old) are crying foul and are alarmed now too. Funny how those same recently awakened (not “woke”) people just can’t accept that their party in general is responsible and has fostered this for decades. This is the fruit of it all we are seeing.
I agree. One quibble though. That new $80,000,000 is not to protect Ukraine's kids. I do not know what it is for but it is not to protect Ukraine's kids. The way to do that is to negotiate a peace and reportedly this administration has been against that from the get-go. Which is consistent with the idea that it provoked the war.
The foreign-bad-actor and national security angle is an important part of the story, but it's not the whole story. I stopped reading the NY Times after they ran a profile of three privileged and bright young New Yorkers who died from tainted cocaine they had bought through a cocaine delivery service. One of the parents complained that more needed to be done, and that his child couldn't have known her coke was adulterated. What through-the-looking-glass world is this?
Probably not by parents who support legalized marijuana because "equity", or who robotically intone, "The war on drugs doesn't work", or who are too ashamed of their own use that they can't muster the courage to instruct their children. There is something inherently wrong with an environment that provides the best medical care in the world but then sees a youngster think it's an acceptable choice to buy black market drugs for surgical pain. This is a failure of culture that precedes foreign mischief.
I read that article, too. And this story also told of a child buying what he thought was Percocet on Snapchat and young women accepting the same at a party. I lost a former student to Fentanyl when he thought he was taking a natural form of Adderall from a "holistic" source. Illegal knockoffs of real medications so easily purchased only contribute to the poisonings. Part of the problem is the politicalization of pharmaceuticals, part is the cost of medication/greed of big pharma, and part is the illusion that death by toxin only happens to addicts. It's a sad thing. Closing the border may be a start, but we also need to inspect anything coming into the U.S. from China and any countries China "owns" in South and Central America and Africa.
The cartels couldn't make a penny on fentanyl if America didn't have such an insane desire to snort, shoot, and swallow its way through life. But we do, so the cartels oblige us.
Do you see any way we can crash the demand side, Evans? Much as I'd love to drop the big one on the cartels, that's not going to stop the illegal drug trade, someone else would take their place. We have to convince Americans to quit taking this shit. How do we do that?
Shane, I agree with you - aren’t young people told not to take drugs anymore? In the 1970s, we had it drummed into us non-stop. The story of the lovely premed student shocks me, she was already being drugged with Adderall (just a legal drug after all) with her parents’ consent as if that’s just fine. Then there is the 13 year old who already had a dealer for marijuana and knew all about Percocet! The tone of the comments is that it’s fine for everyone to take drugs as long as they aren’t laced with fentanyl - all the government’s fault.
I wondered that as well. When I was 13 I had no idea what Percocet was! It is a terrible tragedy, but the article glosses over the fact that a 13 year old had a drug dealer and knew what to take.
It's worth a separate story, isn't it: why are the children of America taking these powerful narcotics at all? And why is that perfectly okay with too many parents? Do they think this stuff is the ditch weed of their fondly remembered teenage years? It isn't. Even without the fentanyl this stuff is dangerous and should be kept from our kids unless actually needed.
We can't legislate our way out of americans desire to use drugs....that's a whole other story. This fentanyl crisis isn't some kiddies smoking a joint under the bleachers. It's killing them en masse and has to be taken on with overwhelming force and determination. We can't afford to go with just standing up treatment centers and encouraging a "just say no" policy. I never tried to insinuate it was going to be easy......in fact its going to be vicious and very violent. Standing by isn't an option.
It's logistically impossible to stop drugs from crossing the border. It can't be done.
Given that the pills can't be stopped and the demand can't be curbed, the only solution is to legalize narcotics and sell them over the counter. This is literally the only way to ensure the dosages and substances are "as advertised" and not some random fatal substance like fentanyl.
This will have the added benefit of taking money out of the cartels pockets and putting it into government coffers (via a tax, like we do on marijuana).
I agree that it's going to be vicious and violent. Blood will run in the streets in Mexico and much of the United States--cartel headquarters and distribution networks are everywhere--as the cartels protect their turf. But even with that, I don't know that we can win without destroying the domestic demand side for drugs. Maybe enough brutality by our armed forces could convince the cartels to use a cheap but non-lethal substitute for fentanyl. Better for kids to swallow baby powder than fent.
Even if hypothetically all the cartels were carpet-bombed off the face of the Earth, the demand would still be there. It would only be a matter of time before new cartels took there place. As long as Americans demand drugs, I don't see this issue being solved.
Yes, that's the problem with the cries to "nuke the cartels"--if there's money to be made, the next group of capitalists will step in. As long as kids (and adults) want to get high/low/different via pills and powders, someone will sell it to them. But if the War on Drugs was a flop, what would dampen the demand?
Shane - I think you are spot on with addressing the demand side of this. Good kids with good parents can and will still make mistakes. Our job as parents it to ensure that they are aware of the risks of their behavior and help them avoid choices that could end or alter their life. This article makes a few references to parents that seemed totally unaware of Fentanyl - what planet are they living on? When kids are Snapchatting drug dealers for Percocet or splitting pills at parties the horse it already out of the barn - it is only a matter of time before your luck runs out.
Thanks, KTA. I can't imagine an adult that hasn't heard of fentanyl, but so many have tuned out of the world by not keeping up on daily news events that they're not aware the cartels are poisoning America's children via illegal drugs.
Someone asked why the cartels use this poison when it kills their clients. Apparently, it's because fentanyl is highly addictive and costs them only 10 cents a pill to make so the rest is profit. If that combo kills 1 percent of the clients and horribly addicts the other 99 percent, the profit is enormous. It's the most brutal business math in the world.
Absolutely. People want to drink, so no matter how drastic the punishment for being caught with alcohol, people will do it anyway. At least now we make serious tax money on alky, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving have put a serious dent into that part of alcohol.
...So Donald Trump is going to fix it all and he cares about your kids, because of his clear track record of honesty and family values? Or the Republicans who have shown that they aren't interested in kids, per se, only making sure that no one can choose when to have one or not, because an embro in a lab is the same as a human life? Come on. Yes, you have a right to be angry at our government. But let's be clear on the fact that today's GOP cares as little as the other side in fixing deep, dark problems like drug cartels and trafficking. We all know that if we were to truly do that, it would probably make your goods and services from Central America more expensive, and you really wouldn't be able to take that cruise to Cabo. That's way too inconvenient for most Americans, so guess how popular an actual, effective war on drugs would be with the public? But please, don't be simplistic and think your MAGA folk care more than the other side. Me, I'd be glad to actually crack down on this, and yes, we would all have to pay more for miltary intervention and Target clothing made in El Salvador or Guatemala. Bring it on, I say.
Absolutely agree. Our federal government has taken measures to stop Texas (where my 17 yr old. nephew died from fentanyl two years ago) from stopping the border invasion. They are complicit with the cartels in waging war on our country. It’s time we uphold our constitution and laws ourselves. I don’t have any issue with legal immigrants. All are welcome. The poison though and millions of illegal invaders are not.
They allow fentanyl into the country, they encourage castration/sterilization of kids via the trans cult, and they teach kids to hate themselves because of their skin color. Seems pretty obvious that they are trying to kill off huge swaths of the US population. Look up the Planned Parenthood Jaffe Memo from 1967. This sick plan has been the leftists wet dream for a long time.
That would be an utter disaster. If you opened the closet door of my past, the skeletons would most likely beat you to death & my poor wife would have to go into hiding. 🤣🤣🤣
Yep--"criminal prosecution". NGO's controlled and organized by billionaire totalitarians who use tax dollars to fund their deadly lunacy. Tax dollars appropriated by a corrupt D.C. elected political leadership. Its a distorted form of theft and money laundering that feeds the mercenary ideological utopians who serve the fascist DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos crowd.
Well Evan if you what to change the fabric of the country, which those running the country certainly do, there are costs. They don't care because their moral clarity tells them the ends justify the means.
Do we live in a country where we fix problems? I don't think so.
Does the Free Press exist to shine a spotlight on huge public policy failures when Democrats are involved up to their necks? I don't think so.
I will continue posting here, but I don't feel any of you are serious. Sure, you're highlighting A problem, but not THE problem, which is a world where the most absurd and fantastic lies can be told from on high, not questioned by the media, and in which people who point out the absurdities are attacked in a variety of ways.
I agree, Finbar, but I think we could have a giant PR campaign to scare kids into not taking any pills that didn’t come from a pharmacy. I grew up with videos of car crashes from drunk driving, we had MADD, then there was AIDS and the safe sex campaign. Why did all these kids think it was OK to take pills from something other than a prescription bottle? Why did the kid with a toothache not ask the dentist for something? A tylenol/advil regimen is now recommended for pain.
The kid buying a fake Percocet for pain relief from a root canal shocked me as well. He bought a pill on SNAPCHAT?!? AYFKM??? All teens make stupid decisions, and many of them have died as a result (drunk driving, stupid stunts, etc.), but the unprecedented death rate from fentanyl is a national crisis—and our first response should be to CLOSE THE DAMN BORDER.
Our children are lonely, frightened and confused. This is the core problem. Their parents are in far too many cases emotionally disconnected, and their culture is imploding. Everything known and knowable is under sustained and well coordinated attack by effectively sociopathic and amoral bullies.
I myself feel like taking drugs many days, and I WAS an alcoholic for many years. This is an unkind, brutal and absurd world, and one made so in the largest part under the banners of kindness, gentleness, inclusivity and Reason.
Its a really painful thing to behold. This madnesd has deep roots all around us. People who lack a church and/or a sane family stand almost no chance.
I think this world was always absurd and brutal at times. With the tools today the young are exposed to all of it all the time. No one can handle that much every day
Good point. As I have participated in the evolution of the internet over the years I have often wondered, was it always like this and we just know about it now? But I have come to the conclusion that prior to the internet everybody was policed by their community. For example moms, dads, and religious leaders knew who the perverts were and so they were monitored much more closely than today. I am not a fan of government control or censorship. But neither am I an anarchist and I do not understand the anything goes on the internet belief. Of course FB, X, etc. are publishers. They should be civilly liable for what they publish. Otherwise evil will, and does, flourish there.
Humm.... We celebrate perverts now - like that luggage thief Sam Brinton. Or, we say because of "kindness and understanding" we cannot call anyone a pervert or say that anything at all is depraved. We have terms like Minor Attracted People (MAPs). Perhaps Havey Milk was a pedo but he has to be celebrated as a Saint at school in CA. I just read that Governor Gavin Newsom has fined a district in CA $1.5 million for not teaching about Harvey Milk. Certainly Kinsey crony Dr. John money was a pedophile and he popularized the "gender" concept & abused twin boys in a gender experiment.
One cannot suggest that Mutilaton Lord Admiral Levine might have a sexual fetish which he wants to normalize via promoting harm to children with an ideology taught at school and with "gender medical care".
I appreciated this commenter on PITT who has "been there"
"AGP can be dealt with if the person accepts that it's a fetish and not some affirmation that they're really a woman inside. That removes a lot of its power. "I'm a man who gets turned on by putting on a pair of stockings" is a lot different than "I enjoy wearing stockings so I must be a woman." You can have a relatively normal life with the first. The second will lead you to bad places."
Also, it seems that the legalization & normalization of recreational drugs has been a mistake, IMO.
Too many celebrate it and too many of the rest are cowed into silence about it. I think the problem with much of this is not grasping the difference between bias and prejudice. The terms are used interterchangeably now but they are not. For example because I exhibit bias towards those of my sexual preference does not mean I am prejudiced against those with different preferences. That is true of race, ethnicity, religion and gender. But the insistence that if I prefer my group, which is after all only natural, I am against the other group has allowed the idea that members of a small subset of people should be treated as the norm. Which results in essence in special treatment because those people are elevated in status and the previous norm is ignored. Which is an antithetical to a free society. Why can't we just accept differences exist and there is nothing wrong with that. I think that makes it easier to call out things like pedophilia too. I also find it strange that there are those who believe nothing Thomas Jefferson did is worthwhile because of his relationship with Sally Hemming, but as you point believe a child sex abuser is to be applauded.
A publisher knows what projects are accepted in the publishing house. There are editors who read and correct the writing. FB,X etc operate on a different formula and scale. Billions of posts from everyone and anyone are viewed in real time . There is no human editor.The computer algorithms can only do so much. It’s an entirely new age of technology and no one is sure how to deal with what it ha# unleashed on society.
It has been the engine driving most of the ills that may have been simmering below the surface.
And that will not change until they are held accountable. They are digital publishers. Changes are in order. I listened to some of the hearings last week. The Discord guy and the X lady were pretty good. Zuckerburg was awful. The poor Tik-Tok guy always gets roasted.
Ppl are too squeamish to call out evil and now too many churches are going all in on “woke” BS. Maybe just to keep their coffers filled, the root of that problem I think. Ppl who know better but through their own fallen nature lead others astray are going to be held in higher contempt at judgement than the sinner who just wrecks their own soul.
All that is happening are the sign that we are approaching the precipice of Armageddon. That is not the Apocalypse. That comes a millennia after Armageddon. The end to Armageddon is the second coming. The difference is that once He returns ppl will not live in a world under constant temptation. The enemy, defeated, will no longer sit on the throne but the returned King will take His place.
I don’t know if I’ll live to see it but it could be near enough. I know that’s been thought before but this time many things that were signs had not yet come to pass now have. Israel has been restored, what was taboo is now called good and what is good is called evil, we are fast approaching the dissolution of hard currency in favor of a fully digital economy. There are proposals to have every one stamped with a bar code that is like an internal tattoo for our “safety”. The unaware sheeple line up for slaughter.
My thoughts exactly NC. Why in the world would a kid not tell his parent he needed pain meds for his dental probs????? Is it Tik Tok brain or peer pressure? Dear Lord!
Maybe it is because there is a local kid with a bagful of pills offering an over-the-top percocet for a root canal. Kids don’t think, nor do they think anything bad will happen to them.
When I was 12 many, many years ago I was hanging out with friends during the Yom Kippur fast day. I was a good kid, no drugs ever. Someone offered a popular pill, i cannot remember what is was called,
for all to try. I followed the crowd and took one. I felt nothing, nada. And, that was it. I WAS LUCKY.
I have had several dental procedures and pain meds have always been prescribed. So I wonder if the parent(s) had a script and did not fill it or if the child had already been through all the pills. Percocet is highly abused. That is why there is a street market.
There is more and more restrictions on pain meds to prevent addictions. In a recent fall, I fractured my arm bone in two places and wrenched the shoulder and was only given a 5 day supply of pain pills. While pain has a purpose, no one lives a pain free life, and all meds have side effects that need to be considered...this was an unnecessary level of pain.
The law that is severally restricting pain meds may have the unintended consequence of creating a black market for the drug. Going from unlimited pain meds for wisdom teeth extraction or orthopedic to inadequate pain med is not the solution.
I agree. My instinct is that there is a predilection to addiction in some people but not others. My mom was at the end of life they were worried about overprescribing. WTF? Let 'er rip. People who live with chronic debilitating pain deserve help. It is not like their quality of life is not screwed anyway. FWIW aside from these issues, and the border, are two others I think. One, doctors are not really well trained in pharmaceuticals despite being the gatekeepers thereto. Far too many rely on what the pharmaceutical sales reps say. And reliance on third party for profit entities to control the health business (I can't even call it healthcare anymore) is folly. Because all decisions are profit driven algorithms. My guess is that the insurer's instructions are what is really the failure to prescribe scenario. Chilling isn't it? In the well-intentioned effort to make healthcare accessible to all we are just serving a product so diluted as to be harmful.
I've never NOT been prescribed the necessary pain meds for any procedure. In fact, members of my family have often been prescribed more than we actually needed (we have a corner of the cabinet where these drugs are saved, in case of future need). But I live in the Midwest, where doctors currently tend to be reasonable instead of paranoid. People I know on the East Coast have been underprescribed the pain meds they needed.
Unfortunately, some parents have a "tough it out" attitude. My best friend's mom had an overall policy of "if it didn't kill me, it won't kill you."
Unless the boy was not prescribed adequate pain meds, or prescribed far too few to begin with, it seems unlikely that he would have been through all the pills, since dental procedure pain tends to fade after a few days.
We don't know all the details. Maybe everyone--his dentist and his parents (not to mention the government's messed-up opioids policy)--failed him. Or maybe he was looking for a way to keep on tuning out instead of legitimately needing the pill for pain.
Dds and drs are rarely prescribing opioids for serious pain because of the government crackdown. It has been a disaster for people suffering with severe chronic pain or acute short term severe pain.
Exactly. We KNOW what caused the "opioid crisis": it was Purdue Pharmaceuticals and their effort to make money from Oxycontin, even though they knew that it did not work as advertised. Their prescribing recommendations were the perfect recipe for turning ordinary people into opioid addicts.
Instead of simply punishing the company that caused this, and/or helping people who became addicted through no fault of their own, our government decided that people simply shouldn't be prescribed opioids of ANY kind, despite the fact that some types of pain are treatable only with opioids.
No wonder people began turning to drug dealers for "help."
The people who are responsible for these conditions pat themselves on the back instead of being punished.
I'm aware. Raises questions about who paid whom and in what currency and how much.
Purdue massaged their study data to the point that it was easily discovered once people started looking into it. And yet the FDA didn't notice or didn't care.
IMO, FDA is almost (and this is hard to say) more liable than Purdue in the opioid crisis. I know more than the average person re: opioids, addiction and FDA. I sat in FDA advisory committe mtgs when Purdue's original ' Oxicontin was found to NOT be tamper-proof at all, in fact, it was clear that addicts were crushing and snorting on the regular (and dying). FDA should have immediately withdrawn the product from the market until Purdue developed a truly tamper-proof formulation. They did not. Patients could still get immediate-release oxy so no one would be going without oxycodone if they needed it, they just wouldn't have the long-acting product. FDA gave them a little tap on the wrist. and on, and on, and on. The worst that happened to FDA staff was the exiting of two mid-level MDs. That's it. DISGUSTS ME.
Yes - this is a problem. I had a prescription for pain/anti-anxiety med before surgery where a local was to be used as recovery would be quicker and easier. My insurance would not cover it because it was partly narcotic and only 2 pills! (Their reasons for non-coverage were priceless - and completely nonsensical.) Fortunately they were semi-generic and two pills were pretty cheap so I just paid for it myself. It isn’t just Docs that are part of the problem - insurance and pharmacy too. Over-reaction on one side and way under reaction on the fentanyl issues.
