The blind leading the blind

The American opiate crisis continues to spiral out of control with no end in sight. And the numbers stagger the mind.

More than half a million Americans died of drug overdoses from 2000 to 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Each day, 91 people in this country will die from an opioid overdose — more than 33,00o a year.
And although the opioid addiction epidemic is global in scale, it is uniquely dire in the United States. We account for 4.4 percent of the global population, and yet we gobble up about 80 percent of the worldwide opioids supply.

Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. and opioid addiction is driving this epidemic. In 2015, more than 20,000 overdose deaths were reported related to prescription pain relievers, with another 13,ooo overdose deaths related to heroin.

About 80 percent of new heroin users started out misusing prescription painkillers.
To put the data in perspective, opioid deaths now surpass the peak in death by car crash in 1972, AIDS deaths in 1995 and gun deaths in 1993.

To battle this deadly crisis, President Donald Trump in March created the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Epidemic, an advisory committee designed “to review the state of drug addiction and the opioid epidemic and make recommendations regarding how the Federal Government can best address this crisis.”

On Friday, the task force will hold its first meeting at the White House, to be livestreamed beginning at 12:30 p.m. EST.

Almost immediately after announcing the committee, Trump selected New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead it. Clearly, solving America’s opioid epidemic will take bipartisan cooperation. This is simply not an issue in which there is much disagreement.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) welcomed the news of the task force. “Drug overdose deaths, the majority of which are from heroin and prescription opioids, are a national crisis,” McCaskill said in a written statement. “We’ll need the help of Governor Christie, President Trump, and others at all levels of government, from any party affiliation, if we’re going to make progress and save lives.”

But many health professionals and cannabis advocates are wary of Trump’s task force. Nearly all the members selected to the committee have spoken out against marijuana legalization — which runs counter to the overwhelming majority of the American people. Christie, an ardent longtime opponent of cannabis regulation, will lead these members:

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy, Dr. Bertha Madras of Harvard Medical School and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. All but Cooper have a record of conflating cannabis consumption with opioid addiction. When you add the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions clearly wants to put the brakes on cannabis reform, you can understand the trepidation of marijuana advocates.

“Governor Christie has zero percent credibility on drug policy,” Eric Altieri, the executive director of NORML, told Forbes last month. “When it comes to cannabis’ relationship to opioids from real-world experience, not bluster and rhetoric, states that have medicinal and recreational cannabis laws on the books see lower rates of overdose, lower rates of use, and lower rates of opioids being prescribed to patients,” Altieri added.

In Forbes’ story titled “Chris Christie Is The Last GOPer Who Should Be Leading Our Opioid Fight,” Altieri slammed the N.J. governor and unsuccessful presidential candidate as a suitable task force chairman:

Christie has spent much of his time as governor (and, as it happens, much of the opioid crisis) fighting the rising tide of calls for cannabis reform in his state. Last week, as part of opioid-themed comments, Christie even called the ever more crucial and commonplace drive to bring regulated adult and medical cannabis use to New Jersey “total stupidity” and “baloney,” and described any tax revenues from the industry as “blood money. …

In response, NORML released an open letter to the governor days later, explaining in simple terms how scientific and social research have repeatedly shown that cannabis offers quite the opposite of “baloney” in the face of opioid addiction. Citing years of evidence-based conclusions, the letter pointed out, “It makes no sense from a public health perspective, a fiscal perspective, or a moral perspective to perpetuate the prosecution and stigmatization of those adults who choose to responsibly consume a substance that is safer than either alcohol or tobacco.”

According to a 2106 survey published in The Journal of Pain, patients suffering from chronic pain report a 64 percent decrease in opioid use. They also experience fewer negative side effects and say their quality of life is better than what they experienced under opioids.

A 2o14 study published in JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, revealed that opioid overdose deaths were roughly 25 percent lower in states that allowed medical cannabis compared with those that did not.

Even the the National Institute on Drug Abuse disagrees with Christie. According to NIDA:

Some preliminary studies have suggested that medical marijuana legalization might be associated with decreased prescription opioid use and overdose deaths. … Additionally, data suggests that medical marijuana treatment may reduce the opioid dose prescribed for pain patients, and a recent study showed that availability of medical marijuana for Medicare patients reduced prescribing of medications, including opioids, for their pain.

The Christie-led task force meets just days after a firestorm over Sessions’ desire to crack down on states that have medical marijuana programs in place — defying 94 percent of the American public. Sessions, who oversees the DEA, continues to mistakenly conflate the opioid crisis with marijuana consumption.

