The Solution to Opiate Fentanyl Deaths

Faux outrage in three, two … Followed immediately by reich-wing propaganda.

Well said, Ian. It’s sad, but there are too many powerful people who make money off this kind of suffering (like the prison-industrial complex) and too many right-wing politicians who get votes by demagoguing the people who are suffering for this to be easy to fix. These people will fight brutally to hang on to their money and power, and they have a lot of people behind them.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t try, of course.

You appear to completely overlook the ‘drug pusher’ aspect of this, at least in this post. Just today, my cousin’s friend told me about some doctor who actually got sent to jail for prescribing a cocktail of opiates – about 50 prescriptions a day. The doctor made a killing (no pun intended) because patients would have to return for fresh prescriptions.

While this is a worst case scenario, the one described by political commentator Ben Shapiro, whose wife is a doctor, is not terribly inspiring. Doctors only allot a small amount of time to getting to understand their patients, and are tempted to prescribe opiods quickly, so as to move onto the next victim – err, I mean patient – in the assembly line.

The horrible reality of the socialization of doctors into status quo automatons who regularly violate their Hypocratic Oaths is detailed in the book “Don’t Let Your Doctor Kill You: How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed and a Broken System”. I’ve read a few chapters into it, and, as depressing as it may be, should be required reading for every American citizen.

The ‘capture’ by the disgusting medical system, of my own brother, who appears to be the sort of ‘good patient’ that Dr. Schwartz (the author of Don’t Let Your Doctor Kill You) warns us NOT to be, has gotten the creative juices flowing, and I am tentatively planning on creating an open source project that will allow for “pay it forward” alternative healthcare/wellness. Not 100% sure I’ll follow through, and I’m surely not going to create the sort of parallel healthcare system that the software should help enable. But SOMETHING has to be done about the entire, diseased healthcare industry. This has also been brought to a recent head by my newfound awareness of the death, almost CERTAINLY induced by vaccine, of a 2 year old who lives very near my brother. The child’s father is an MMA fighter, and his mother is a nurse. Their description of the deceptive autopsy shows how far-reaching the corruption is, which unfortunately parallels the corruption of seemingly every institution in America. https://www.facebook.com/officialnickcatone/?hc_ref=ARSQgUHOuL7uI_JJFsFVMVq9Cb5VAtosSFor6_my-YpRrrYna7UD3PYM2Lv3juRF24g&fref=nf

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FWIW, I recently spent about a week looking for info on agents that might REVERSE stage 5 kidney disease. (There is a much better prognosis for reversing earlier stage kidney disease. See, e.g., protocols at Life Extension Foundation). I vaguely recalled a report that said that 15% of dialysis patients were able to get off it after (I think it was) some kind of chelation. However, I never could find the reference.

My brother is a dialysis patient, and after doing about a week’s worth of research, I could only find 2 POSSIBLE candidates for something curative for his situation.

One is modified citrus pectin (MCP; especially as formulated by Dr. Eliaz), which is similar to an experimental galectin-3 suppressor ‘drug’ candidate studied by La Jolla pharmaceuticals (and subsequently abandoned. Hmmmm). They demonstrated improved eGFR in stage 3b kidney patients. (Yes, I know that 3b 5). See http://www.lajollapharmaceutical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ASN-Poster-FINAL.pdf .

The other possible candidate is a chelating agent called plaquex. Plaquex.net has a reference to a paper showing administration of it to bona fide dialysis patients allowed them to cut their dialysis sessions by 60%.

Neither plaquex nor MCP are part of the “standard of care” in mainstream medicine, so your orthodox physician most likely will never prescribe it, even if you bring it to his/her attention. (Dr. Eliaz has said that MCP is getting closer to “standard of care” status, though I’m not sure for what diseases. It’s very effective for heavy metal detoxification AND suppressing cancer metastases. I don’t think it’s on the radar screen for kidney disease “standard of care”, though Dr. Eliaz mentioned something about insurance companies becoming aware that electro phoresis (I think it was) might be more cost effective than dialysis.)