The control of all of healthcare delivery to big corporations has destroyed much of what was good and noble about being a dr and the pt dr relationship.
Government overreach and micromanaging the opioid issue was as usual foolish and unnecessary. The tools were already in place to shut down the drs running the pill mills. There was no need to enact the sweeping regulations that tied the
hand of the vast majority of drs who were doing what was right with and for their patients.
Amen Ds, amen. Plus a doctor and his/her patient used to have a genuine relationship so the doc had genuine insight into what the patient needed. No more.
True. For those that always say they don’t want gov involved in their healthcare (mainly around the abortion arguement) I want to say it all ready is and has been involved in our healthcare. They even dictate how many pills can be manufactured for the year and how they are prescribed. A doctor isn’t going to risk their license and ability to work to go against the gov. Look at what happens now to people who go against the gov. This is the world we live in now and more and more like China everyday. We have been bought and sold.
There needs to be more jail based treatment programs. I worked in addiction in 8 years and seen ppl recover from these programs. They were followed once released and had to maintain accountability for two years.
Gov main job should be in protecting the nation. They are failing at this with the border and drug issue. I hate paying taxes anymore bc I don’t know what I’m paying for at the federal level. As I don’t see it working for me or my family.
I was taught not to do drugs when I was a kid and it stuck with me. Are kids no longer told this? How does a 13 year old have a drug hookup? The article treats that as an entirely normal occurrence.
To be fair, a bad side effect of the opioid crisis is the near-prohibition on giving out pain medication to anyone, anywhere, anytime, regardless of whether they’ve just had surgery, major dental work, etc..
I’m not sure why our society seems to operate in a pendulum–swing/binary all the time; surely there is some sane middle ground, where we acknowledge that some pain is too severe for Tylenol/NSAID, but we discourage long-term opioid use.
I wondered that too. Did he tell his folks or anyone else that might’ve helped? Most responsible doctors discuss the issue of pain management with either the patient or guardian as protocol.
You are right about THE problem, but in fact many people are talking about it - just not the mainstream media which is run by leftists. Lots of people on the right ARE talking about it and they are not afraid of being attacked ( for example Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Dave Rubin, Michael Malice, Megyn Kelly - and the list goes on) but until they are in power again, nothing will be done.
Ive been talking about it for twenty years. Ive been banned on every left wing site I have visited. I used to actively go seek out debate, but some large segment of our populace DOESNT WANT debate. Why? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO INTEREST IN SOLVING PROBLEMS.
The problem left wing practice and beleif solves is that of alleviating anxiety. In a complex world denuded of God, marinated in an idiotic and empirically indefensible Materialism/Physicalism, left wing oractice and belief exists to assure people they are good, and that no matter how absurd, self absorbed and silly their lives are, they are still better than the stupid and bigoted conservatives. Everybody tells them so and they believe it.
But if course this cult can be and has been weaponized in the service of greed and stupidity. And we see the results everywhere, daily.
Our world could and should be much better. But until this madness passes—if it does—things will get steadily worse.
Finny you are wise beyond measure. Was having this very discussion just this morning. "Why are liberals so obdurately stupid in believing the absurd?" It isn't that they're stupid (although many are) but they've been taught to believe that they are good (and smart) if they embrace DNC talking points, while conservatives are venal and racist. And even if all evidence points to the contrary, they will take these lies to their grave. You still see this embedded in many of the writers for the Free Press. Their programming still runs very deep.
It could be that those "liberals" have been educated to think and act exactly as they are thinking and acting. We suffer from at least two generations of indoctrinated folks that are now moving into positions of decision making and influence.
Just read a book called, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God” by Justin Brierley. Seems that materialism isn’t quiet doing it for people. I take some small comfort in this.
I've been encouraged by the recent stories of agnostics/atheists (Hirsi Ali who writes for TFP, Paul Kingsnorth, Jordan Peterson, etc) who are seeing the light. It's sad that a whole generation of young people have been fed so much illogical theological/philosophical rubbish and are now the victims of it.
Good point, speaking of influence; how about requiring every social media company/outlet show a non-deletable short video of the dangers of illicit drug use before the user can watch a video, download an image, etc. At the very least require the PSA to be shown when first logging on for the day.
Don’t we already have enough “nanny state” interference in our daily lives? Perhaps before we watch any video or read any website, we can require a statement of land acknowledgment, followed by a lecture on white privilege, followed by an encouragement to “queer” everything? <sarc>
We've had this conversation before. You're fine. Keep reading the stoics and believing in the inherent goodness of America and her people. Our leaders suck. Our people do not.
If I owned the Free Press, it would look much more like Tucker Carlson, and much less like a mild alternative to the New York Times.
Bari has a child. That child will grow up in this world. And this world is being destroyed from within in plain sight. Speaking more about that FACT would certainly be doing something to help prevent that outcome.
Sure it is. Do you think when Ben Franklin started writing those pamphlets he knew what it would lead to? If UF reaches 20 sentient people and those 20 sentient people reach other sentient people it is worthwhile. To do as you suggest and pursuing a "platform.of millions" 1) would not necessarily mean millions of sentient viewers, and 2) would invite censorship and cancellation.
You know how this passes, Unsaint? The madness that is, and you're serious? As I've said to Bruce just below for two years now or so - get the Right (you know, what used to be the GOP we all understood before it got taken over by you know who..) to nominate BETTER candidates!!! Get candidates for Congress and the Senate who don't scare the shit out of people! Get a Presidential candidate who isn't calling for vengeance over his personal grievance! Get people who can reach across the aisle and talk to the other side. Get candidates who understand that the majority of American women want access to abortion. Get candidates who believe that the election in 2020 wasn't stolen. Get candidates who understand that voting rights are important, like mail in ballots. Conservatives on this sight kick and scream about the Dem idiots and their senile leader, yet so many of you subscribe to the Party Of One. And all He does is double down to his base and has no fucking idea how to appeal to anyone without a red MAGA hat on. Like me. And without the twenty or so million independents like me, Trump ain't winning.
I choose not to live by lies, thats why. If you want to be lied to, should I or anyone else bend over backwards to help you?
If we lose, we made an HONEST effort. I’m no fan of dishonest effort, or making common cause with lunatics and thieves.
Just to take one example, I’m listening to Tucker Catlson on these infernal jabs. The EVIDENCE that this is a monstrous global crime is simply overwhelming.
Not for you—if you were capable of dispassionately evaluating facts you would not write things like that, so I assume you lack the emitional strength to listen to this—but for others, here is the link: https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-the-vaccine-interview/
We’re talking past each other. I’m trying to answer your concerns about the bullshit this country is going through, by stating that you need much better representation -candidates who can address the lies you allude to. People who can attract people like me. But you don’t even address that in your response. You’re not going to get anywhere without good people in gov’t. Perhaps you don’t want people like me with you.
Trump is the most honest oerson running, in my opinion. Its only because he is rich—or was—that the System has not yet neen able to shut him down.
I would have liked Rand or Ron Paul as President, but neither will ever be backed sufficiently by their own party. And I dont see any other good options for President.
Anger about many things is strongly warranted right now, and Trump is angry.
What else can The Free Press do other than publish articles on the lies, damage, and horrors of the trans cult, the DEI infiltration of school at all levels of education etc
What else can the individual serious readers on TFP do besides spread the word about the dangers of all of the above?
Have you ONE article on the open border? One on the Mike Benz interview? One on the absurd legal double standard being applied to Trump and his supporters?
To my mind, if an elephant or donkey took a dump in the middle of the room, that would be the most immediate topic of conversation. If, looking at that giant turd, all people want to talk about is the weather and sports, without having anything against weather or sports, I am still going to wonder what the hell is wrong with those people.
Exactly. At times I wonder at the tone deafness necessary to say up is down with a straight face but then I feel grateful that I don’t really understand that mentality. I rely on my faith to have hope and seek what is good. I’ve never seen anyone find lasting sobriety without a firm belief in a higher power. There but for the grace of God....
We agree that TFree Press hasn’t covered important topics, issues and events, but your original post was that TFPress wasn’t DOING enough about the ills in society. That is what I was questioning.
This is exactly the way reporting used to (and should be) done. Exposure is the key; assigining blame and taking any action is not the job of the press. That is the job for you, and at least nominally, of politicians.
I really can't understand this "organization X doesn't take issue Y as seriously as I do, so screw them" attitude.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, as they say.
Do YOU feel that our nation as a whole is capable of organizing itself around the solution of large problems? I dont see it.
“Drawing attention to” a problem is virtue signalling and virtue signalling is an end in itself. Once you getvthe positive attention, that is the conclusion of the exercise.
"Do YOU feel that our nation as a whole is capable of organizing itself around the solution of large problems? "
Of course not.
But it's just as unreasonable to expect a press organization to morph into a tireless advocacy organization on exactly the issues you yourself care about.
I care about sanity, clarity and when it comes to journalism, integrity and thoroughness. It's interesting to me that you are seeing the call for better journalism as problematic.
Do you deny most of our media acts as gatekeepers protecting politically inconvenient truths, such as the obvious fact that Joe Biden is not fit to manage a gas station or ice cream stand?
This coverage by TFP is a useful start, if and only if it is followed up by concentrated attention on the vital question of how to stop the ubiquitous availability of this deadly drug. I suggest a public forum hosted by TFP, to which Trump, Biden and RFK are publicly invited.
"It's interesting to me that you are seeing the call for better journalism as problematic."
Because I don't. It's just that a proper news organization =/= every article is just an editorial for the POV of the editors. That's the model we're trying to move away from.
"Do you deny most of our media acts as gatekeepers protecting politically inconvenient truths,"
Of course, but just because TFP doesn't devote every drop of ink to anti-Biden screeds doesn't mean that they are gatekeeping. And if you can't see the difference between TFP's takes on Biden and the "pay no attention to the senile man behind the curtain" stance by the MSM, then I can't help ya.
I know it's been ages since it's been done properly, but there does need to be some distinction between news and editorializing.
I have always been wary of people and organizations who ask for donations to "Breast Cancer Awareness". After 30 years, who is not "Aware" of Breast Cancer ?
They should be funding Breast Cancer Eradication/Treatment Research. But, we don't get research - we get ads on TV and yearly demands for "tests".
Great comment but I would make two points. I think it's unfair to say that the FP doesn't shine a spotlight on these issues. In fact, while being aware of fentanyl I was not knowledgeable about many of these statistics. And with two young teenagers, this is a chat that we will have tonight at the dinner table. If that isn't impact from a media outlet, what is?
Also, many lies nowadays are worse than "not questioned by the media" but our mainstream press is a willing participant and completely uninterested in the truth. Look at how the AP framed the Univ of GA jogger killed by an illegal immigrant a few days ago. No reasonable person can look at that story in it's totality and have the takeaway be how it's dangerous to run alone
Most of the press ignored the fact the killer was arrested in New York for fairly serious offenses and then let go. And of course NYC is a sanctuary city for law breaking illegal aliens. Maybe murder is enough to qualify someone for deportation.
So I live in the county where the highlighted child from Kyle lived. There were a series of deaths among junior high and high school kids right before school started. We are between Austin and San Antonio on I35 straight up from Mexico. Drug use and abuse is not knew here but this summer's events were extraordinary by any metric. Those arguing that the border situation is not a factor are woefully ill informed.
Our sheriff took immediate action. Here is a link to his fentanyl resource page.
I posted my comment before I even read yours. Perhaps people are waking up. Or at least those of us not so soaked in DNC agitprop that we can't see out of our own a-holes.
I think most everyone here would agree with you on that. I know I do. Freedom of the press was given so that they could call out corruption for the general public, not cover it up and real journalism seems to be a secondary (if any) concern. Everything is partisan and politicized. The talking heads have become shrieking profane heads with no semblance of decorum.
I have little room to talk because my choice of four letter words are utterly foul yet I can rally myself enough to refrain when needed.
I fell like the whole damn worlds gone mad and I’ve unintentionally stumbled upon opposite land. I watched an interview that Tucker Carlson had with a Chinese immigrant who lived through the cultural revolution in China. She’s written a book “Mao’s America” as she sees much of the same things occurring here now too. She said it escalated very quickly to executions, career loss and permanent isolation. It can and will happen here if we can’t find a way to stop this toxic DEI/CRT nonsense. It is Marxism and couldn’t be more detrimental to American society. Most of the venom seems to flow from the left but not always. Rational debate is a thing of the past. Intellectual enquiry is discouraged in favor of politically “correct” dogma. I never imagined that we could squander the inheritance of what was a promising proposition that mankind might actually find a place where everyone has rights and value. Yeah, it wasn’t always that way and with some ignorant ppl it never will be but we have laws to rein the bigots in. No one has a birthright to power here. But I resent and reject that I must submit to accepting that men can be women if they choose and vice versa. I took the psyche test to expose implicit (?) bias and was not found to have any. Then I read that only 25% of ppl actually do show racial bias. It was supposed to be this smoking gun to prove that all white ppl are inherently white supremacists but that’s not the case. The end result proved the opposite. You won’t hear that on MSNBC or CNN. Why these ppl are so hell bent on sewing strife is beyond me but TC asked the lady why she thought the Maoists and now leftists here push division and she answered immediately “power”. I think she’s right.
I share your frustration but I think the whole idea behind TFP is to highlight the problem of The Lies From on High. TFP was established to offer an alternative to the cartel media. We can help by sharing the information we get on this site and pushing back against the Ministry of Truth.
Unfortunately, no one has been able to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs. Drug prohibition has not worked. Ronald Reagan could not stop drugs illegal drugs from being imported or sold. Neither could Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, or Biden. Drug education has also not worked.
Millions of Americans are not addicts because the government has not tried hard enough, or because Free Post are not serious. They are not addicts because we do not have enough laws, have not given up enough freedoms, or tried hard enough. They are not addicts because a major political party is incompetent, or "wants" them to be addicts (to be clear, neither party wants people to be drug addicts).
This is a very hard problem. We have to convince people to not take illegal substances, marijuana, or alcohol. Unfortunately, no one knows how to do this.
Illicit drug use is largely no longer seen as bad in the US. Just like divorce was first seen as something to be avoided at all costs in American society, then seen as something that should be for only infedelity or abuse, then something that's prevalent but still largely frowned upon, to today where marriage has seemingly lost all meaning to the non-religious and a divorce is practically seen as a cause for celebration. Drug use today is the same. It's accepted as inevitable if not outright celebrated.
I know the war on drugs was a failure. I grew up in the 90s and was enrolled in DARE. I won the essay and poster contests, something my friends and I would sometimes joke about while smoking weed in the woods in the nearby public park the same year we took DARE.
But at least we grew up in a society where it was impressed on us that drugs had consequences, that authority figures would not approve, that there was a pathway to success in life and it didn't include chasing momentary highs.
I don't think saying "don't do drugs" solves the drug crisis. No one is that naive. But for the love of god can we at least start there?
This is true, not just with drugs, but in all situations of “excess” like casual sex, obesity, gaming, gambling and, of course, drugs. There is a huge difference between making an activity illegal and normalizing it. We’ve seen society go from disapproving casual sex to rewarding it in music and culture.That has led to a real attempt to normalize pedophilia and sexual trafficking.
With drugs, we’ve gone from disapproval of pot and drugs to the stories we’ve just read in which pot and other “benign “ drugs open the door to disaster.
Is there any moral line that our elite and leaders will not urge us to storm across?
Yes. Hillary said that proudly and it was once democratic policy. Now each abortion is celebrated as a joyous event without any thought to what message that sends about future children and family. Soon we will have abortion showers with gifts like baby showers.
An entire generation of young adults is being destroyed right in front of our very eyes. The thing I do not know is whether it’s intentional or just a random confluence of events.
And her husband said the exact same thing during a State of the Union speech,,,can you imagine what the reaction would be today if a POTUS said that during a SOTU speech?
I just saw a freakish trans on Tik Tok bragging he wanted to be the first trans with a uterine transplant just so that he could have an abortion.
Too foul for words. And of course the assumption is taxpayers would pay for both operations. Truly an evil Frankenstein creature.
Even the Rolling Stones recognized the devil…but somehow these days these creatures are welcomed and get hired as kindergarten teachers. Somehow perversion entertainment passes as an essential alternative rite to baptism. Such creepy times.
Drug dealers seem to be viewed by young people almost as health dispensaries and when dealers from cartels arrested they are treated by the progressives as “poor victims”.
The agenda of the progressives has morphed the Democrats into the globalist Great Reset Party. It seems too macabre to believe even as a wild conspiracy theory, but it appears killing off and or sterilizing young people is at the top of their agenda.
Yes- I think beside being lazy and complacent- many concerned citizens just don't have some sort of leadership in uniting us to Peacefully protest - whether it's in DC, in front of all the Media networks in NYC, at the Border, inour own individual cities.Truckers united amd did it. We need to PHYSICALLY ORGANIZE AND SHOW UP
Personally I think J6 prosecutions were meant to inhibit those. Even if you are going to peacefully protest something in.person you have to be concerned about instigators/provocateurs in the crowd.
My brother-in-law is a physician's assistant for many years now in a gastro clinic. Pot is legal here and he supports it being legal. But he also states the healthcare cost of marijuana use is growing and growing and it's getting a bit out of control. Says he see 2 to 3 patients per day, all on disability, who have had multiple CT scans, hospital admissions, colonoscopies, endoscopies and blood work (all very $ expensive) -- related to weight loss and vomiting from heavy weed use. Says people are so addicted to pot and there's been such a fight by those who uses it legitimately, so these patients will not accept that pot is causing their symptoms. Says its currently costing the healthcare system $ billions and no one is talking about it.
Wow. I had not seen anything on that. But I have read that psychotic episodes and schizophrenia among pot users are rising and there seems to be a correlation.
Have you noticed that our state and local governments now run drug dispensaries? Just like they pushed the mob out of gambling and the numbers. To paraphrase President Reagan, government doesn't solve problems, government is the problem
Government is the problem: The free clean needle exchange program van that services the homeless camps. Let's resolve the homeless problem by not tackling the drug problem but supporting it.
For many years marijuana was considered the gateway drug for more serious drug abuse. I just did a search for marijuana and the first item that came up was "marijuana dispensaries near me." The idiotic rush to legalize (and get tax $$) from the sale of marijuana is just indicative of the moral depredation now rampant in the US. Shame on the politicians for their short-cited and greedy ways to tap into yet another sin tax. Marijuana used to lead to abuse of heroin, cocaine, etc. - all killers, but much slower than fentanyl. But now fentanyl is easily available, inexpensive and way more lethal. Remember Nancy Reagan and her "just say no" campaign to discourage kids from starting drugs? Now we have cocaine in the White House, and no one seems to care. We need new and caring leadership at all levels. Not power-hungry and greedy politicians.