The members selected to the opioid crisis task force appear to share the views of Christie and Sessions. Here is a brief rundown of each member:

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie
As noted above, Christie is one of the nation’s leading voices in the anti-legalization movement. Last month, he had this to say about legalization: “We are in the midst of the public health crisis on opiates. But people are saying pot’s OK. This is nothing more than crazy liberals who want to say everything’s OK.” Clearly, his comments run counter to the scientific evidence.

Former R.I. Congressman Patrick Kennedy
Kennedy, a liberal Democrat who has publicly admitted to his past addiction to opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol, stimulants and cocaine, is affiliated with Project Sam, an anti-cannabis organization. He crisscrosses the country and appears routinely on cable news programs vilifying cannabis legalization. Earlier this year, Kennedy was interviewed by Yahoo News and made the audacious claim that the medicinal use of marijuana was “a Trojan horse designed to addict people.” Kennedy says that Project Sam’s main focus is “educating the public about the harms of marijuana legalization.”

According to Kennedy, “marijuana destroys the brain and expedites psychosis. It’s just overall a very dangerous drug. In terms of neurobiology, there’s no distinction between the quality and types of drugs that people get addicted to. That’s why they call it a gateway drug. Addiction is addiction is addiction.”

Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker
Baker, a Republican, has supported medical marijuana but was a fought vigorously against recreational legalization in Massachusetts in last year’s election. NORML gives the governor an F grade for cannabis policy. During the 2016 campaign for legalization, Baker, a former health insurance executive, said “I’m going to oppose that and I’m going to oppose that vigorously … with a lot of help from a lot of other people in the addiction community.” He has also believes marijuana use is a “significant first step” toward addiction to other drugs. The “gateway theory” has been debunked over and over again. There is no science to support his claim.

Last year, he wrote an opinion piece in the Boston Globe headlined “Mass. should not legalize marijuana” in which he conflated cannabis use to opioid addiction.

Bertha Madras, Harvard Medical School Researcher
Madras is the former Deputy Director of Demand Reduction for the ONDCP and is the one non-politician on the task force. She authored a story in the Washington Post headlined “5 Reasons Why Marijuana is Not Medicine” and has fought against rescheduling marijuana. She has called marijuana legalization “tragic for our country”

N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Pat McCrory last November. McCrory was an ardent opponent of marijuana legalization. Cooper, so far, has been mum about his position on cannabis.


Source

On Chris Christie

I was watching Fox news tonight and they say Chris Christie is slipping in the polls. In fact on the next GOP debate on Fox Business Channel Christie is going to be sitting at the kiddie table along with the rest of the candidates with low poll numbers. Fortunately Rand Paul got enough votes to be on the main stage. Then they also show a month old video in which Christie discusses drug addiction. That is good and all but then Christie calls himself "pro-life",he states that he believes that life is valuable at all stages of life not just in the womb. Nice try,Governor but I'm not buying it. I remember you telling a desperate father,who's only concern was saving his child's life,that you would deny his child a medical marijuana CBD medicine that would cut down on the child's seizures. You chose to potentially sacrifice a child's life for some stupid law that was founded on racial bigotry (Harry J. Anslinger,whom helped make marijuana illegal at the federal level believed that blacks and hispanics shouldn't have access to marijuana because it would make them insane because Anslinger considered them to be degenerate races to begin with). Christie is talking about compassion for drug addicts. Fine,what about medical marijuana or a form of it to save a child's life. Christie has stated that if he becomes President he will sic the DEA on medical and recreational marijuana dispensaries. He doesn't care about state law. He is going to close them down with the ruthlessness of a zealous federal prosecutor. I guess when Christie states he is "pro-life" he doesn't mean everybody. If you are a child in need of a CBD form of medical marijuana Christie will abort you.

Chris Christie blames Rand Paul for Chattanooga shooting

I see Chris Christie or should I say pissed pissy is throwing a hissy fit. He has the nerve to blame Senator Rand Paul for the Chattanooga shooting at the military recruitment center there. Pissy Christie had to nerve to say that since Senator Paul fought back against the NSA's illegal spy program that targeted innocent people that Paul is at fault for making America weaker. The data mining the NSA conducted did not work and it compromised American citizens Constitutional liberties. Data mining does not work or else we could have stopped the Boston bombers before they carried out their terrorist acts. If Christie believes data mining does work then he more than welcome to look at the facts before running his mouth. Paul enjoys the backing of the people and high approval numbers. Christie is a statist that has neither in his corner. In fact his numbers are quite dismal. When one makes these comparisons between the two candidates you can see whom the superior candidate is and it is not Chris Christie.