When I was a kid (so 40-50 years ago) my father always would say we could solve any societal problem but too many vested interests aren’t interested in solving them.

We have a government that offers no comfort. It is principally organized around the principle of punishment, and so it seems to know how to offer no response but deprivation.

“Indeed, most drugs aren’t particularly addictive to people who have happy lives and things they want to do.”

Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner.

Alcoholic w/over 12 years recovery here. I submit that this is the core principle of AA. But it takes a while for the realization to sink in when you’ve been pickling (or poking) yourself for most of your life. Most people (normies) are really only aware of the 12 step process. But the steps are simply the intervention … something to keep your mind busy while the healing is occurring in the background. The people who succeed are the ones (like me) who manage to put the plug in the jug just long enough to have an epiphany, which is “I don’t need the shit, and since I’ve been off it … I’ve had relatively happy life filled with things I want to do.”

AA has a saying: “The program is simple. It only requires that you do one thing. Change everything.” To your point Ian. The solution really is simple. All we have to do as a country is change everything.

Apparently, highrpm thinks he will never, ever, be weak or unlucky.

That is not a realistic view of life.

The policies in place are clearly eliminationist, and they appear to be working, so why would policy makers reverse them? The current regime declares a “health emergency” and then does nothing to reverse it while doing plenty to make it worse — ie: more effective.

We’ve seen the pattern before.

The British Empire certainly used opium as a tool to help weaken the Chinese people and exploit China’s wealth when time was; it worked, didn’t it? Drug “policy” has been used time and again to weaken and exploit and from time to time help eliminate various segments of the US domestic population as well. It’s used because it works.

Changing our social and economic policies so as to reduce opioid addiction and death from overdose is not going to happen under the current regime; just the opposite is more likely. And in the meantime, those who suffer from chronic pain will have ever more restricted access to effective pain relief — leading to higher levels of suicide and perhaps euthanasia.

From the perspective of Our Rulers, it’s all good, no?

@Duder I don’t know enough about opiods to have an informed opinion about how they should be handled. I also don’t what Dr. Schwartz believes about handling opiods.

Dr. Schwartz’ position is that the entire medical profession has been been corrupted, in large part the insurance industry and by Big Pharma. Their motivation is overwhelmingly, if not solely, profit. The problem is far more extensive than just opiods. Schwartz makes a strong case for the problem extending to the process of becoming a doctor, which includes “brainwashing”, and physician “arrogance”.

The doctor that went to jail for opiod cocktail prescribing, AFAIK, didn’t make money off of the drugs, but off of the office visits. Not only is Dr. Schwartz not against charging appropriately for her services, including office visits, but she tells the story of her early departure from getting enmeshed in health insurance:

“One day, after a routine visit, Charlie and I walked to the checkout area of my office. As I watched him hand a five-dollar bill to our secretary, I asked him why he was only paying $5 for the visit. He told me that his wife had GHI insurance, which we were now accepting, and he was on her policy. I’m a very direct person, so I told him I felt being paid $5 for my services didn’t feel right, since it was devaluing my work as his doctor. He said, “But you accept the insurance.” He also told me he didn’t intend to offend me and would pay whatever it took to keep me as his doctor. I will forever be grateful to Charlie in the red Porsche. He opened my eyes to what was to come and I was lucky to have the self-confidence to refuse to take insurance ever again. You have no idea how easy it is for any doctor, under the threat of losing patients and the competitive whining of peers, to drown in the impersonal insurance shuffle and wind up serving the insurance master rather than the patient. I told my office manager to get out of GHI and never joined another insurance plan. I strongly and undoubtedly believe the relationship between the patient and doctor should not be influenced by insurance, drug and equipment companies, or fear of malpractice. Anyone that comes between the doctor and the patient is going to deter from optimal patient care.”