Politics is downstream from culture. "We the people" put those politicians there. Until the people and upstream culture change, I expect more of the same. My expectation of government could not be lower.
"I don't think saying "don't do drugs" solves the drug crisis. No one is that naive. But for the love of god can we at least start there?"
No. In the US the liberal side will never allow the "don't do" argument gain any traction or credibility. It's the same as their total rejection and pushback of the abstinence argument on abortion back in the 80s and 90s. What you said could've applied there too. Of course abstinence wouldn't stop all teens from having sex. No one was that naive. But what was wrong with teaching kids to not have sex to safeguard them or even as a moral principle? And it was simply not true that it didn't stop any kids from having sex. It definitely did stopped some kids. There was no reason at all why abstinence couldn't have been included in sex ed along with safe sex. But the liberal advocates were hellbent on discrediting anything that that tells people "no". I'm pro-choice BTW but I'm not blind to what's wrong with that side of the political discourse.
Liberals will always be for enabling even to the point of everything falling apart. Just look at what they're doing to enable drug use and homelessness in cities. I suppose that's the fundamental tenet of liberalism. Beyond breaking down all safeguarding barriers, they've led us to the point of moral inversion where the social stigma is directed toward "judging" or frowning upon anything anyone does that is self-destructive or destructive to community and society.
In a comment a few days ago, I said that the only thing worse than the war on drugs was to have NO war on drugs.
And to add insult to injury, in states with legalized marijuana, the legal dispensaries account for only a fraction of the total marijuana sold in in the area. The marijuana lobby groups convinced the taxpayer that legal marijuana would drive out the drug dealers, but what happened instead was classic capitalism: drug dealers could sell illegal weed for so much less than the government sold legal weed, that the strategy backfired. Colorado was the test case.
As DEI become the new morality we lose the real morals.
There are sincere and decent people who support DEI, but cannot understand what I wrote above.
I ask liberals why it is "judgemental" to disapprove of sexual behavior, but not "judgemental" to disapprove of a perceived racism or sexism. They have no idea. Their moral values depend on thoughtless conformity.
I found it interesting the article glossed over the fact that a 13 year old had an established drug dealer and even knew what Percocet was. Is that just considered acceptable by parents now?
Not with the village raising the child. Child-rearing is hard and sometimes thankless work. It is though the most important thing we as individuals do.
Can we please stop beating around the bush and talk openly and seriously? Fentanyl is sent here by China, to be finished and sent on its way by the Mexican cartels across borders opened by the Democrat Administration of Joe Biden. In September 2001, we went to war against a terror group that murdered 3000 of our citizens. These terrorists murder 100,000 of our mostly young citizens every year. It is way past time to punish murderers and terrorists. And to make no mistakes about who they are.
What I found amazing about this was a 13-year-old who bought his pills from this drug dealer to numb his pain from a root canal. The permissiveness we have created with youth is one of the contributors to this rise in death. Growing up in the 80s, drugs had a stigma, and I listened to Nancy Reagan with the say-no approach to Drugs.
I can remember my cousin telling me how she popped her first pill, leading her on the path to addiction. At that moment, she knew if she had just said no, her life would have taken a different trajectory. In dealing with this issue, there has to be a drive to place a stigma again on drug use, not only on illegal drugs but using drugs as a crutch to deal with the travails of life. The drug industry has pumped a generation full of antidepressants and other natural or imagined disorders to get people through. If born today, my issues as a kid would have had me pumped full of these prescriptions.
There is much to do on the interdiction side of this, but a cultural conversation has to be had as the taking of any pill not from your pharmacy can kill you. Making a person think twice about taking any pill is a great first step.
I wonder why the dentist didn’t give the young patient adequate pain medication for the root canal? It is a painful procedure. The “ crackdown on opiates” is full of problems for people who are suffering with either chronic severe pain( for ex severe psoriatic or rheumatoid arthritis, ) or acute moderate or severe pain. It has caused drs and Dds to refuse to prescribe pain meds other than NSAIDs. People are forced to go to a “ pain management Dr”whose assembly line approach is demeaning and expensive.
As a Dr, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. We used to prescribe opiates all the times - fantastic pain killers, the best we had. Then we faced the public outcry and were told this opiate pandemic is all our fault. Government stepped in and now you get reported if you’re prescribing opiates for things like a root canal or an appendectomy. And now the opiate pandemic is our fault because we won’t prescribe it. I feel that there is a certain population of people that will get addicted to narcotics one way or another - plenty of people get opiates for pain control, take them as prescribed after a surgery, and then stop and go on to live normal lives. This is a teenager that ordered an illegal pill through social media to get delivered to his home - it’s already an aberrant behavior.
The larger problem was that big pharma pushed the opiates as safe and non-addictive when their former spokesman who persuaded the FDA to license them now admits and regrets his lies. Carefully controlled they may have their place, but doctors and dentists did not control them and they created many addicts.
There were indeed drs who ran pill mills, they could have easily been shut down and licenses revoked. Instead wide sweeping legislation and regulations tied the hands of drs and Dds who were prescribing these drugs appropriately. It has left millions of ppl without pain control.
The drug cos have never been held to account for all their lying and criminal actions.
Percocet & Vicodin were around for pain management before Oxy. The Sackler family, under cover of FDA foisted upon public Oxy and w/ a few ginned up studies, advertised this opiate as non addictive. And Purdue made massive $$. Like Ozempic today, there was so much $$ that everyone in the pipeline could be bought off, including the TV networks. Those drug ads you see are not to advertise availability to public, but rather to buy off networks not to investigate the harms.
Here’s the latest I saw on SCOTUS considering the satellite of lawsuits against Purdue bankruptcy. Just $6B paid out for forward immunity. The damage done far, far exceeds $6B and some in Bench don’t want to see Purdue get off so easy… we’ll see, you get what you can, and there’s a long list of families awaiting damage payouts.
It was the Sackler family not Sacks( no relationship to me either way).
OxyContin was marketed as less addictive not non addictive. It was still an outright lie
They should have been shut down and jailed .
The drug ads are absolutely done to control the media and it works. Direct to consumer ads are only allowed in 5he USA and Australia and it is a disaster for society. The law allowing it should be repealed but the drug lobby is so powerful it won’t happen.
Sorry, Siri autocorrect there and yes, not you! To your point on USA/Aussies w/ direct advertising… take Ozempic as latest example. That drug (that once you are on, paralyzes your stomach and are supposed to take jabs for your whole life) is not allowed to be sold in the EU, and yet is made by Danish Pharma house Novo Nordisk.
Generations of kids have watched adults take pills. Many have seen/had access to pills in the medicine cabinet.
The ‘shame’ of drug use has diminished.
This ‘permissive’ culture in part explains why kids will pop a pill these days. Not the total reason, kids are also just stupid and have been trying out drugs for a long time, and we all know that from having traveled through that season in our lives.
Disa, you're totally right on the 'less addictive' marketing. Here is how I understand how it went down (from 2018 NYT article):
"When the FDA approved Oxy in '95, they permitted Purdue Pharma to make a unique claim for it — that its long-acting formulation was “believed to reduce” its appeal to drug abusers compared with shorter-acting painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin.
The FDA decision was not based on findings from clinical trials, but a theory that drug abusers favored shorter-acting painkillers because the narcotic they contained was released faster and so produced a quicker “hit.”
Purdue Pharma viewed the agency’s decision as “so valuable” that it could serve as Oxy's “principal selling tool,” at least according to internal 1995 company report. Purdue then admitted in 2007, when confronted with evidence gathered by prosecutors, that it trained sales representative to tell doctors that OxyContin was less addictive and prone to abuse than competing opioids, claims beyond the one approved by the FDA"
This is one of the reasons I've been putting off surgery for a foot problem for several months now - there's no way I'll put my self into a scenario where I might have to go "fishing" for my own pain relief. Thank God my problem isn't life threatening (yet, knock on wood)
It used to be that a dentist would give you a prescription for strong painkillers to get you through the worst of the pain after a dental procedure. Thanks to the paranoia around the "opioid crisis" (which was actually CAUSED by the manufacturers of Oxycontin), many doctors won't prescribe those painkillers anymore, even when they are clearly needed.
Was that the case with Luca Manuel? Did his dentist fail him? Was his dentist pressured by the government to deprive people of pain relief?
Why did his dentist fail him? NSAIDs and Tylenol are great pain meds if taken in their full doses around the clock. Patients usually get a dental block which fully numbs the area for several hours. The dentist may or may not have prescribed narcotics to a teenager. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t fault him. This teenager ordered illegal pills from a drug dealer over social media for home delivery - that’s not normal behavior. That’s not what someone in pain does - someone in pain keeps complaining, calling the dentist, or goes to the emergency department. What he did is addict behavior. The ED could have given him toradol or something stronger. Ultimately we have to accept, there are people who will behave unreasonably even under reasonable circumstances. The majority of the population aren’t addicted to alcohol - but some are and will do insane things for it, and it’s really no one’s fault. Stemming the supply from Mexico is one thing - blaming the dentist is another.
While I'm not prepared to condemn the parents without knowing more, I have to ask (as I think you do as well), "How did we get to a place where a 13 year- old has the knowledge and ability to order drugs over the phone?".... And, also, how are we ever going to get out of this place?
My question was, where were the parents? Did the parents know he was in that much pain? Did they have a discussion with the dentist? There is something missing in the way Luca’s story is written. Parents are supposed to be medical advocates for minor children. He was only thirteen and already had some history with weed. Sadly, so very young and vulnerable. This sounds like more than the lack of proper pain medication after a dental procedure.
It's been going on a long time. I had 4 hr. dental proceedure in 1977 and had to go to work that night. The dentist had gven me a script for painkillers. The next day I was still in severe pain and when I called the dentist, he told me that he wouldn't give me another script. I found a dealer who sold me some pain killers. Without them I may have killed myself. The difference between then and now is the type of pain killers and the potentcy. These days, I'd never take a street drug. I don't know what I would do if I were in the same position today. Maybe Morphine.
I also wonder about that 13 year old. Still very much a child. Where were his parents? What’s the context there.
I grew up in the just say no era. My understanding is the program was not generally successful. Still, it worked decently well on me. There was one time in my life I took a pill - in my mid 20s with a ne’er do well boyfriend. LSD. Fortunately it was a merry old time and nothing bad happened. But that was before fentanyl was in everything.
I agree that the first step here is educating kids about this danger. As a parent of very young children myself now, it’s horrifying to think about.
I’m not blaming the victims - I’m asking for wider context to understand what was going on in the household. As a parent of young kids, I’m interested in what I as a parent of my kids can do to in my home life to prevent this horrible outcome. Ranting about Biden in the TFP comment section every morning is certainly one option.
And I will keep pointing out the insanity and atrocity of having a corrupt, senile imbecile pretending to be the "leader of the free world," while sycophants and stooges sing siren songs that all is well. The sight of this diaper wearing clown wandering aimless around a stage, dazed, confused and demented, should scare any rational person.
We definitely need to look at the big picture, but I don't know how any parent reading this could help but wonder how it came to be that a 13yo child turned to snapchat to order pain meds for a dental procedure. I have known many kids from "good families" who made poor decisions that could have ended up just the same, and as a parent it is terrifying on many levels.
On permissiveness in youths . . . at the moment states are taking kids away from their parents for "misgendering" and not using pronouns asserted by their own children. Haven't you got the memo? Kids know exactly who they are and what they want now, even if they're 3 years old.
“You might ask why cartels would make a drug that so easily kills off its customer base. The simple reason is greed.”
————————————
You might ask why the Biden Administration and Democrat Party would ignore fentanyl deaths. The simple answer is greed. They encourage the open border, no-bail laws, Soros-backed district attorneys, because they are obsessed with power.
As a Canadian lawyer I find the expression “no-bail” to describe automatic release, i. e. bail, quite absurd. But you can’t get everything you want and we live in an upside down world where 81 million people allegedly voted for a corrupt, cognitively-impaired, treasonous liar. And who knows how many Americans still prefer him to justifiably rude?
But it is reassuring to see that American TV commercials warn viewers not to take ELIXORONA if you are allergic to ELIXORONA.
Moreover, they won't draw attention to it or raise public awareness because that would distract from the psyop election campaign. Can't get people outraged over the latest fashionable discrimination subject (Stop Asina Hate!) if people are focused on real problems.
That's why Floyd's death was definitely about Racism, and not about fentanyl at all.
America has a drug for everything. Legal drugs. If they don’t make you blind or have liver failure or or or…then it just might help what is ailing you. We see these ads on a non-stop basis. I’m not sure that any other country is as eager to hand out pills. It is no wonder that kids think nothing of popping a pill. We have normalized the concept of better living through pharma-illicit or legal.
This could all slow down, if not stop, if the government wanted it to control the border and the cartels- but they don’t. So the question folks need to ask themselves is why - “always attribute malice, that which has continued too long to be ascribed to stupidity”.
“President Biden’s pledges to potential illegal immigrants began early in his campaign.
During a Democratic primary debate on June 27, 2019, candidate Biden raised his hand when the host asked if his government health care plan would provide coverage for illegal immigrants.
He raised his hand again when the host said, “Raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense rather than a crime to cross the border without documentation.”
The host then specifically asked Mr. Biden if someone who is here illegally should be deported if that is his or her only offense.
“That person should not be the focus of deportation,” Mr. Biden responded.
A couple of months later, during another debate on Sept. 12, 2019, Mr. Biden said: “I would, in fact, make sure that there is, that we immediately surge to the border all those people who are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are. We’re a nation that says, ‘If you want to flee, and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.’”
“Numb yourself with drugs, eat the bugs, and don’t you dare complain when we inflate your wealth away while we dump money into wars around the globe which we hope ends up using your surviving children as cannon fodder. In the meantime, don’t complain about it or any of the collapsing civilization stuff because if you do, then you’re a fascist Russian stooge.”- American elites and their puppets in the press.
Thank you for writing this and publishing! Very obviously, our “public servants” have failed miserably in this and so many other ways- but always, ALWAYS the best way to protect our children and grandchildren is by teaching them. This is something that they should be very afraid of, but knowledge is power. Spread the word and teach your children well!
It's a tragedy whenever and to whomever an overdose like this happens. It's very hard for parents to know what their college kids are doing, especially when they are far away. BUT Straight serious talk is needed by parents to their kids. Remember that the human brain is not fully developed til age 25 - they need guidance!!
I was very disturbed by the 13year old who bought a pill after a root canal. Why? Why didn't he just go to his parents for a painkiller?? After a root canal, one is usually given a painkiller by the doctor. I don't understand how that happened.
Blame the CDC bureaucrat "guidelines" in 2016 and its stupid revised "guidelines" in November 2022, for intimidating doctors and dentists to not prescribe needed pain medication, causing untold suffering.
July 2021 Press release
CHICAGO -- The American Medical Association (AMA) today urged advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Injury Center to recommend an overhaul of the CDC’s problematic guideline on opioid prescriptions that has proved devastating for patients with pain.......
Look it up online to find out more. This is one of the stupidest things the CDC has done - and that's saying something.
Every one of the individuals mentioned in this article died after consuming an illicitly purchased fake medication that normally is only available by prescription. The drug was purchased by them or by a friend.
They were personally responsible for their deaths. It may seem cruel to say that, but it's true. Their deaths also were failures of parenting. That also is cruel to say, but it also is true
I agree that free will and personal agency play a large role here. And it is parents' responsibility to be informed and to help their kids make good choices. That said, kids are still going to make bad choices, and their parents can't stop them
As someone who lost a friend to a fentanyl overdose, I understand the gravity of this problem. As a mother of two kids not far off from their teens (and being realistic enough to know kids get into drugs even earlier), I understand the importance of educating them about fentanyl.
So sad. Luca Manuel died trying to relieve pain from a root canal. Why didn't his dentist prescribe adequate pain relief, you ask? Probably because of the CDC's ignorant 2016 "guidelines" to doctors to severely limit prescriptions for patients' pain. These "guidelines" evidently caused so much harm and patient suffering that the bureaucrats at the CDC were forced to issue a "revision" of their policy in November 2022.
Unfortunately, this was too late for me. In November 2022, I broke my femur in an accident and had emergency surgery in a huge hospital in Delaware, where the surgeon cut open the skin and muscles of my thigh, inserted a 20" steel rod and 12 screws in my bone, to fix the fracture. They say that a broken femur is by far the most painful broken bone, along with the tissue pain and swelling. After 5 days in the hospital, my pain medication was reduced to tiny, infrequent portions of oxycodone and Tylenol, because, they said, "The Governor says we can't give you any more pain medication because of the opioid crisis." I guess the hospital and the surgeon didn't get the updated CDC memo. I suffered in agony for weeks, until I found a competent and independent thinking orthopedic surgeon near my home in Pennsylvania to oversee my case and help me relieve the awful pain so I could recover. "Don't get me started," he exclaimed to me in frustration at the harm to patients caused by the CDC bureaucrat's guidelines used to intimidate doctors who see patients.
This from the Mayo Clinic regarding the November 2022 updated guidelines to doctors: ."...Their Fundamental changes to the CDC opioid guidelines include removing 3- and 7- day limits to opioid prescribing for acute pain. The CDC cites research from the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery for this change..."
"....Previously, the day limits were theoretical guidelines used by insurers and states that made them more restrictive, preventing optimal practice in many cases and sometimes leading to underprescribing for a subset of patients, thus causing patient harm," says Elizabeth Habermann, Ph.D., the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Deputy Director of Research. ....The "pendulum" has swung too far toward restrictive and underprescribing opioids for some patients, explains Dr. Gazelka.
Put this in your search online: CDC Replaces Flawed 2016 Opioid Prescribing Guideline with Flawed 2022 Opioid Prescribing Guidelines if the below link is not allowed in the comments section.
Doctors are very timid creatures it seems. They fear liability for medical malpractice. They fear responsibility for medical costs to such an extreme that they outsourced the responsibility to third party for profit entities.
If we had a country that was shelling and killing 7500 American kids per month, there would be a no holds barred, scorched earth campaign against them. But there isn't.
Citizens are literally begging their political leaders to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs that are now flowing across our borders at record levels.