As usual Christie gets it wrong

Christie is a lying sack of shit. He has it in his head that the Patriot Act was going to save lives when in fact it has accomplished the opposite. The NSA was so busy going through your private yet legal emails that the Boston bomber slipped right past them. No,Mr. Christie,the Patriot Act is not the answer but just like with medical marijuana you get it wrong all of the time.Perhaps that is why your poll numbers suck.

Michael Reagan on Rand Paul

From RandPAC:

MICHAEL REAGAN: Rand Paul Gets It

I disagree with some of Rand Paul’s more libertarian positions, especially on social issues. And I’m certainly not endorsing him or anyone else to be the Republican nominee for president at this time. But Sen. Paul of Kentucky did two things recently that won my favor.

He showed the 2,500 conservative activists at the CPAC conference last weekend that he understands what the GOP must do if it wants to take the Senate this fall and win back the White House.

And then on Monday he wrote a good column for Breitbart.com calling for his fellow Republican presidential wannabes to, as the headline said, “Stop warping Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy.”

CPAC, as all conservatives and political junkies know, is the annual bathing beauty competition for every Republican who’s ever had a daydream about running for president.

Sen. Paul’s brand of libertarian-leaning conservatism has shifted the GOP’s center of gravity his way and everyone at CPAC knew it.

He was the landslide winner in the straw poll, taking 31 percent of the vote. Ted Cruz stumbled in second with 11 percent and neurosurgeon Ben Carson had 9 percent. The media’s favorite conservative, Chris Christie, managed 8 percent.

At CPAC Sen. Paul had a personal victory, but he also did the right thing for the GOP. He went out of his way to give his full support to fellow Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who’s up for reelection.

It wasn’t because Sen. Paul is moving to the McConnell center of the GOP, it was because he wants his party to win the U.S. Senate in the fall.

A Republican Senate is Prize Number One. Making friends and cementing cracks in the party is what’s most important right now and Sen. Paul understands that side of the equation.

In his Breitbart column he did two good things. He reminded his more bellicose fellow presidential competitors that their hero Ronald Reagan was a peacemaker and a negotiator, not a war-maker.

Saying he admired Ronald Reagan because he “was not rash or reckless with regard to war,” Sen. Paul pointed out that my father, who believed in “Peace Through Strength,” was attacked harshly by the hawks in the Republican Party.

He was called an appeaser for meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland and for pulling American forces out of Lebanon after 241 Marines died in the suicide bombing there in 1983.

In his column Sen. Paul also told conservative Republicans something else they need to remember — something I’ve spent half my life preaching and he has been practicing.

Sen. Paul wrote that he doesn’t claim to be the next Ronald Reagan and will not engage in disparaging his fellow Republicans for “not being sufficiently Reaganesque.”

But, he said, no doubt thinking of Sen. Ted Cruz, “I will remind anyone who thinks we will win elections by trashing previous Republican nominees or holding oneself out as some paragon in the mold of Reagan, that splintering the party is not the route to victory.”

Splintering itself is something the GOP has become really good at doing.

The 2012 presidential primary was a cluster suicide mission for conservative Republicans, which is why Moderate Mitt was the last candidate standing.

Then, because 25 percent of evangelicals stayed home in November rather than vote for Romney, we ended up with “The Obama Horror, Part 2.”

Liberals speak with one voice. Conservatives are a squabbling family of factions — social conservatives, economic conservatives and libertarian conservatives.

But if conservatives of all stripes want the GOP to win in 2016 they have to come together and pick their best candidate early, then let the party moderates fight among themselves and split their votes.

That’s what happened in 1980. My father was the only conservative in the primary and he got to watch as the George H.W. Bush moderates and Rockefeller Republicans beat each other up and split their votes.

That’s the way it should work in 2016 — after the GOP takes the Senate.

Reagan was great on foreign policy however when he came to domestic policy he sucked royally especially with the war on drugs which in reality was the war on the Constitution.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie betrays family values

From Public Advocate:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has completely betrayed the pro-Family movement.

He has displayed signs of hesitancy and weakness for a while, but his true colors are finally showing through to everyone.

Of course, Public Advocate has been warning about this impending flip-flop on family values for a long time.

You see, when a New Jersey judge ruled that the state must start legalizing homosexual “marriages,” within weeks Governor Christie swore he would appeal this decision and defend his state’s pro-marriage legislation.

But I wasn’t fooled.

Christie has a track record of looking for “cop-outs” -- for allowing the enemy to win, but passing the blame on to someone else.