To add insult to injury, this is being facilitated with the help of the United Nations, and dozens of US based NGO's (many backed by the US government) and religious organizations. IMO, these organizations leaders and staff are complicit and should be criminally prosecuted.
Meanwhile the current administration is asking us to send 80 billion more to Ukraine to protect their kids instead. This would be added to the 120 billion sent 18 months ago. That's almost 10 times the amount of funding our government spends to protect our own borders.
Its clear that our political leaders hate us. Individuals will take a lot of abuse, but when it comes to murdering our children, society and the people must hold the ground and provide no quarter. Something has to give.
I don't know folks......but it feels like its almost time.
It all makes sense once you accept the fact our government is not on our side.
5 years ago in Davis, CA, I went out to dinner late with a colleague after spending a few hours at a kava bar. We walked 3 blocks. In that distance there were 5 college age kids down on the sidewalk. Each with an ambulance team. I approached one team who told me they'd given 5 doses of narcan. The kid was still, not visibly breathing.
I asked if how often this happened. The EMT looked at me like I was crazy. "All night. Every night." They had been carting ODs off for hours. It was a bit after 11 pm.
So I looked for news reports about. It the next day. Looked for police reports. Nothing. Not a single word.
I asked a friend about why. She said, "University and city don't want parents thinking their child isn't safe here."
I had the same experience years before after interrupting a kidnap attempt at 7:30 am on a Sunday morning. (I pursued the Honda Element with blacked out windows at almost 100 mph. But the license plate was stolen. I had 2 women in the car. So we went back to the victim who was terrified.) University police chief wouldn't put out a notice. Local papers wouldn't report it.
Davis has a reputation to protect. And the small town papers survive by not angering powerful locals. UC Davis, for instance has a yearly budget larger than the GDPs of 40 nations.
In my parents day they called it "A confederacy of dunces." It's mostly well meaning. The Davis police chief knows which side of his bread is buttered. So do others.
Don't rock the boat.
I went to UCD in the 70s.. Sleepy Ag school consisting of farm kids and kids desperate to get into the one Vet school on the West coast. Kids studied. There was weed, but I was never aware of anything stronger.
Sad how things have changed.
Hi Maureen...Are you a fellow Californian?
Yes, born and raised in SF. When it still was a respectable place to be from
LOL
I just googled UC Davis drug overdose and immediately got an entry from the official UC Davis health organization, health.ucdavis.edu, advocating that everyone everyone should carry Narcan or whatever it is. It is official, everyone in California should carry In case you overdose or come across someone who has. God save America.
That sounds like UC Davis health. They know, but they probably don't dare say why or post stats. So they do the best they dare to.
We need to redo The Enemy of the People. Drugs and street crime instead of typhus or sharks, this time.
That it pathetic. It’s time to sink the boat, all the good intentioned inside.
The road to hell is paved with “good intentions”.
The left sobs crocodile tears about to civilian deaths in Gaza but you never hear them decry the fentanyl deaths of US citizens due to the border negligence of the Biden Admin. It is not just negligence. It is criminal. They lie about it by claiming the border is secure but it wouldn't be this open if it weren't for the criminal support of the ever senile Joe and his minions.
Where are the university and street protests to close down the border and stop the fentanyl slaughter of US citizens?
Pills are not proven to be coming over on asylum seekers, Lonsesome. It sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think - to allow yourself to be stopped by Border Patrol to ask for asylum - and have a few hundred fentanyl tablets on you? It's coming over concealed. Over seventy thousand Americans died in 2019 due to this scourge. That is under Trump. This is an American failure belonging to all politicians, of all stripes - it is criminal negligence belonging to this government no matter who leads it. Yes, Joe is senile. Yes, Trump is a narcissistic idiot. And they both deserve shame - for it is on their collective watch these numbers have soared.
Come on Lee. The smugglers are not going through border check points. They are sneaking across the border. Geez!
Trump did not let millions of people in. The ever senile Joe did.
Asylum seekers are not coming over at border checkpoints. They’re crossing elsewhere and then when on our soil wait to be picked up. They’re not the ones with fentanyl. Don’t confuse illegals who hide with asylum seekers who want to be found.
I have seen pictures of men crossing the border with backpacks and AK47s. I don't think these guys want to be picked up and processed.
Agree to a degree. Both asylum seekers and fentanyl are trafficked by the cartels. The cartels should be target as well as shutting down the border.
Yes - we should devise strategies to attack the cartels, absolutely. They are involved in both fentanyl and asylum trafficking - though it is hard to say which cartel is doing what. However this gets done, Mexico has to get on board - and good luck with that.
You nailed that, even down to Trump and Biden.
How would you tackle the problem though? Education in schools seems a pretty good start. More arrests and sentencing of drug dealers? Special forces sent to Mexico to destroy the cartel trade (these are very nasty people, you better not f around if that's your mission). All of the above?
So true…it’s as if they’re all fighting each other for themselves and not those they represent.
It’s not “as if”. They are totally, openly destroying our country. If Hunter Biden died from fentanyl I bet there’d be some democrat support. It is a partisan issue. Trump shut the border down like no one else before and if you care about this fentanyl problem you should support putting the people back in charge who will really DO something about it.
It’s not about whether you like DJT or not, it’s about saving Americas youth.
100%
And what does that say about the voters who continually elect (and re-elect) the same corrupt sociopaths year after year? Elected officials are supposed to be accountable to the people, but what happens when the people can't be bothered to even pay attention? Meanwhile the big money interests continually have their needs attended to.
Love that profile pic..
I grew up on the outskirts of WDC and saw the citizens there re-elect Marion Barry year after year. He was caught in scandal after scandal and they just voted to keep him in power. There were many times where a more competent black American would run against him yet they never cared to try another leader. It was baffling but not terribly unusual.
My parents told me that the same phenomena occurred in Chicago with Daly. Look at Ca re-electing Newsome in the recall. Like WTF?
Astounding.
What a surprise, I am going off topic. This article confirms what we have all known about the NYT and why Bari left it:
https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=heretic+at+new+york+times&d=1476254437025&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=kDxapOxD4zCHAFC_nEkVWqdvk1A7E1UN
There is a limit to how much government can do, even a perfect and well-intentioned one which we don't have. And democracy creates perverse incentives since most politicians want to gain and retain power and so must do what pleases voters.
All you can do is raise your kids to be wise and work for changes in politics and culture toward what you think are best policies.
This is not directed to you Evans W. This is for all the readers, please watch Mark Levin on Fox, Sat. and Sun. at 8 pm and read his book The Democrat Party Hates America. This fentanyl problem is on Biden and his administration.
Thanks......I'll check it out. The fentanyl problem is not JUST a democrat problem as it was raging during the Trump administration too, but your point is not lost on me. Democrats definitely are much much more complicit in what's going on right now at the border and in blue cities. My wife and I returned from a weekend trip to Philly last night. I'd not been there in over 15 years. We were both shocked at the decline. The place is a literal shithole.
I just got back from a in-and-out trip to San Jose. When I was younger I loved California, but it is unrecognizable now. Filthy doesn't begin to describe conditions there; as I crossed the border back into Nevada I reflected that a successful trip into Mexifornia consisted largely of not stepping in anything.
It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to recognize that all these failing cities - and failing states - have one thing in common.
100%
As strange as it may be to believe, this has all happened before and we made it just fine. My kids are freaking out, so I share:
Ever hear of Travis Bickle? The NYC of my youth was much worse.
Ever read about the 68 DNC convention? Daley's thugs clubbing the crap outta everyone on camera.
Miscagention laws still existed.
LSD, Speed, Barbs - Stones called them mothers little helpers' - were mostly LEGAL and available OTC (not LSD, it was mostly free).
Active duty - not Guard - troops in US cities.
And like then, young folks believed whatever their peers told them over the adults because 'you can't trust the man'.
Oh, and a little war in Indochina...
So I tell them to calm down, this too shall pass. It could be much worse. At least there isn't any serious nuke sabre rattling between US/RUS these days. I thought we were done for in the mid-80s for a while - then the USSR collapsed.
Good times...
I'm afraid that you are sadly mistaken. While the 60's and 70's had problems, the fentanyl poisoning of the country, rampant illegal immigration and purposeful installation of progressive DA's determined to undermine the rule of law are part of a plan to overwhelm our system as we know it. We are seeing Cloward-Piven in action as China works with the useful idiots to destroy America from within.
NYC in the 70's was rough, but got cleaned up. Today, the majority of the City Council from the Democrat Socialists of America; their charter seeks to destroy the capitalist system. They have stood in the way of any reform needed - there are almost no ramifications for criminal actions at this point. The drugs available then were mostly as advertised, not Fentanyl. As a matter of fact, the weed was about a quarter as potent as it is now. The Black Lives Matter protests full of Antifa made Daley's Chicago look like pikers as they burned cities throughout the country. At least Daley tried to stop the riots, unlike contemporary mayors who felt the need to "give them space to destroy". Then the dementia riddled occupant of the white house and whoever is actually running things (Obama?) allowing Mitch McConnell and military industrial complex to start wars up as soon as Trump was gone. Yeah, I think we have a problem that is on a scale far larger than the 70's.
If I were to choose one word to describe the reason for our country’s gradual decline, it would be ignorance. Sometimes it’s willful, but I believe before it reaches that stage there’s an opportunity for enlightenment. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity has been slowly closing in my lifetime.
Many of our children are being poisoned by fentanyl, but I’d argue that’s the last stage of their death. Beginning with kindergarten, they are continually bombarded with dystopian decrees – “the world is going to end in 10 years if we don’t stop utilizing fossil fuels”, “your daddy can become your mommy”, “if you have the wrong skin tone, you’re an incurable racist”, “if you’re another skin tone, you’re doomed to oppression…” We’ve entrusted our children to twisted people determined to undermine family structure and crush the innate inquisitiveness they are born with, lest their evil intent be recognized.
There is no doubt that more can be done to stop the flow of fentanyl across our border, but it’s painfully obvious that Biden and corporate flunkies of both parties in congress aren’t interested. We’ve witnessed their true priorities, as well as the extreme injustices they can inflict on anyone daring to effectuate priorities contrary to their own. Our children are our future. As a society we’ve entrusted them to those intending to do them harm. Unless parents regain control of what they’re taught, and not taught, they’ll be susceptible not only to fentanyl, but the many other scourges evil people want to inflict upon them.
Well said, T247. In the 60's people in power were still adults who were Patriotic Americans, mostly. Now...?
Ah yes T247. "They need space to destroy" -- the damnable words uttered by the former mayor of Baltimore during the Freddie Gray riots -- are the Left's mantra, invoked every time civilization seeks to defend itself against those who would reduce it to rubble.
There are some differences. Those drugs of the 60's were not as dangerous as today. And these children, as the author says, did not od. They were poisoned.
The Viet Nam war started out long before the 60's with good intent. The '68 DNC convention was an escalation of civil & political unrest.
But the situation at the border was brought on by Biden, who refuses to address and fix it. Unlike circumstances in the 60's, we're completely doing this to ourselves.
The USSR may have collapsed but Russia is still there, has formed an alliance with China and Iran, and is reportedly taking it to space. No saber rattling at all. Good times.
I couldn’t tell if he was being tongue in cheek when he said that! It feels a lot like deja vu all over again, which also isn’t comforting because you’d think we would learn from the past, not repeat it?
Don’t forget their other BFF, North Korea. At some point, if you’re an isolationist and believe America should withdraw from involving itself in the world, you need to ask yourself what a world without the US as number 1 would look like. China will fill that void. And we can’t even tolerate China sending fentanyl our way, can you imagine it replacing us?
I also lived through the nightmare of the 1960s. It was just the beginning, the seeds planted then are bearing fruit now. It seems like things can't get much worse.
Well, what do you expect of a country that can’t tell shit from Shinola, one that expects greatness from a President who was trained by the leader of the Weathermen, whose spiritual leader was a pastor who was most famous for telling his flock, “ God bless America? No - GODDAMN AMERICA!!!”
WTFU, AMERICA!!!
I wish you were right but they can and will if we don’t turn this ship fast.
It has that “TITANIC” vibe.
When problems get fixed, a good plan is to make sure they stay fixed. If the problems recur, the question is: who or what broke this again? And then make sure that those responsible never get near the levers of power again.
We're of the same generation. I'd love to believe as you do...that the American people are smart and eventually a Ronald Reagan style leader will emerge and we'll get things back to normal. But, I don't think it's going to happen again. This time, unlike the '60's and '70's, the major corporations have thrown in and endorse the cultural rot. Even in the '60's major corporations wouldn't have censored information as a course of doing business, nor would they have joined hands with the CCP to make money. Now, they do.
Amen. This 2024. The america of 1970 is long gone.
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
Think again. We have never been closer to nuclear annihilation. We have ground down Russias army using Ukraine. Russia is now left with nothing but the largest ICBM arsenal on the planet. And Russia is the only nation prepared for nuclear war.
And we have stupid children like Nuland and Blinken who have no idea what war really is.
Amen. TIME TO WAKE THE “F” UP.
Coming up in the late 60's and early 70's as I did I have to disagree with you. Using "street drugs" did not carry the same risk as now.
I'm afraid that we have a bit of Pascal's Wager here. Pray that I'm wrong.
Btw: speed (the pharmaceutical kind) was never OTC. Barbiturates and opiates weren’t either. There was a lot of crime but not tent cities in urban parks and streets or feces strewn sidewalks. Those are new phenomena in America.
There was lots of LSD. Did my share but it wasn’t free. Those mothers little helpers were handed out like candy by doctors who were trained to do so. They’re still trained to medicate problems away but the medications are different.
In Europe Valium is OTC as well as a few other drugs we need an RX for here. I think that the medical community and the government would make ibuprofen RX only if they could. I actually heard someone propose that last year.
I’ve stocked up in case but also for TEOTWAWKI.
Maybe you’re not paying attention but there is nuke saber rattling. There were idiots in DC commenting that it’s an option with Russia just last year and they’ve like wise made overt threats themselves. We have never been closer to nuclear war.
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. There was a drug problem but nothing like it is now. Not even close. While we might survive as a nation, millions of our citizens will not. That is the point.
When you try to minimize this you support it.
I disagree. This is different. This is scary. Totally out of control . The thinking is so strange!
Jim, Californian here. What has happened to our state's cities is both heartbreaking and an outrage. When I moved to SoCal from NYC in the 1970's there was a huge sense of pride in the cleanliness of the streets. Few homeless, quality public schools, a sense of newness and optimism compared to the blighted NYC I had left. How times have changed and voters in the big cities here have stupidly brought all the destruction upon us. We are a completely Democrat run state with the exception of some small areas away from the large population centers of LA, SF, SD and Sacramento.
California still has so much natural beauty and so many positive features that we stay here but we avoid going into LA unless we must.
If any fault attaches to Californians themselves, it is their credulity and naïveté in electing these goobers who are destroying what I have always believed is the prettiest and friendliest state in the nation.
100%. And it's the rest of us here who have to deal with their cluelessness. Although some are beginning to wake up - not fun to find someone camping out in front of your small business.
Yeah, run by Dem/Soc.
The color BLUE!
Unrecognizable? How did you know you were in the right place?
Mexifornia?
If you believe VDH at least 25% of Californians are mojados.
Mojado ;)
So?
Agriculture, construction, landscaping and hospitality industry jobs ain't gonna fill themselves, Mike.
You’re right. Both parties have failed to do what’s necessary to end this problem. Declare war on the cartels and wipe them off the map. SOCOM could do it in a weekend if they were turned loose in Mexico. They want the problem to campaign and fundraise off of. They’re all complicit.
Except they are no longer located in Mexico. They are fully operational in the US and have divided it up into distinct territories. I am convinced some of the DAs are compromised and probably other gover ment officials as well. Mexico has demanded a US investigation into why their forces are encountering US military grade weapons (including rocket launchers) in the hands of the cartels that are still there. You can't buy those at gun shows in Texas. Exactly how bad was Fast and Furious?
Again. Accept that illegal cartel drug cash spends in D.C. just like "legal" cash and you'll sleep better. Remember the journalist Gary Webb, Oliver North, Freeway Ricky Ross and the CIA pumping drugs into poor communities en masse? Gary is dead for uncovering it. The rest of the gang on to glory, adventure and whatever's next.
Very true. Not going to accept it though.
They are here but their command and control and labs are still in Mexico. If you cut the head of the snake the rest of them will scramble to fill the power vacuum and if they’re over here, and we actually take the gloves off, it won’t take long to smash them. Here or there if we wanted to crush them we could do it and do it quickly. My point stands.
I would have thought that too even a short five years ago. I am not convinced now. I suspect the leadership is living the good life in South Beach, Yarrow Point and upper crust enclaves between. The Hamas model if you will.
When my kids were little 19 years ago- we lived in Wilmington, De- and used to go to Baltimore often . Just me and the kids in the minivan driving down 95 to the zoo or museums or aquarium for a day trip. It was fine. My friend who still lives in DE and had to got there for swim meets said it’s literally disgusting and I’d never go now. What a shame
One of my customers owns a janitorial business and has contracts with some downtown Baltimore office buildings. I asked him what it was like down there since I hadn't been in several years. He replied "It's the wild west. Homeless are everywhere and the police aren't doing anything to stop crime."
I worked in Center City Philly from 1983 to 2017, when I retired.
I will never go back.
Philly is a shit hole.
Aren't most Dem/Soc cities shitholes?
Drive down Kensington passed K&A? Democrats policies helped advance problems and Republicans seems to mostly care about photo opps. Gov has failed.
I’m sorry your visit to Philly was so terrible. I was also there and walked around 8 miles Saturday. There are plenty of very lovely places to explore.
You nailed it Dems caused the problem and the GOP is eithert too lazy or too stupid to challenge the Dems on the problem.
This is a golden opportunity for the GOP to run ads showing the degeneration of our once great cities and challenge the Commy/Dem thugs on what they have done to our country.
But the truth is, both parties suck. It is criminal negligence and a lack of due diligence.
A curse on both parties!
The GOP’s focus is fixed on fetuses despite their screeching about the real issues we all see every day. As long as they are fixated on an issue that should not even be political (women’s health care) they will continue to lose elections.
They are idiots!
Evans, kids are dying in states not blue, too. Yeah, you may say that 'progressive' cities are shitholes, Trump said the same about Africa - but less visibly and more quietly, the majority of deaths are in the Corn Belt, the Plains, and in hamlets in the South. No Dem in sight..And what are local authorities doing there? They're as hapless as the shitholes you mention. This is a national problem. A national emergency. Both parties are to blame. We're too much in the habit in this country, echoed here in all the comments here every single day, in singling out one side or another - usually it's the evil Biden's fault. And if we continue to do that, to stay eternally divided - we have to expect more deaths due to fentanyl as each side attacks the other. We have an Administration doing nothing. We have a GOP run Congress doing even less - because they mutually hate each other. And that hate is echoed here - sorry to say.
It IS currently Evil Biden’s fault since he erased our Southern border.
Both parties have ignored it. We also can't ignore the economic incentives. Lockdowns forced many people into the underground economy to survive. Those networks remain.
I'm also not sure if all of it is just greed. I know for certain that Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan with the Blind sheik attacked Russia with highly pure heroin distributed there nearly free. The aim was to kill the young men before they can enter military service.
It also drove ppl with addiction issues, already shaky, to go without critical support.
But at least Trump attempted to do something about it. This admin seems to be facilitating it. BIG DIFFERENCE. As with any contra band you’ll never stop all of it but the quantities coming across weekly are enough to kill every teen/young adult in America.
Sorry but this fentanyl crisis has been escalating for years, before Biden, too. No doubt the border crisis is another major hole in this battle but I have seen story after story for years - often the kids are mentioned briefly and then - move on. I’ve read heartbreaking pieces by mothers, especially. It’s a horrendous way to be losing so many kids.
It’s true that it’s been around for years, and likely decades, but it can’t be argued that since Biden took over and millions have crossed into our country illegally, so has fentanyl crossed over. The cartels now control our border…not the USA. This is on Biden and administration as they have no interest in doing anything about it. Harris is the one supposedly in charge, and she is currently on her reproductive healthcare tour (eye roll). This admin is filth. And the republicans are not far behind. Very few leaders care about this country anymore. Heartbreaking to hear these stories.
Linda, Biden could not run a lemonade stand. This is not his doing.
The "cartel's" control sections of every American city and the cash flows upward. And always has. Imagine a 2000 sq.ft. home every room stacked to the ceiling with cash. Cops to the top that buys a lot of influence and a lot of people looking the other way.
Will someone please refresh my memory? Which recent president attempted to get control of the border but was blocked and relentlessly attacked as racist by which political party?
Not sure I understand what you are getting at - if you are responding to my comment(s), looks like you are - the issue with this drug is NOT solely a border issue - the drugs are in the country and have been circulating for years and years. As I said in my comment, the border crisis is a disaster - and no doubt contributing, but the problem has been here a long time and like any other issue, until the SPECIFIC issue is highlighted (how potent the drug is, how little it takes, who is gettting their hands and why), there won’t be a targeted solution, until that mantle is up, as a priority. Sadly there are many priorities but that’s why pieces like this are so valuable - so people really get it.
But you can’t fix the fentanyl problem without shutting the border. Otherwise you’re bailing out of one end of the boat while the other end is taking on more water.
Right - but again, until people are aware of how dangerous and how much of a crisis this is - and how and why it kills so easily, a TARGETED solution, (not just controlling the border, which again I have said is an issue) to the crisis that is already here, isn’t possible. These drugs will get in no matter what and highlighting how deadly this is, like this piece, IS part of the solution, at least a step. Things get prioritized once people really get how dangerous it is.
Remember that there is also a northern border which is a lot less surveilled than our southern. And two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. Drug deaths are the symptom not the disease. It's time to get clean and our shock at the filth emanating from the hog trough on the Potomac won't wash it off. It's a one person at a time wake up and a brand new American national dialogue.
Have you heard this administration talk about fentanyl? I’ve hardly heard the word come out of Biden’s mouth (off topic, in a similar way he has not once talked about the murders of Americans by illegals)…but it became part of Trump's message before his term ended. He talked about how it was killing our kids. I often have to remind myself that he didn’t even have his own party backing him to get things done til late in his term, so he had little help in taking care of this problem.
Linda - sorry, I am NOT defending Biden - and Trump may have acknowledged the issue but a drug issue with something this deadly is not ONLY fixed by border control, although it is necessary, obviously. I’ve left other comments on here so won’t keep repeating myself. You may spot them on other threads.
Agreed...there needs to be a multi-pronged approach leading from the top which most likely will not happen because it would mean actually taking a strong stand against China, the source of the ingredients. This is a serious national security issue. Closing the border is one important step but absolutely not the only one needed .
Embargo Chinese goods until China stops shipping this crap to Mexico. Not hard.
Public - Michael Shellenberger & Leighton Woodhouse do a great job explaining the impact that this epidemic is having on society.
https://public.substack.com/p/fentanyl-bloodbath-demands-domestic
Thanks for the link!! Most of the grift is convincing the average citizen that they are powerless. Chaos, fear and confusion serves fascist criminal finance. The "border crisis" is just one more turd floating downstream from the morally bankrupt D.C. sewer. Every day "we the people" are confronted by serious social/cultural/financial problems and it is often hard to remember that there are good men and women inside the system mired in the same confusion as ourselves.
My repeated complaint is our seeming blindness to the parallel between the American border crisis and the flooding of Europe with illegals by the same billionaire organized NGO's now attempting to overthrow the free peoples of Europe. And that there is no "hands across the water" empathy between the Europeans fighting the same fascist criminals as ourselves. Likewise the mutual billionaire complicity and shared profitability with human trafficking/drug cartels who serve their interests. It is a trillion dollar industry and illegal cash has always flowed upward. The criminals are international in scope and we should see it that way.
One problem and a place to start might be the realization that the criminal billionaires dismantling Western Civilization are using our tax dollars to do it. Most of the poseur utopian ideologues who serve and man the NGO/DEI faux Marxist machine do so with tax dollars wheedled out of pay to play D.C. politicians by billionaires. Though the RNC is missing in action a hopeful example is the Republican House holding the line against pressure to fund the Ukraine War while demanding a resolution of the border crisis. We should demand total accountability and transparency on all tax dollars spent.
They had to replace the opioid deaths with something I guess :/
It’s horrific :(.
It’s never been more available and is far worse.
The amount of seized fentanyl has exploded under Biden. Exponentially.
We all agree there is an abundance of drugs, especially fentanyl.
We all agree everything we can do should be done.
Can we also agree that closing the border to slow the drug trafficking will help?
Which president wanted to build a wall and began its construction?
Which president stopped its construction, and invited illegal immigrants in?
It certainly sounds like Mindy is defending Biden.
Add both wars to that to Biden is the worst President in American history and we have had some lulus.
That’s an understatement, but you’re right..
If Mr. Levin’s comment is true, the establishment Republican party does nothing to stop them from destroying the country.
The ones who try are just shredded by the MSM and crony older republicans like McConnell won’t support them. They are slowly being replaced with younger, more driven conservatives but at a snails pace.
TERM LIMITS!!!!!
Bull, Mr. Castle. This is an American failure belonging to everyone. In 2019 over 70000 people in this country died due to fentanyl. Under which President was that?
So why didn’t Biden and his administration stop it? He said he was going to fix America. Worse President EVER!
Just as bad, perhaps, as the man he replaced? You blame Biden for not fixing a problem he inherited, okay - yet the Administration where it came from you do not condemn?
We were safer until Trump.
Under not until
Mark "Stolen Election" Levin.
The CCP is exacting vengeance for the opium wars. They partner with the drug cartels to distribute fentanyl that kills Americans. The Biden regime does nothing to stop them because it is owned by the CCP and cartels. Bootlicking MSM ignores these crimes because they are fully compromised.
https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/ccp-opium-war-tiktok-fentanyl
Yuri......I'm more convinced than ever that many American politicians are now in bed with the cartels. There is no other explanation that can pass the laugh test for what is going on.
Agreed. Between the lack of action on the border and the lack of action on fentanyl more than a trivial % of them have to be on the payroll.
Well last week I read an article about how the US wont investigate the shady shenanigans of the Mexican president and the cartels because of US/Mexico relations. So they’re good with the Mexican prez being in bed with the cartels?
Mexico (as the U.S.A. may become) is actually five or six cartel controlled "provinces". (The Mexican Federal Government, like that in D.C., is pay to play.) Inside that small militia's arm themselves to keep the cartel's from seizing property, produce and taking lives. Again, considering that cartels control sections of most American cities, that criminal billionaire capital and the CCP (same people) are, with the help of D.C. corruption buying up huge sections of American farmland the end result should be obvious. To understand that in the view of the DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos criminal gang "we the people" aren't actually human beings review the definition for COMMODIFY.
Clearly this admin is. It is complicated. If we just bribed the powers that be more and sent even a fraction of the cash to the Mexican government (or the weapons and a promise of military support) that we’ve spent defending Ukraine they might have the resources to fight the cartels.
The cartels are armed to the teeth and have the resources to obtain state of the art military weaponry. They took over and repelled Mexican authorities in some smaller city in the last year or so.
Invading and taking military action would be an international incident.
I’m not sure if fentanyl is affecting other countries but America isn’t the only country with a drug problem. If it’s not a problem elsewhere than I think it’s proof that the CCP is just targeting America, something I believe to be true anyway. Xi is a bad man who would love to see us in ruins. With this admin we’re closer by the day.
I’ve thought this same thing for many years. I wonder what the kickback % is to our corrupt “leaders” in DC?
Also school administrators are in bed with the cartels. Our local school system is very liberal.
Evan - I think we all need to accept that ultimately it is voters that keep putting these establishment politicians back into office. While their motives may be hidden at times, their action (or lack of it) is on display for anyone that is paying attention. Unfortunately too many people are not paying attention.
Ppl with college degrees went through institutions that indoctrinated them. Unless you are over 50 and/or didn’t get this brainwashing through education or liberal/leftist parents, you can see this nonsense for what it is.
The highjacking of the American mind has been going on since the 70’s. Now all the teachers of grade schools have been converted. That’s why they are indoctrinating children voraciously and want parents silenced. The DNC is all for it but liberal parents (liberals of old) are crying foul and are alarmed now too. Funny how those same recently awakened (not “woke”) people just can’t accept that their party in general is responsible and has fostered this for decades. This is the fruit of it all we are seeing.
Yup. Embargo all Chinese goods until CCP stops shipping this poison overseas.
Old joke about the Chinese: “How’s that French Revolution going?” Too soon to tell.
I agree. One quibble though. That new $80,000,000 is not to protect Ukraine's kids. I do not know what it is for but it is not to protect Ukraine's kids. The way to do that is to negotiate a peace and reportedly this administration has been against that from the get-go. Which is consistent with the idea that it provoked the war.
Word
🤔👍
The foreign-bad-actor and national security angle is an important part of the story, but it's not the whole story. I stopped reading the NY Times after they ran a profile of three privileged and bright young New Yorkers who died from tainted cocaine they had bought through a cocaine delivery service. One of the parents complained that more needed to be done, and that his child couldn't have known her coke was adulterated. What through-the-looking-glass world is this?
So if it had been "safe" cocaine, the parents would have been totally fine with it? Are kids no longer taught to avoid drugs?
Probably not by parents who support legalized marijuana because "equity", or who robotically intone, "The war on drugs doesn't work", or who are too ashamed of their own use that they can't muster the courage to instruct their children. There is something inherently wrong with an environment that provides the best medical care in the world but then sees a youngster think it's an acceptable choice to buy black market drugs for surgical pain. This is a failure of culture that precedes foreign mischief.
I read that article, too. And this story also told of a child buying what he thought was Percocet on Snapchat and young women accepting the same at a party. I lost a former student to Fentanyl when he thought he was taking a natural form of Adderall from a "holistic" source. Illegal knockoffs of real medications so easily purchased only contribute to the poisonings. Part of the problem is the politicalization of pharmaceuticals, part is the cost of medication/greed of big pharma, and part is the illusion that death by toxin only happens to addicts. It's a sad thing. Closing the border may be a start, but we also need to inspect anything coming into the U.S. from China and any countries China "owns" in South and Central America and Africa.
The cartels couldn't make a penny on fentanyl if America didn't have such an insane desire to snort, shoot, and swallow its way through life. But we do, so the cartels oblige us.
Do you see any way we can crash the demand side, Evans? Much as I'd love to drop the big one on the cartels, that's not going to stop the illegal drug trade, someone else would take their place. We have to convince Americans to quit taking this shit. How do we do that?
Shane, I agree with you - aren’t young people told not to take drugs anymore? In the 1970s, we had it drummed into us non-stop. The story of the lovely premed student shocks me, she was already being drugged with Adderall (just a legal drug after all) with her parents’ consent as if that’s just fine. Then there is the 13 year old who already had a dealer for marijuana and knew all about Percocet! The tone of the comments is that it’s fine for everyone to take drugs as long as they aren’t laced with fentanyl - all the government’s fault.
I wondered that as well. When I was 13 I had no idea what Percocet was! It is a terrible tragedy, but the article glosses over the fact that a 13 year old had a drug dealer and knew what to take.
Words fail me that a 13-year-old has a dealer and it isn't Girl Scout Cookies.
It's worth a separate story, isn't it: why are the children of America taking these powerful narcotics at all? And why is that perfectly okay with too many parents? Do they think this stuff is the ditch weed of their fondly remembered teenage years? It isn't. Even without the fentanyl this stuff is dangerous and should be kept from our kids unless actually needed.
We can't legislate our way out of americans desire to use drugs....that's a whole other story. This fentanyl crisis isn't some kiddies smoking a joint under the bleachers. It's killing them en masse and has to be taken on with overwhelming force and determination. We can't afford to go with just standing up treatment centers and encouraging a "just say no" policy. I never tried to insinuate it was going to be easy......in fact its going to be vicious and very violent. Standing by isn't an option.
It's logistically impossible to stop drugs from crossing the border. It can't be done.
Given that the pills can't be stopped and the demand can't be curbed, the only solution is to legalize narcotics and sell them over the counter. This is literally the only way to ensure the dosages and substances are "as advertised" and not some random fatal substance like fentanyl.
This will have the added benefit of taking money out of the cartels pockets and putting it into government coffers (via a tax, like we do on marijuana).
I agree that it's going to be vicious and violent. Blood will run in the streets in Mexico and much of the United States--cartel headquarters and distribution networks are everywhere--as the cartels protect their turf. But even with that, I don't know that we can win without destroying the domestic demand side for drugs. Maybe enough brutality by our armed forces could convince the cartels to use a cheap but non-lethal substitute for fentanyl. Better for kids to swallow baby powder than fent.
Even if hypothetically all the cartels were carpet-bombed off the face of the Earth, the demand would still be there. It would only be a matter of time before new cartels took there place. As long as Americans demand drugs, I don't see this issue being solved.
Yes, that's the problem with the cries to "nuke the cartels"--if there's money to be made, the next group of capitalists will step in. As long as kids (and adults) want to get high/low/different via pills and powders, someone will sell it to them. But if the War on Drugs was a flop, what would dampen the demand?
Shane - I think you are spot on with addressing the demand side of this. Good kids with good parents can and will still make mistakes. Our job as parents it to ensure that they are aware of the risks of their behavior and help them avoid choices that could end or alter their life. This article makes a few references to parents that seemed totally unaware of Fentanyl - what planet are they living on? When kids are Snapchatting drug dealers for Percocet or splitting pills at parties the horse it already out of the barn - it is only a matter of time before your luck runs out.
Thanks, KTA. I can't imagine an adult that hasn't heard of fentanyl, but so many have tuned out of the world by not keeping up on daily news events that they're not aware the cartels are poisoning America's children via illegal drugs.
Someone asked why the cartels use this poison when it kills their clients. Apparently, it's because fentanyl is highly addictive and costs them only 10 cents a pill to make so the rest is profit. If that combo kills 1 percent of the clients and horribly addicts the other 99 percent, the profit is enormous. It's the most brutal business math in the world.
You are right. Just look at the alcohol industry.
Absolutely. People want to drink, so no matter how drastic the punishment for being caught with alcohol, people will do it anyway. At least now we make serious tax money on alky, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving have put a serious dent into that part of alcohol.
...So Donald Trump is going to fix it all and he cares about your kids, because of his clear track record of honesty and family values? Or the Republicans who have shown that they aren't interested in kids, per se, only making sure that no one can choose when to have one or not, because an embro in a lab is the same as a human life? Come on. Yes, you have a right to be angry at our government. But let's be clear on the fact that today's GOP cares as little as the other side in fixing deep, dark problems like drug cartels and trafficking. We all know that if we were to truly do that, it would probably make your goods and services from Central America more expensive, and you really wouldn't be able to take that cruise to Cabo. That's way too inconvenient for most Americans, so guess how popular an actual, effective war on drugs would be with the public? But please, don't be simplistic and think your MAGA folk care more than the other side. Me, I'd be glad to actually crack down on this, and yes, we would all have to pay more for miltary intervention and Target clothing made in El Salvador or Guatemala. Bring it on, I say.
Absolutely agree. Our federal government has taken measures to stop Texas (where my 17 yr old. nephew died from fentanyl two years ago) from stopping the border invasion. They are complicit with the cartels in waging war on our country. It’s time we uphold our constitution and laws ourselves. I don’t have any issue with legal immigrants. All are welcome. The poison though and millions of illegal invaders are not.
They allow fentanyl into the country, they encourage castration/sterilization of kids via the trans cult, and they teach kids to hate themselves because of their skin color. Seems pretty obvious that they are trying to kill off huge swaths of the US population. Look up the Planned Parenthood Jaffe Memo from 1967. This sick plan has been the leftists wet dream for a long time.
as always, its about the money,,,, follow it.
When will you run for office? 🙏🙏
That would be an utter disaster. If you opened the closet door of my past, the skeletons would most likely beat you to death & my poor wife would have to go into hiding. 🤣🤣🤣
Haha. We all have skeletons.
Agreed 100% except for the protect Ukrainian kids part. Their kids are being conscripted and thrown into the front lines
Your conclusions are sound. Time for what?
Yep--"criminal prosecution". NGO's controlled and organized by billionaire totalitarians who use tax dollars to fund their deadly lunacy. Tax dollars appropriated by a corrupt D.C. elected political leadership. Its a distorted form of theft and money laundering that feeds the mercenary ideological utopians who serve the fascist DNC/CCP/WEF/EU Davos crowd.
Well Evan if you what to change the fabric of the country, which those running the country certainly do, there are costs. They don't care because their moral clarity tells them the ends justify the means.
It is the time is now!