Even while vetoing homosexual “marriage” legislation in 2012, he was publicly encouraging the Homosexual Lobby to find another route to their goal...

...as long as that route did not run through his office.

And this activist judge's decision was the perfect opportunity.

He made a public display of “appealing the decision” but without making any real promises.

Plus only weeks before, he quietly signed a bill into law forbidding any professional child therapy that does not encourage homosexual behavior.

Public Advocate looked at all the evidence and realized Christie was planning to cave on this court fight as soon as he could.

We organized thousands of New Jersey supporters to hold Christie’s feet to the fire.

Regrettably, Christie was committed to his course of betrayal.

Within days of Public Advocate’s prediction, Christie announced that he was dropping the appeal and letting the activist judge’s decision stand.

And now New Jersey has become the 14th state to legalize homosexual “marriage” while Chris Christie will claim that he is pro-Family.

It’s no secret that Governor Christie is angling to lead the conservatives in the next presidential election -- and in order to do that he will need to convince America he is still pro-Family.

That’s why it’s up to you and me to make sure his track record of anti-Family behavior is kept in the spotlight.

With your support, Public Advocate will make sure that Christie is exposed as an enemy of the Family.

For the Family,

HON. EUGENE DELGAUDIO
President, Public Advocate of the U.S.

P.S. Will you chip in $5 or $10 to help Public Advocate fight the Homosexual Lobby?

What happened-a more in depth look

There has been a lot of finger pointing because of Romney's loss to Obama and a lot of things have gone through my mind as well. Did a lot of people feel that Romney thought he could buy the election? There was a lot voter fraud on the Republican's part with a lot of Ron Paul supporters being denied their voice because their votes were voided. Other stories of ballots disappearing on the road between the polling places and the governmental agencies in charge of their counting and safekeeping. Even the Republican friendly anchors at FOX were at a loss for words to describe what happened. After that the shabby treatment heaped upon Ron Paul and his supporters from the delegations to the RNC where Ron Paul supporters were denied seats. Also let's not forget That Ron Paul himself suggested that there may be illegal tactics employed here:click for video or about how Mitt Romney threatened to have Ron Paul arrested a move that did not endear him to the R3VOLUTION. Reince Prebius had no problem making sure Romney was "the candidate" from the get go. The RNC coddled Romney just as much as they marginalized Ron Paul. After forcing Ron Paul from the being the Republican nominee for president Romney thought he was going to win the White House,even Dick Morris' statistics showed that Romney was going to be handed the presidency on a silver platter,along with Karl Rove's and Charles Krauthammer's predictions. Yet Romney lost. Obama has been labeled the worst president of the United States ever. A president that not only tanked the American economy by not allowing the Keystone pipeline to come through or by not allowing oil drilling off our shores. A president that was did nothing for a long time during the BP oil leak,which was the worst oil leak in history. Yet Romney still lost. A president that has made American prestige diminish worldwide. It got so bad that our ambassador to Libya and 3 other men,one a Navy SEAL,lost their lives defending the U.S. Embassy in Benngazzi from Al Qaeda attack. Our ambassador's corpse was paraded through the streets of Benngazzi and sodomized. Where was Obama? He was in Las Vegas appearing with Hollywood celebrities fundraising. (I've got to give it to him: for what he lacks in governing he more than makes up for it in campaigning.) So let's add this up: we have 4 dead men,one an ambassador,the muslim middle east is one big burning American flag and Obama goes hangs out with his Hollywood pals. A do-nothing president in the strongest sense. Yet Romney is the one who loses the election. A president that presides over the worst unemployment record in history. A president that earned the nickname "the food stamp president" because more people are on food stamps under his administration than under Bush's. A president that bailed out his wall street and banking cronies at the expense of the people. A lot of the American people remember these banks. They are the same banks that foreclosed on them because they were unable to pay due to the fucked up economy. Yet Romney loses the election. When Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast Obama made sure he got a photo of him with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and left. Romney was there too and from what I heard he stayed there longer than Obama. Yet Romney loses the election. Obama can contact Senator Harry Reid and tell him to stop sitting on the bills that will lower the unemployment rate and get the economy working again. Obama won't do that and the economy suffers along with the people. Yet Romney loses the election. In West Virginia an incarcerated man won the Democratic nominee for president over Obama. In the days prior to the election there were rumors that Obama would lose to a ham sandwich because his record was so bad. Apparently an incarcerated man would have been preferred over Romney. Perhaps it was that way because the way it was most likely perceived that the incarcerated man was paying off his debt to society while the likes of Romney get away with it. As far as Romney goes the Democrats treated him like a ham sandwich and had him for dinner.