Do we live in a country where we fix problems? I don't think so.
Does the Free Press exist to shine a spotlight on huge public policy failures when Democrats are involved up to their necks? I don't think so.
I will continue posting here, but I don't feel any of you are serious. Sure, you're highlighting A problem, but not THE problem, which is a world where the most absurd and fantastic lies can be told from on high, not questioned by the media, and in which people who point out the absurdities are attacked in a variety of ways.
I agree, Finbar, but I think we could have a giant PR campaign to scare kids into not taking any pills that didn’t come from a pharmacy. I grew up with videos of car crashes from drunk driving, we had MADD, then there was AIDS and the safe sex campaign. Why did all these kids think it was OK to take pills from something other than a prescription bottle? Why did the kid with a toothache not ask the dentist for something? A tylenol/advil regimen is now recommended for pain.
The kid buying a fake Percocet for pain relief from a root canal shocked me as well. He bought a pill on SNAPCHAT?!? AYFKM??? All teens make stupid decisions, and many of them have died as a result (drunk driving, stupid stunts, etc.), but the unprecedented death rate from fentanyl is a national crisis—and our first response should be to CLOSE THE DAMN BORDER.
And prosecute sellers who find buyers on Snapchat, TikTok, and the rest.
And hang at least a few.
Our children are lonely, frightened and confused. This is the core problem. Their parents are in far too many cases emotionally disconnected, and their culture is imploding. Everything known and knowable is under sustained and well coordinated attack by effectively sociopathic and amoral bullies.
I myself feel like taking drugs many days, and I WAS an alcoholic for many years. This is an unkind, brutal and absurd world, and one made so in the largest part under the banners of kindness, gentleness, inclusivity and Reason.
Its a really painful thing to behold. This madnesd has deep roots all around us. People who lack a church and/or a sane family stand almost no chance.
I think this world was always absurd and brutal at times. With the tools today the young are exposed to all of it all the time. No one can handle that much every day
Good point. As I have participated in the evolution of the internet over the years I have often wondered, was it always like this and we just know about it now? But I have come to the conclusion that prior to the internet everybody was policed by their community. For example moms, dads, and religious leaders knew who the perverts were and so they were monitored much more closely than today. I am not a fan of government control or censorship. But neither am I an anarchist and I do not understand the anything goes on the internet belief. Of course FB, X, etc. are publishers. They should be civilly liable for what they publish. Otherwise evil will, and does, flourish there.
Humm.... We celebrate perverts now - like that luggage thief Sam Brinton. Or, we say because of "kindness and understanding" we cannot call anyone a pervert or say that anything at all is depraved. We have terms like Minor Attracted People (MAPs). Perhaps Havey Milk was a pedo but he has to be celebrated as a Saint at school in CA. I just read that Governor Gavin Newsom has fined a district in CA $1.5 million for not teaching about Harvey Milk. Certainly Kinsey crony Dr. John money was a pedophile and he popularized the "gender" concept & abused twin boys in a gender experiment.
One cannot suggest that Mutilaton Lord Admiral Levine might have a sexual fetish which he wants to normalize via promoting harm to children with an ideology taught at school and with "gender medical care".
I appreciated this commenter on PITT who has "been there"
"AGP can be dealt with if the person accepts that it's a fetish and not some affirmation that they're really a woman inside. That removes a lot of its power. "I'm a man who gets turned on by putting on a pair of stockings" is a lot different than "I enjoy wearing stockings so I must be a woman." You can have a relatively normal life with the first. The second will lead you to bad places."
Also, it seems that the legalization & normalization of recreational drugs has been a mistake, IMO.
Too many celebrate it and too many of the rest are cowed into silence about it. I think the problem with much of this is not grasping the difference between bias and prejudice. The terms are used interterchangeably now but they are not. For example because I exhibit bias towards those of my sexual preference does not mean I am prejudiced against those with different preferences. That is true of race, ethnicity, religion and gender. But the insistence that if I prefer my group, which is after all only natural, I am against the other group has allowed the idea that members of a small subset of people should be treated as the norm. Which results in essence in special treatment because those people are elevated in status and the previous norm is ignored. Which is an antithetical to a free society. Why can't we just accept differences exist and there is nothing wrong with that. I think that makes it easier to call out things like pedophilia too. I also find it strange that there are those who believe nothing Thomas Jefferson did is worthwhile because of his relationship with Sally Hemming, but as you point believe a child sex abuser is to be applauded.
A publisher knows what projects are accepted in the publishing house. There are editors who read and correct the writing. FB,X etc operate on a different formula and scale. Billions of posts from everyone and anyone are viewed in real time . There is no human editor.The computer algorithms can only do so much. It’s an entirely new age of technology and no one is sure how to deal with what it ha# unleashed on society.
It has been the engine driving most of the ills that may have been simmering below the surface.
And that will not change until they are held accountable. They are digital publishers. Changes are in order. I listened to some of the hearings last week. The Discord guy and the X lady were pretty good. Zuckerburg was awful. The poor Tik-Tok guy always gets roasted.
Before the internet everyone was policed...
AND SUPPORTED....
bu the community.
Wonder how /if we can somehow get that back
I fear not in the short term.
Exactly this. I’m not sure anyone realized the effect the Covid lockdowns had on the fragile mental state of our children.
Fauci should be on death row.
He should be standing in line behind the drug dealers.
He should be given some fentanyl
"People who lack a church and/or a sane family stand almost no chance."
Could not agree more.
That’s hitting the nail squarely on the head!!
Ppl are too squeamish to call out evil and now too many churches are going all in on “woke” BS. Maybe just to keep their coffers filled, the root of that problem I think. Ppl who know better but through their own fallen nature lead others astray are going to be held in higher contempt at judgement than the sinner who just wrecks their own soul.
All that is happening are the sign that we are approaching the precipice of Armageddon. That is not the Apocalypse. That comes a millennia after Armageddon. The end to Armageddon is the second coming. The difference is that once He returns ppl will not live in a world under constant temptation. The enemy, defeated, will no longer sit on the throne but the returned King will take His place.
I don’t know if I’ll live to see it but it could be near enough. I know that’s been thought before but this time many things that were signs had not yet come to pass now have. Israel has been restored, what was taboo is now called good and what is good is called evil, we are fast approaching the dissolution of hard currency in favor of a fully digital economy. There are proposals to have every one stamped with a bar code that is like an internal tattoo for our “safety”. The unaware sheeple line up for slaughter.
My thoughts exactly NC. Why in the world would a kid not tell his parent he needed pain meds for his dental probs????? Is it Tik Tok brain or peer pressure? Dear Lord!
Maybe it is because there is a local kid with a bagful of pills offering an over-the-top percocet for a root canal. Kids don’t think, nor do they think anything bad will happen to them.
When I was 12 many, many years ago I was hanging out with friends during the Yom Kippur fast day. I was a good kid, no drugs ever. Someone offered a popular pill, i cannot remember what is was called,
for all to try. I followed the crowd and took one. I felt nothing, nada. And, that was it. I WAS LUCKY.
And if they said, "Suck it up, kid"?
I have had several dental procedures and pain meds have always been prescribed. So I wonder if the parent(s) had a script and did not fill it or if the child had already been through all the pills. Percocet is highly abused. That is why there is a street market.
There is more and more restrictions on pain meds to prevent addictions. In a recent fall, I fractured my arm bone in two places and wrenched the shoulder and was only given a 5 day supply of pain pills. While pain has a purpose, no one lives a pain free life, and all meds have side effects that need to be considered...this was an unnecessary level of pain.
The law that is severally restricting pain meds may have the unintended consequence of creating a black market for the drug. Going from unlimited pain meds for wisdom teeth extraction or orthopedic to inadequate pain med is not the solution.
I agree. My instinct is that there is a predilection to addiction in some people but not others. My mom was at the end of life they were worried about overprescribing. WTF? Let 'er rip. People who live with chronic debilitating pain deserve help. It is not like their quality of life is not screwed anyway. FWIW aside from these issues, and the border, are two others I think. One, doctors are not really well trained in pharmaceuticals despite being the gatekeepers thereto. Far too many rely on what the pharmaceutical sales reps say. And reliance on third party for profit entities to control the health business (I can't even call it healthcare anymore) is folly. Because all decisions are profit driven algorithms. My guess is that the insurer's instructions are what is really the failure to prescribe scenario. Chilling isn't it? In the well-intentioned effort to make healthcare accessible to all we are just serving a product so diluted as to be harmful.
I've never NOT been prescribed the necessary pain meds for any procedure. In fact, members of my family have often been prescribed more than we actually needed (we have a corner of the cabinet where these drugs are saved, in case of future need). But I live in the Midwest, where doctors currently tend to be reasonable instead of paranoid. People I know on the East Coast have been underprescribed the pain meds they needed.
Unfortunately, some parents have a "tough it out" attitude. My best friend's mom had an overall policy of "if it didn't kill me, it won't kill you."
Unless the boy was not prescribed adequate pain meds, or prescribed far too few to begin with, it seems unlikely that he would have been through all the pills, since dental procedure pain tends to fade after a few days.
We don't know all the details. Maybe everyone--his dentist and his parents (not to mention the government's messed-up opioids policy)--failed him. Or maybe he was looking for a way to keep on tuning out instead of legitimately needing the pill for pain.
Agreed. I think there is more to this story.
What child even knows what Percocet is?? Did he ask for it by name?? Never mind I just remembered there are raps songs about percocet…
Dds and drs are rarely prescribing opioids for serious pain because of the government crackdown. It has been a disaster for people suffering with severe chronic pain or acute short term severe pain.
Exactly. We KNOW what caused the "opioid crisis": it was Purdue Pharmaceuticals and their effort to make money from Oxycontin, even though they knew that it did not work as advertised. Their prescribing recommendations were the perfect recipe for turning ordinary people into opioid addicts.
Instead of simply punishing the company that caused this, and/or helping people who became addicted through no fault of their own, our government decided that people simply shouldn't be prescribed opioids of ANY kind, despite the fact that some types of pain are treatable only with opioids.
No wonder people began turning to drug dealers for "help."
The people who are responsible for these conditions pat themselves on the back instead of being punished.
That is true. But it demonstrates that government cannot fix things and when it tries the unintended consequences are myriad.
Celia, the FDA approved Oxy. Purdue/Sacks had their cover from day 1.
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/how-fda-failures-contributed-opioid-crisis/2020-08
I'm aware. Raises questions about who paid whom and in what currency and how much.
Purdue massaged their study data to the point that it was easily discovered once people started looking into it. And yet the FDA didn't notice or didn't care.
Bureaucracy inevitably leads to corruption.
IMO, FDA is almost (and this is hard to say) more liable than Purdue in the opioid crisis. I know more than the average person re: opioids, addiction and FDA. I sat in FDA advisory committe mtgs when Purdue's original ' Oxicontin was found to NOT be tamper-proof at all, in fact, it was clear that addicts were crushing and snorting on the regular (and dying). FDA should have immediately withdrawn the product from the market until Purdue developed a truly tamper-proof formulation. They did not. Patients could still get immediate-release oxy so no one would be going without oxycodone if they needed it, they just wouldn't have the long-acting product. FDA gave them a little tap on the wrist. and on, and on, and on. The worst that happened to FDA staff was the exiting of two mid-level MDs. That's it. DISGUSTS ME.
Yes - this is a problem. I had a prescription for pain/anti-anxiety med before surgery where a local was to be used as recovery would be quicker and easier. My insurance would not cover it because it was partly narcotic and only 2 pills! (Their reasons for non-coverage were priceless - and completely nonsensical.) Fortunately they were semi-generic and two pills were pretty cheap so I just paid for it myself. It isn’t just Docs that are part of the problem - insurance and pharmacy too. Over-reaction on one side and way under reaction on the fentanyl issues.
The control of all of healthcare delivery to big corporations has destroyed much of what was good and noble about being a dr and the pt dr relationship.
Government overreach and micromanaging the opioid issue was as usual foolish and unnecessary. The tools were already in place to shut down the drs running the pill mills. There was no need to enact the sweeping regulations that tied the
hand of the vast majority of drs who were doing what was right with and for their patients.
Amen Ds, amen. Plus a doctor and his/her patient used to have a genuine relationship so the doc had genuine insight into what the patient needed. No more.
True. For those that always say they don’t want gov involved in their healthcare (mainly around the abortion arguement) I want to say it all ready is and has been involved in our healthcare. They even dictate how many pills can be manufactured for the year and how they are prescribed. A doctor isn’t going to risk their license and ability to work to go against the gov. Look at what happens now to people who go against the gov. This is the world we live in now and more and more like China everyday. We have been bought and sold.
There needs to be more jail based treatment programs. I worked in addiction in 8 years and seen ppl recover from these programs. They were followed once released and had to maintain accountability for two years.
Gov main job should be in protecting the nation. They are failing at this with the border and drug issue. I hate paying taxes anymore bc I don’t know what I’m paying for at the federal level. As I don’t see it working for me or my family.
I’m skeptical of all meds even if they come in a prescription bottle. Covid did this and it messed up the kids badly
My thoughts as well, take a Tylenol or Advil from a bottle your mom keeps at home. Kids need to be reminded everyday; don’t take drugs period.
I was taught not to do drugs when I was a kid and it stuck with me. Are kids no longer told this? How does a 13 year old have a drug hookup? The article treats that as an entirely normal occurrence.
To be fair, a bad side effect of the opioid crisis is the near-prohibition on giving out pain medication to anyone, anywhere, anytime, regardless of whether they’ve just had surgery, major dental work, etc..
I’m not sure why our society seems to operate in a pendulum–swing/binary all the time; surely there is some sane middle ground, where we acknowledge that some pain is too severe for Tylenol/NSAID, but we discourage long-term opioid use.
I wondered that too. Did he tell his folks or anyone else that might’ve helped? Most responsible doctors discuss the issue of pain management with either the patient or guardian as protocol.
You are right about THE problem, but in fact many people are talking about it - just not the mainstream media which is run by leftists. Lots of people on the right ARE talking about it and they are not afraid of being attacked ( for example Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Dave Rubin, Michael Malice, Megyn Kelly - and the list goes on) but until they are in power again, nothing will be done.
Ive been talking about it for twenty years. Ive been banned on every left wing site I have visited. I used to actively go seek out debate, but some large segment of our populace DOESNT WANT debate. Why? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO INTEREST IN SOLVING PROBLEMS.
The problem left wing practice and beleif solves is that of alleviating anxiety. In a complex world denuded of God, marinated in an idiotic and empirically indefensible Materialism/Physicalism, left wing oractice and belief exists to assure people they are good, and that no matter how absurd, self absorbed and silly their lives are, they are still better than the stupid and bigoted conservatives. Everybody tells them so and they believe it.
But if course this cult can be and has been weaponized in the service of greed and stupidity. And we see the results everywhere, daily.
Our world could and should be much better. But until this madness passes—if it does—things will get steadily worse.
Finny you are wise beyond measure. Was having this very discussion just this morning. "Why are liberals so obdurately stupid in believing the absurd?" It isn't that they're stupid (although many are) but they've been taught to believe that they are good (and smart) if they embrace DNC talking points, while conservatives are venal and racist. And even if all evidence points to the contrary, they will take these lies to their grave. You still see this embedded in many of the writers for the Free Press. Their programming still runs very deep.
It could be that those "liberals" have been educated to think and act exactly as they are thinking and acting. We suffer from at least two generations of indoctrinated folks that are now moving into positions of decision making and influence.
In essence they are very good dogs being rewarded with hearing what they want to hear.
Just read a book called, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God” by Justin Brierley. Seems that materialism isn’t quiet doing it for people. I take some small comfort in this.
I've been encouraged by the recent stories of agnostics/atheists (Hirsi Ali who writes for TFP, Paul Kingsnorth, Jordan Peterson, etc) who are seeing the light. It's sad that a whole generation of young people have been fed so much illogical theological/philosophical rubbish and are now the victims of it.
So even if you were a pioneer and ahead of the curve, how many people can you influence? Do you have a platform with millions of viewers?
Talking about it on line to 20 people isn't enough.
Good point, speaking of influence; how about requiring every social media company/outlet show a non-deletable short video of the dangers of illicit drug use before the user can watch a video, download an image, etc. At the very least require the PSA to be shown when first logging on for the day.
Don’t we already have enough “nanny state” interference in our daily lives? Perhaps before we watch any video or read any website, we can require a statement of land acknowledgment, followed by a lecture on white privilege, followed by an encouragement to “queer” everything? <sarc>
What else could or should I do? Im up for ideas.
We've had this conversation before. You're fine. Keep reading the stoics and believing in the inherent goodness of America and her people. Our leaders suck. Our people do not.
Not blaming people for not doing any more than you can would be a place to start.
If I owned the Free Press, it would look much more like Tucker Carlson, and much less like a mild alternative to the New York Times.
Bari has a child. That child will grow up in this world. And this world is being destroyed from within in plain sight. Speaking more about that FACT would certainly be doing something to help prevent that outcome.
You would need a platform and an audience. There's no other way. On the other hand, criticizing everyone else does not move the ball forward.
He does have his “Moderates United” blogspot/substack.
Sure it is. Do you think when Ben Franklin started writing those pamphlets he knew what it would lead to? If UF reaches 20 sentient people and those 20 sentient people reach other sentient people it is worthwhile. To do as you suggest and pursuing a "platform.of millions" 1) would not necessarily mean millions of sentient viewers, and 2) would invite censorship and cancellation.
You know how this passes, Unsaint? The madness that is, and you're serious? As I've said to Bruce just below for two years now or so - get the Right (you know, what used to be the GOP we all understood before it got taken over by you know who..) to nominate BETTER candidates!!! Get candidates for Congress and the Senate who don't scare the shit out of people! Get a Presidential candidate who isn't calling for vengeance over his personal grievance! Get people who can reach across the aisle and talk to the other side. Get candidates who understand that the majority of American women want access to abortion. Get candidates who believe that the election in 2020 wasn't stolen. Get candidates who understand that voting rights are important, like mail in ballots. Conservatives on this sight kick and scream about the Dem idiots and their senile leader, yet so many of you subscribe to the Party Of One. And all He does is double down to his base and has no fucking idea how to appeal to anyone without a red MAGA hat on. Like me. And without the twenty or so million independents like me, Trump ain't winning.
I choose not to live by lies, thats why. If you want to be lied to, should I or anyone else bend over backwards to help you?
If we lose, we made an HONEST effort. I’m no fan of dishonest effort, or making common cause with lunatics and thieves.
Just to take one example, I’m listening to Tucker Catlson on these infernal jabs. The EVIDENCE that this is a monstrous global crime is simply overwhelming.
Not for you—if you were capable of dispassionately evaluating facts you would not write things like that, so I assume you lack the emitional strength to listen to this—but for others, here is the link: https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-the-vaccine-interview/
We’re talking past each other. I’m trying to answer your concerns about the bullshit this country is going through, by stating that you need much better representation -candidates who can address the lies you allude to. People who can attract people like me. But you don’t even address that in your response. You’re not going to get anywhere without good people in gov’t. Perhaps you don’t want people like me with you.
Trump is the most honest oerson running, in my opinion. Its only because he is rich—or was—that the System has not yet neen able to shut him down.
I would have liked Rand or Ron Paul as President, but neither will ever be backed sufficiently by their own party. And I dont see any other good options for President.
Anger about many things is strongly warranted right now, and Trump is angry.
Matt Taibbi is doing outstanding work too. But when you say until "they are in power again" who are you referring too?
What else can The Free Press do other than publish articles on the lies, damage, and horrors of the trans cult, the DEI infiltration of school at all levels of education etc
What else can the individual serious readers on TFP do besides spread the word about the dangers of all of the above?
Have you ONE article on the open border? One on the Mike Benz interview? One on the absurd legal double standard being applied to Trump and his supporters?
They won't publish any articles that make the Democrats look bad. At best, those issues may get a passing mention in a different article.
To my mind, if an elephant or donkey took a dump in the middle of the room, that would be the most immediate topic of conversation. If, looking at that giant turd, all people want to talk about is the weather and sports, without having anything against weather or sports, I am still going to wonder what the hell is wrong with those people.
Exactly. At times I wonder at the tone deafness necessary to say up is down with a straight face but then I feel grateful that I don’t really understand that mentality. I rely on my faith to have hope and seek what is good. I’ve never seen anyone find lasting sobriety without a firm belief in a higher power. There but for the grace of God....
We agree that TFree Press hasn’t covered important topics, issues and events, but your original post was that TFPress wasn’t DOING enough about the ills in society. That is what I was questioning.
This is exactly the way reporting used to (and should be) done. Exposure is the key; assigining blame and taking any action is not the job of the press. That is the job for you, and at least nominally, of politicians.
I really can't understand this "organization X doesn't take issue Y as seriously as I do, so screw them" attitude.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, as they say.
Do YOU feel that our nation as a whole is capable of organizing itself around the solution of large problems? I dont see it.
“Drawing attention to” a problem is virtue signalling and virtue signalling is an end in itself. Once you getvthe positive attention, that is the conclusion of the exercise.
"Do YOU feel that our nation as a whole is capable of organizing itself around the solution of large problems? "
Of course not.
But it's just as unreasonable to expect a press organization to morph into a tireless advocacy organization on exactly the issues you yourself care about.
I care about sanity, clarity and when it comes to journalism, integrity and thoroughness. It's interesting to me that you are seeing the call for better journalism as problematic.
Do you deny most of our media acts as gatekeepers protecting politically inconvenient truths, such as the obvious fact that Joe Biden is not fit to manage a gas station or ice cream stand?
This coverage by TFP is a useful start, if and only if it is followed up by concentrated attention on the vital question of how to stop the ubiquitous availability of this deadly drug. I suggest a public forum hosted by TFP, to which Trump, Biden and RFK are publicly invited.
"It's interesting to me that you are seeing the call for better journalism as problematic."
Because I don't. It's just that a proper news organization =/= every article is just an editorial for the POV of the editors. That's the model we're trying to move away from.
"Do you deny most of our media acts as gatekeepers protecting politically inconvenient truths,"
Of course, but just because TFP doesn't devote every drop of ink to anti-Biden screeds doesn't mean that they are gatekeeping. And if you can't see the difference between TFP's takes on Biden and the "pay no attention to the senile man behind the curtain" stance by the MSM, then I can't help ya.
I know it's been ages since it's been done properly, but there does need to be some distinction between news and editorializing.
If I may: Is it not the same issue as with "medicine" in the age of Big Pharma? Treating symptoms rather than that which causes them?
I agree with this statement.
I have always been wary of people and organizations who ask for donations to "Breast Cancer Awareness". After 30 years, who is not "Aware" of Breast Cancer ?
They should be funding Breast Cancer Eradication/Treatment Research. But, we don't get research - we get ads on TV and yearly demands for "tests".
It’s got to be done locally and on the state level. We know the federal government isn’t capable or willing to tackle this issue.
Local begins with the family. The family is not the whole solution but it is the best defense.
When one pill proffered by a pal can be a death sentence, perhaps the family could use some serious support? Like maybe hanging a few dealers?
Curious when Oliver Wiseman or Bari are going to make a trip down to the border so they can report first hand on all the progress being made.
Progress?! Ben Shapiro was just there and he reported that it s a chaotic trainwreck.
Great comment but I would make two points. I think it's unfair to say that the FP doesn't shine a spotlight on these issues. In fact, while being aware of fentanyl I was not knowledgeable about many of these statistics. And with two young teenagers, this is a chat that we will have tonight at the dinner table. If that isn't impact from a media outlet, what is?
Also, many lies nowadays are worse than "not questioned by the media" but our mainstream press is a willing participant and completely uninterested in the truth. Look at how the AP framed the Univ of GA jogger killed by an illegal immigrant a few days ago. No reasonable person can look at that story in it's totality and have the takeaway be how it's dangerous to run alone
The solution absolutely includes talking as a family. This is not the entire solution, but it is an important and vital step.
Most of the press ignored the fact the killer was arrested in New York for fairly serious offenses and then let go. And of course NYC is a sanctuary city for law breaking illegal aliens. Maybe murder is enough to qualify someone for deportation.
Just heard today that AZ has refused to send a perp to NYC because they feared that Mr Bragg would set him loose. Mr Bragg west ballistic.... F him
So I live in the county where the highlighted child from Kyle lived. There were a series of deaths among junior high and high school kids right before school started. We are between Austin and San Antonio on I35 straight up from Mexico. Drug use and abuse is not knew here but this summer's events were extraordinary by any metric. Those arguing that the border situation is not a factor are woefully ill informed.
Our sheriff took immediate action. Here is a link to his fentanyl resource page.
https://hayscountytx.com/hays-county-fentanyl-resource-page/
I hope it is useful. This is serious and it is scary. No street drugs are safe and there is a huge market therefor.
Edited to change lives to lived. God help us.
I agree- ACTIONS speak louder than words- THE problem is NOT ONLY the media. I think even if the absurdities are more exposed:
1) politicians are SO INSULATED and UNACCOUNTABLE
2) many Americans are just so lazy and self-absorbed that they couldn't care less
3) Addiction to Social Media
4) complete destruction and replacement of our Educational System with Indoctrination
Has resulted in a Country that use to be GREAT but has morally collapsed.
Karena - I think that your points (1) and (4) are the result of points (2) and (3).
Absolutely agree
I posted my comment before I even read yours. Perhaps people are waking up. Or at least those of us not so soaked in DNC agitprop that we can't see out of our own a-holes.
Comment of the day
I think most everyone here would agree with you on that. I know I do. Freedom of the press was given so that they could call out corruption for the general public, not cover it up and real journalism seems to be a secondary (if any) concern. Everything is partisan and politicized. The talking heads have become shrieking profane heads with no semblance of decorum.
I have little room to talk because my choice of four letter words are utterly foul yet I can rally myself enough to refrain when needed.
I fell like the whole damn worlds gone mad and I’ve unintentionally stumbled upon opposite land. I watched an interview that Tucker Carlson had with a Chinese immigrant who lived through the cultural revolution in China. She’s written a book “Mao’s America” as she sees much of the same things occurring here now too. She said it escalated very quickly to executions, career loss and permanent isolation. It can and will happen here if we can’t find a way to stop this toxic DEI/CRT nonsense. It is Marxism and couldn’t be more detrimental to American society. Most of the venom seems to flow from the left but not always. Rational debate is a thing of the past. Intellectual enquiry is discouraged in favor of politically “correct” dogma. I never imagined that we could squander the inheritance of what was a promising proposition that mankind might actually find a place where everyone has rights and value. Yeah, it wasn’t always that way and with some ignorant ppl it never will be but we have laws to rein the bigots in. No one has a birthright to power here. But I resent and reject that I must submit to accepting that men can be women if they choose and vice versa. I took the psyche test to expose implicit (?) bias and was not found to have any. Then I read that only 25% of ppl actually do show racial bias. It was supposed to be this smoking gun to prove that all white ppl are inherently white supremacists but that’s not the case. The end result proved the opposite. You won’t hear that on MSNBC or CNN. Why these ppl are so hell bent on sewing strife is beyond me but TC asked the lady why she thought the Maoists and now leftists here push division and she answered immediately “power”. I think she’s right.
I share your frustration but I think the whole idea behind TFP is to highlight the problem of The Lies From on High. TFP was established to offer an alternative to the cartel media. We can help by sharing the information we get on this site and pushing back against the Ministry of Truth.
1000% correct!
Unfortunately, no one has been able to prevent people from becoming addicted to drugs. Drug prohibition has not worked. Ronald Reagan could not stop drugs illegal drugs from being imported or sold. Neither could Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, Trump, or Biden. Drug education has also not worked.
Millions of Americans are not addicts because the government has not tried hard enough, or because Free Post are not serious. They are not addicts because we do not have enough laws, have not given up enough freedoms, or tried hard enough. They are not addicts because a major political party is incompetent, or "wants" them to be addicts (to be clear, neither party wants people to be drug addicts).
This is a very hard problem. We have to convince people to not take illegal substances, marijuana, or alcohol. Unfortunately, no one knows how to do this.
Illicit drug use is largely no longer seen as bad in the US. Just like divorce was first seen as something to be avoided at all costs in American society, then seen as something that should be for only infedelity or abuse, then something that's prevalent but still largely frowned upon, to today where marriage has seemingly lost all meaning to the non-religious and a divorce is practically seen as a cause for celebration. Drug use today is the same. It's accepted as inevitable if not outright celebrated.
I know the war on drugs was a failure. I grew up in the 90s and was enrolled in DARE. I won the essay and poster contests, something my friends and I would sometimes joke about while smoking weed in the woods in the nearby public park the same year we took DARE.
But at least we grew up in a society where it was impressed on us that drugs had consequences, that authority figures would not approve, that there was a pathway to success in life and it didn't include chasing momentary highs.
I don't think saying "don't do drugs" solves the drug crisis. No one is that naive. But for the love of god can we at least start there?
This is true, not just with drugs, but in all situations of “excess” like casual sex, obesity, gaming, gambling and, of course, drugs. There is a huge difference between making an activity illegal and normalizing it. We’ve seen society go from disapproving casual sex to rewarding it in music and culture.That has led to a real attempt to normalize pedophilia and sexual trafficking.
With drugs, we’ve gone from disapproval of pot and drugs to the stories we’ve just read in which pot and other “benign “ drugs open the door to disaster.
Is there any moral line that our elite and leaders will not urge us to storm across?
Remember when abortions should be safe, legal, but rare?
Yes. Hillary said that proudly and it was once democratic policy. Now each abortion is celebrated as a joyous event without any thought to what message that sends about future children and family. Soon we will have abortion showers with gifts like baby showers.
An entire generation of young adults is being destroyed right in front of our very eyes. The thing I do not know is whether it’s intentional or just a random confluence of events.
And her husband said the exact same thing during a State of the Union speech,,,can you imagine what the reaction would be today if a POTUS said that during a SOTU speech?
Philly Guy, we are already there:
https://www.tiktok.com/@liveactionorg/video/7245332857013701934
Wow. Just wow.
I just saw a freakish trans on Tik Tok bragging he wanted to be the first trans with a uterine transplant just so that he could have an abortion.
Too foul for words. And of course the assumption is taxpayers would pay for both operations. Truly an evil Frankenstein creature.
Even the Rolling Stones recognized the devil…but somehow these days these creatures are welcomed and get hired as kindergarten teachers. Somehow perversion entertainment passes as an essential alternative rite to baptism. Such creepy times.
Drug dealers seem to be viewed by young people almost as health dispensaries and when dealers from cartels arrested they are treated by the progressives as “poor victims”.
The agenda of the progressives has morphed the Democrats into the globalist Great Reset Party. It seems too macabre to believe even as a wild conspiracy theory, but it appears killing off and or sterilizing young people is at the top of their agenda.
America is morally bankrupt.
Wrong. America's leadership is morally bankrupt.
A lot of Americans too though.
Yes- I think beside being lazy and complacent- many concerned citizens just don't have some sort of leadership in uniting us to Peacefully protest - whether it's in DC, in front of all the Media networks in NYC, at the Border, inour own individual cities.Truckers united amd did it. We need to PHYSICALLY ORGANIZE AND SHOW UP
Personally I think J6 prosecutions were meant to inhibit those. Even if you are going to peacefully protest something in.person you have to be concerned about instigators/provocateurs in the crowd.
Very true.
Plus modern pot is far from benign.
Very true. My brother has an aggressive form.of prostrate cancer and his doctors, inississippi no less, recommended pot. On the down low of course.
My brother-in-law is a physician's assistant for many years now in a gastro clinic. Pot is legal here and he supports it being legal. But he also states the healthcare cost of marijuana use is growing and growing and it's getting a bit out of control. Says he see 2 to 3 patients per day, all on disability, who have had multiple CT scans, hospital admissions, colonoscopies, endoscopies and blood work (all very $ expensive) -- related to weight loss and vomiting from heavy weed use. Says people are so addicted to pot and there's been such a fight by those who uses it legitimately, so these patients will not accept that pot is causing their symptoms. Says its currently costing the healthcare system $ billions and no one is talking about it.
Wow. I had not seen anything on that. But I have read that psychotic episodes and schizophrenia among pot users are rising and there seems to be a correlation.
Have you noticed that our state and local governments now run drug dispensaries? Just like they pushed the mob out of gambling and the numbers. To paraphrase President Reagan, government doesn't solve problems, government is the problem
Government is the problem: The free clean needle exchange program van that services the homeless camps. Let's resolve the homeless problem by not tackling the drug problem but supporting it.
For many years marijuana was considered the gateway drug for more serious drug abuse. I just did a search for marijuana and the first item that came up was "marijuana dispensaries near me." The idiotic rush to legalize (and get tax $$) from the sale of marijuana is just indicative of the moral depredation now rampant in the US. Shame on the politicians for their short-cited and greedy ways to tap into yet another sin tax. Marijuana used to lead to abuse of heroin, cocaine, etc. - all killers, but much slower than fentanyl. But now fentanyl is easily available, inexpensive and way more lethal. Remember Nancy Reagan and her "just say no" campaign to discourage kids from starting drugs? Now we have cocaine in the White House, and no one seems to care. We need new and caring leadership at all levels. Not power-hungry and greedy politicians.
Wait until the online gambling effects kick in.
Politics is downstream from culture. "We the people" put those politicians there. Until the people and upstream culture change, I expect more of the same. My expectation of government could not be lower.
"I don't think saying "don't do drugs" solves the drug crisis. No one is that naive. But for the love of god can we at least start there?"
No. In the US the liberal side will never allow the "don't do" argument gain any traction or credibility. It's the same as their total rejection and pushback of the abstinence argument on abortion back in the 80s and 90s. What you said could've applied there too. Of course abstinence wouldn't stop all teens from having sex. No one was that naive. But what was wrong with teaching kids to not have sex to safeguard them or even as a moral principle? And it was simply not true that it didn't stop any kids from having sex. It definitely did stopped some kids. There was no reason at all why abstinence couldn't have been included in sex ed along with safe sex. But the liberal advocates were hellbent on discrediting anything that that tells people "no". I'm pro-choice BTW but I'm not blind to what's wrong with that side of the political discourse.
Liberals will always be for enabling even to the point of everything falling apart. Just look at what they're doing to enable drug use and homelessness in cities. I suppose that's the fundamental tenet of liberalism. Beyond breaking down all safeguarding barriers, they've led us to the point of moral inversion where the social stigma is directed toward "judging" or frowning upon anything anyone does that is self-destructive or destructive to community and society.
Well said QX.
In a comment a few days ago, I said that the only thing worse than the war on drugs was to have NO war on drugs.
And to add insult to injury, in states with legalized marijuana, the legal dispensaries account for only a fraction of the total marijuana sold in in the area. The marijuana lobby groups convinced the taxpayer that legal marijuana would drive out the drug dealers, but what happened instead was classic capitalism: drug dealers could sell illegal weed for so much less than the government sold legal weed, that the strategy backfired. Colorado was the test case.
As DEI become the new morality we lose the real morals.
There are sincere and decent people who support DEI, but cannot understand what I wrote above.
I ask liberals why it is "judgemental" to disapprove of sexual behavior, but not "judgemental" to disapprove of a perceived racism or sexism. They have no idea. Their moral values depend on thoughtless conformity.
I found it interesting the article glossed over the fact that a 13 year old had an established drug dealer and even knew what Percocet was. Is that just considered acceptable by parents now?
Not with the village raising the child. Child-rearing is hard and sometimes thankless work. It is though the most important thing we as individuals do.
Can we please stop beating around the bush and talk openly and seriously? Fentanyl is sent here by China, to be finished and sent on its way by the Mexican cartels across borders opened by the Democrat Administration of Joe Biden. In September 2001, we went to war against a terror group that murdered 3000 of our citizens. These terrorists murder 100,000 of our mostly young citizens every year. It is way past time to punish murderers and terrorists. And to make no mistakes about who they are.
What I found amazing about this was a 13-year-old who bought his pills from this drug dealer to numb his pain from a root canal. The permissiveness we have created with youth is one of the contributors to this rise in death. Growing up in the 80s, drugs had a stigma, and I listened to Nancy Reagan with the say-no approach to Drugs.
I can remember my cousin telling me how she popped her first pill, leading her on the path to addiction. At that moment, she knew if she had just said no, her life would have taken a different trajectory. In dealing with this issue, there has to be a drive to place a stigma again on drug use, not only on illegal drugs but using drugs as a crutch to deal with the travails of life. The drug industry has pumped a generation full of antidepressants and other natural or imagined disorders to get people through. If born today, my issues as a kid would have had me pumped full of these prescriptions.
There is much to do on the interdiction side of this, but a cultural conversation has to be had as the taking of any pill not from your pharmacy can kill you. Making a person think twice about taking any pill is a great first step.
I wonder why the dentist didn’t give the young patient adequate pain medication for the root canal? It is a painful procedure. The “ crackdown on opiates” is full of problems for people who are suffering with either chronic severe pain( for ex severe psoriatic or rheumatoid arthritis, ) or acute moderate or severe pain. It has caused drs and Dds to refuse to prescribe pain meds other than NSAIDs. People are forced to go to a “ pain management Dr”whose assembly line approach is demeaning and expensive.
As a Dr, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. We used to prescribe opiates all the times - fantastic pain killers, the best we had. Then we faced the public outcry and were told this opiate pandemic is all our fault. Government stepped in and now you get reported if you’re prescribing opiates for things like a root canal or an appendectomy. And now the opiate pandemic is our fault because we won’t prescribe it. I feel that there is a certain population of people that will get addicted to narcotics one way or another - plenty of people get opiates for pain control, take them as prescribed after a surgery, and then stop and go on to live normal lives. This is a teenager that ordered an illegal pill through social media to get delivered to his home - it’s already an aberrant behavior.
The larger problem was that big pharma pushed the opiates as safe and non-addictive when their former spokesman who persuaded the FDA to license them now admits and regrets his lies. Carefully controlled they may have their place, but doctors and dentists did not control them and they created many addicts.
There were indeed drs who ran pill mills, they could have easily been shut down and licenses revoked. Instead wide sweeping legislation and regulations tied the hands of drs and Dds who were prescribing these drugs appropriately. It has left millions of ppl without pain control.
The drug cos have never been held to account for all their lying and criminal actions.
Percocet & Vicodin were around for pain management before Oxy. The Sackler family, under cover of FDA foisted upon public Oxy and w/ a few ginned up studies, advertised this opiate as non addictive. And Purdue made massive $$. Like Ozempic today, there was so much $$ that everyone in the pipeline could be bought off, including the TV networks. Those drug ads you see are not to advertise availability to public, but rather to buy off networks not to investigate the harms.
Here’s the latest I saw on SCOTUS considering the satellite of lawsuits against Purdue bankruptcy. Just $6B paid out for forward immunity. The damage done far, far exceeds $6B and some in Bench don’t want to see Purdue get off so easy… we’ll see, you get what you can, and there’s a long list of families awaiting damage payouts.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-supreme-court-set-review-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-settlement-2023-12-04/
It was the Sackler family not Sacks( no relationship to me either way).
OxyContin was marketed as less addictive not non addictive. It was still an outright lie
They should have been shut down and jailed .
The drug ads are absolutely done to control the media and it works. Direct to consumer ads are only allowed in 5he USA and Australia and it is a disaster for society. The law allowing it should be repealed but the drug lobby is so powerful it won’t happen.
Sorry, Siri autocorrect there and yes, not you! To your point on USA/Aussies w/ direct advertising… take Ozempic as latest example. That drug (that once you are on, paralyzes your stomach and are supposed to take jabs for your whole life) is not allowed to be sold in the EU, and yet is made by Danish Pharma house Novo Nordisk.
Generations of kids have watched adults take pills. Many have seen/had access to pills in the medicine cabinet.
The ‘shame’ of drug use has diminished.
This ‘permissive’ culture in part explains why kids will pop a pill these days. Not the total reason, kids are also just stupid and have been trying out drugs for a long time, and we all know that from having traveled through that season in our lives.
Disa, you're totally right on the 'less addictive' marketing. Here is how I understand how it went down (from 2018 NYT article):
"When the FDA approved Oxy in '95, they permitted Purdue Pharma to make a unique claim for it — that its long-acting formulation was “believed to reduce” its appeal to drug abusers compared with shorter-acting painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin.
The FDA decision was not based on findings from clinical trials, but a theory that drug abusers favored shorter-acting painkillers because the narcotic they contained was released faster and so produced a quicker “hit.”
Purdue Pharma viewed the agency’s decision as “so valuable” that it could serve as Oxy's “principal selling tool,” at least according to internal 1995 company report. Purdue then admitted in 2007, when confronted with evidence gathered by prosecutors, that it trained sales representative to tell doctors that OxyContin was less addictive and prone to abuse than competing opioids, claims beyond the one approved by the FDA"
Purdue was. Right down to the individual family members.
Put this in your online search engine. AMA backs update to CDC opioid prescribing guidelines. It's the CDC's fault.
I did and the first thing was a warning and helpline number.
I wonder why he had a drug dealer on Snapchat. I doubt this was a result of being denied pain medicine for his root canal.
This is one of the reasons I've been putting off surgery for a foot problem for several months now - there's no way I'll put my self into a scenario where I might have to go "fishing" for my own pain relief. Thank God my problem isn't life threatening (yet, knock on wood)
Ask for a nerve block with exparel. It will make your foot totally numb for 3 days. After that Tylenol and advil should be enough.
I get pain meds after dental procedures but almost always something with an anti-inflammatory. Maybe he had that and wanted the opiate instead.
It used to be that a dentist would give you a prescription for strong painkillers to get you through the worst of the pain after a dental procedure. Thanks to the paranoia around the "opioid crisis" (which was actually CAUSED by the manufacturers of Oxycontin), many doctors won't prescribe those painkillers anymore, even when they are clearly needed.
Was that the case with Luca Manuel? Did his dentist fail him? Was his dentist pressured by the government to deprive people of pain relief?
Why did his dentist fail him? NSAIDs and Tylenol are great pain meds if taken in their full doses around the clock. Patients usually get a dental block which fully numbs the area for several hours. The dentist may or may not have prescribed narcotics to a teenager. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t fault him. This teenager ordered illegal pills from a drug dealer over social media for home delivery - that’s not normal behavior. That’s not what someone in pain does - someone in pain keeps complaining, calling the dentist, or goes to the emergency department. What he did is addict behavior. The ED could have given him toradol or something stronger. Ultimately we have to accept, there are people who will behave unreasonably even under reasonable circumstances. The majority of the population aren’t addicted to alcohol - but some are and will do insane things for it, and it’s really no one’s fault. Stemming the supply from Mexico is one thing - blaming the dentist is another.
Parents fault. If your kid has the ability to order drugs on his phone, and you have no idea, you fucked up and are complicated
While I'm not prepared to condemn the parents without knowing more, I have to ask (as I think you do as well), "How did we get to a place where a 13 year- old has the knowledge and ability to order drugs over the phone?".... And, also, how are we ever going to get out of this place?
My question was, where were the parents? Did the parents know he was in that much pain? Did they have a discussion with the dentist? There is something missing in the way Luca’s story is written. Parents are supposed to be medical advocates for minor children. He was only thirteen and already had some history with weed. Sadly, so very young and vulnerable. This sounds like more than the lack of proper pain medication after a dental procedure.
It's been going on a long time. I had 4 hr. dental proceedure in 1977 and had to go to work that night. The dentist had gven me a script for painkillers. The next day I was still in severe pain and when I called the dentist, he told me that he wouldn't give me another script. I found a dealer who sold me some pain killers. Without them I may have killed myself. The difference between then and now is the type of pain killers and the potentcy. These days, I'd never take a street drug. I don't know what I would do if I were in the same position today. Maybe Morphine.
Search this online article: "CDC Replaces Flawed 2016 Opioid Prescribing Guideline with Flawed 2022 Opioid Prescribing Guideline"
It's the CDC's fault. Search this: AMA backs update to CDC opioid prescribing guidelines
A combo of Tylenol and Advil works pretty well for pain.
That’s probably exactly what happened.
I also wonder about that 13 year old. Still very much a child. Where were his parents? What’s the context there.
I grew up in the just say no era. My understanding is the program was not generally successful. Still, it worked decently well on me. There was one time in my life I took a pill - in my mid 20s with a ne’er do well boyfriend. LSD. Fortunately it was a merry old time and nothing bad happened. But that was before fentanyl was in everything.
I agree that the first step here is educating kids about this danger. As a parent of very young children myself now, it’s horrifying to think about.
How about blaming the perps - China, Mexico and Biden - rather than the victims?
I’m not blaming the victims - I’m asking for wider context to understand what was going on in the household. As a parent of young kids, I’m interested in what I as a parent of my kids can do to in my home life to prevent this horrible outcome. Ranting about Biden in the TFP comment section every morning is certainly one option.
And I will keep pointing out the insanity and atrocity of having a corrupt, senile imbecile pretending to be the "leader of the free world," while sycophants and stooges sing siren songs that all is well. The sight of this diaper wearing clown wandering aimless around a stage, dazed, confused and demented, should scare any rational person.
We definitely need to look at the big picture, but I don't know how any parent reading this could help but wonder how it came to be that a 13yo child turned to snapchat to order pain meds for a dental procedure. I have known many kids from "good families" who made poor decisions that could have ended up just the same, and as a parent it is terrifying on many levels.
You are right to be concerned. The child highlighted from Kyle was not alone.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/10/texas-fentanyl-high-school-opioids-kyle/
Here is a link to the local sheriff's fentanyl resource page:
https://hayscountytx.com/hays-county-fentanyl-resource-page/
The proactive response, both of the school district and the sheriff, does seem to have helped.
The kid that sold the drugs got 15 years.
Agreed. I have young kids, and I find myself wondering what the world will be like when they are in high school.
TIghtly control their access to the internet.
In Phoenix I see attempts to inform the public of the dangers of fentanyl - large billboards along the freeways.
You can't miss them - just look for the homeless encampments below...
On permissiveness in youths . . . at the moment states are taking kids away from their parents for "misgendering" and not using pronouns asserted by their own children. Haven't you got the memo? Kids know exactly who they are and what they want now, even if they're 3 years old.
Thank you open border advocates
“You might ask why cartels would make a drug that so easily kills off its customer base. The simple reason is greed.”
————————————
You might ask why the Biden Administration and Democrat Party would ignore fentanyl deaths. The simple answer is greed. They encourage the open border, no-bail laws, Soros-backed district attorneys, because they are obsessed with power.
Power and the wealth it brings them. Do not forget for a moment that Biden is as corrupt as he is moronic.
As a Canadian lawyer I find the expression “no-bail” to describe automatic release, i. e. bail, quite absurd. But you can’t get everything you want and we live in an upside down world where 81 million people allegedly voted for a corrupt, cognitively-impaired, treasonous liar. And who knows how many Americans still prefer him to justifiably rude?
But it is reassuring to see that American TV commercials warn viewers not to take ELIXORONA if you are allergic to ELIXORONA.
Moreover, they won't draw attention to it or raise public awareness because that would distract from the psyop election campaign. Can't get people outraged over the latest fashionable discrimination subject (Stop Asina Hate!) if people are focused on real problems.
That's why Floyd's death was definitely about Racism, and not about fentanyl at all.
I fear it is worse than that. I suspect some of those DAs are cartel compromised as well.
America has a drug for everything. Legal drugs. If they don’t make you blind or have liver failure or or or…then it just might help what is ailing you. We see these ads on a non-stop basis. I’m not sure that any other country is as eager to hand out pills. It is no wonder that kids think nothing of popping a pill. We have normalized the concept of better living through pharma-illicit or legal.
They stopped advertising cigarettes and then inserted big pharma on TV. Wonder which has killed more people?
This could all slow down, if not stop, if the government wanted it to control the border and the cartels- but they don’t. So the question folks need to ask themselves is why - “always attribute malice, that which has continued too long to be ascribed to stupidity”.
A. Biden is importing Democrat Party voters. He and Obama don’t care.
Some pointed coverage- NY Post
https://nypost.com/2024/02/25/opinion/how-china-is-flooding-america-with-fentanyl-on-purpose-to-undermine-our-society/
It is a modern Opium War I think. And too many here are too stupid to recognize it as such.
Indeed. It's payback time for what the West did to China.
Spot on Lynne
“President Biden’s pledges to potential illegal immigrants began early in his campaign.
During a Democratic primary debate on June 27, 2019, candidate Biden raised his hand when the host asked if his government health care plan would provide coverage for illegal immigrants.
He raised his hand again when the host said, “Raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense rather than a crime to cross the border without documentation.”
The host then specifically asked Mr. Biden if someone who is here illegally should be deported if that is his or her only offense.
“That person should not be the focus of deportation,” Mr. Biden responded.
A couple of months later, during another debate on Sept. 12, 2019, Mr. Biden said: “I would, in fact, make sure that there is, that we immediately surge to the border all those people who are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That’s who we are. We’re a nation that says, ‘If you want to flee, and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.’”
…From a recent article on the immigration crisis…
“Numb yourself with drugs, eat the bugs, and don’t you dare complain when we inflate your wealth away while we dump money into wars around the globe which we hope ends up using your surviving children as cannon fodder. In the meantime, don’t complain about it or any of the collapsing civilization stuff because if you do, then you’re a fascist Russian stooge.”- American elites and their puppets in the press.
It is long past time to bring these self-proclaimed "elites' down a peg - or three.
Thank you for writing this and publishing! Very obviously, our “public servants” have failed miserably in this and so many other ways- but always, ALWAYS the best way to protect our children and grandchildren is by teaching them. This is something that they should be very afraid of, but knowledge is power. Spread the word and teach your children well!
A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Joe Biden fans.
Not really knowing what a Joe Biden fan was, but wanting to be liked by the teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Little Johnny..
The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different... Again.
Little Johnny said, "Because I'm not a Joe Biden fan.
The teacher asked, "Why aren't you a fan of Joe Biden?"
Johnny said, "Because I'm a Conservative."
The teacher asked him why he's a Conservative.
Little Johnny answered, "Well, my Mom's a Conservative and my Dad's a Conservative, so I'm a Conservative."
Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, "If your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what would that make you?
Little Johnny replied, "That would make me a Joe Biden fan."
It's a tragedy whenever and to whomever an overdose like this happens. It's very hard for parents to know what their college kids are doing, especially when they are far away. BUT Straight serious talk is needed by parents to their kids. Remember that the human brain is not fully developed til age 25 - they need guidance!!
I was very disturbed by the 13year old who bought a pill after a root canal. Why? Why didn't he just go to his parents for a painkiller?? After a root canal, one is usually given a painkiller by the doctor. I don't understand how that happened.
I too think there is more to the root canal story.
You are probably right. But a 13 year old kid ordering pills and pot?? I don't know what to make of that.
And the ADHD college student. Students can get ADHD meds legitimately. Something seems off.
Linda Morrison
6 mins ago
Blame the CDC bureaucrat "guidelines" in 2016 and its stupid revised "guidelines" in November 2022, for intimidating doctors and dentists to not prescribe needed pain medication, causing untold suffering.
July 2021 Press release
CHICAGO -- The American Medical Association (AMA) today urged advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Injury Center to recommend an overhaul of the CDC’s problematic guideline on opioid prescriptions that has proved devastating for patients with pain.......
Look it up online to find out more. This is one of the stupidest things the CDC has done - and that's saying something.
Every one of the individuals mentioned in this article died after consuming an illicitly purchased fake medication that normally is only available by prescription. The drug was purchased by them or by a friend.
They were personally responsible for their deaths. It may seem cruel to say that, but it's true. Their deaths also were failures of parenting. That also is cruel to say, but it also is true
William Daly
NEWS FLASH
Not all children listen to their parents.
It’s social media. And THAT the parents can control.
True but they might pay attention if they read a few articles like this one.
I know several people whose children died of overdoses. Highly educated, successful, devoted, loving parents.
I think that says a lot.
Unfortunately teens have always died because of poor decision-making. But not at this rate.
I agree that free will and personal agency play a large role here. And it is parents' responsibility to be informed and to help their kids make good choices. That said, kids are still going to make bad choices, and their parents can't stop them
As someone who lost a friend to a fentanyl overdose, I understand the gravity of this problem. As a mother of two kids not far off from their teens (and being realistic enough to know kids get into drugs even earlier), I understand the importance of educating them about fentanyl.
So sad. Luca Manuel died trying to relieve pain from a root canal. Why didn't his dentist prescribe adequate pain relief, you ask? Probably because of the CDC's ignorant 2016 "guidelines" to doctors to severely limit prescriptions for patients' pain. These "guidelines" evidently caused so much harm and patient suffering that the bureaucrats at the CDC were forced to issue a "revision" of their policy in November 2022.
Unfortunately, this was too late for me. In November 2022, I broke my femur in an accident and had emergency surgery in a huge hospital in Delaware, where the surgeon cut open the skin and muscles of my thigh, inserted a 20" steel rod and 12 screws in my bone, to fix the fracture. They say that a broken femur is by far the most painful broken bone, along with the tissue pain and swelling. After 5 days in the hospital, my pain medication was reduced to tiny, infrequent portions of oxycodone and Tylenol, because, they said, "The Governor says we can't give you any more pain medication because of the opioid crisis." I guess the hospital and the surgeon didn't get the updated CDC memo. I suffered in agony for weeks, until I found a competent and independent thinking orthopedic surgeon near my home in Pennsylvania to oversee my case and help me relieve the awful pain so I could recover. "Don't get me started," he exclaimed to me in frustration at the harm to patients caused by the CDC bureaucrat's guidelines used to intimidate doctors who see patients.
This from the Mayo Clinic regarding the November 2022 updated guidelines to doctors: ."...Their Fundamental changes to the CDC opioid guidelines include removing 3- and 7- day limits to opioid prescribing for acute pain. The CDC cites research from the Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery for this change..."
"....Previously, the day limits were theoretical guidelines used by insurers and states that made them more restrictive, preventing optimal practice in many cases and sometimes leading to underprescribing for a subset of patients, thus causing patient harm," says Elizabeth Habermann, Ph.D., the Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Deputy Director of Research. ....The "pendulum" has swung too far toward restrictive and underprescribing opioids for some patients, explains Dr. Gazelka.
Put this in your search online: CDC Replaces Flawed 2016 Opioid Prescribing Guideline with Flawed 2022 Opioid Prescribing Guidelines if the below link is not allowed in the comments section.
Read this: The American Medical Association severely criticized the CDC for its actions. https://www.cato.org/commentary/cdc-replaces-flawed-2016-opioid-prescribing-guideline-flawed-2022-opioid-prescribing#
Linda Morrison
You found a courageous orthopaedic surgeon. Doctors are poorly educated concerning pain and are afraid of prescribing drugs that may be addictive.
Doctors are very timid creatures it seems. They fear liability for medical malpractice. They fear responsibility for medical costs to such an extreme that they outsourced the responsibility to third party for profit entities.