In the excellent documentary “Sick Around the World”, we can see that both the more capitalistic as well as the purely socialistic systems can and do work. (No apologies to ideologues of either side who want to shoehorn reality into their belief systems.) However, regulation prevents over charging and greed from running amok. Also, according to Thom Hartmann, even that excellent documentary was censored to prevent educating the public that (as I recall) it’s illegal to make a profit for primary care, even in the capitalistic systems.

In my own “pay it forward” scheme that I’ve recently brainstormed, the “in network” physicians are paid a salary by the system, and so have zero motivation to over-prescribe anything, prolong treatment, or minimize interaction (which maximizes patient throughput). However, as I want to make a parallel system that can help most, but not all patients with participants paying out of pocket – first for themselves (after, say, a 2 year free ride), but then also paying forward for the next person – bang for the buck estimates must be made, and health endpoints which respect the very real economic constraints of the participants determined. (This means that poorer patients will, in a first approximation, make slower progress than middle income patients. However, this “revolution will be televised” (and/or youtubed), and this publicity could be leveraged to crowdsource faster, costlier treatment regimes for the needier patients.)

P somniferum is easy to grow. Everyone with a yard should grow some, and scatter the seed in various places. Just ohh and ahh about the pretty flowers, and don’t mention what else can be done with the sap and the straw.

In 2001 Portugal decriminalized all drugs. There are scads of articles on what happened after, most of them very highly positive. Here’s a pretty restrained evaluation.

A nation state that incarcerates its citizens at the rate we do and that has a rising mortality rate among a significantly large group is in a crisis that must be addressed for the sake of legitimacy.

@Nihil

The main effect of Portugal’s decriminalizing drugs has been some savings in court costs and bringing junkies out into the open. They congregate in public parks, freely shoot-up smack and drop their government supplied needles on the ground for children to play with.

It is still illegal in Portugal to possess drugs over a small quantity, sell drugs or commit other crimes to pay for drugs. Most junkies reject any treatment offered or imposed and very few break the habit. This means that the drug business there still thrives showing young people they are free to join without fear of prison.

Here in the US drug laws are mostly state administered and heroin possession is a felony but few first time offenders go to prison. The people in prison here for drug crimes are mostly dealers and distributors who may also be chronic users.

The drug activists have this strange notion that releasing drug dealer criminals or not prosecuting them is somehow good for society. We already know most heroine addicts don’t quit their habit and that most criminals don’t reform so releasing them just means more crime on our streets.

@Ten Bears: Thank you, sir. I keep my 24-hour chip in my wallet to always remind that I’m only ever sitting on one day at time. It’s a good way to live.

@Peter Peter fact elider-
You said “My comment was based on research, reported facts and personal experience.”
Which the overwhelming majority of educated people back up through citation. Put your money where your mouth is. Nihil did.

Peter,
Ok. But what if I’m interested in learning more myself? Why not cite? It’s easy enough to do. When people make statements like “they are mostly hyped SJW propaganda,” well, inquiring minds want to know. That’s fair, right?

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-when-portugal-decriminalized-all-drugs-2016-3

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/12/26/portugals-drug-policy-pays-eyes-lessons.html

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/03/24/war-on-drugs-has-failed-public-health-medics-say.html

Peter said “Nihil made the accusation that my comment was made-up beliefs, it’s up to him to try and prove that. ”

Actually all nihil has to do is recognize your comments are make up beliefs, maybe you should change your handle to Covergirl. He needn’t indulge you by wasting his time with rebuttal.

Peter, like reality checker, you’re all hat and no cattle. It’s pretty embarrassing, really.

Peter has hung himself with his own shoelaces. I love that guy.

Vietnam Vet has it exactly right.

The rest of you morons, dry drunks, low self-esteem sufferers, etc. keep focusing on your petty, ridiculous tribalist positions, and continue to completely miss the big picture. Then you pack up like little schoolboys and girls to agree that the people criticizing your relentless, interminable idiocies are the ones who don’t get it.

I love watching you drive yourselves crazy. Survival of the fittest, evolution, and all that.

Kamala Harris 2020. Amirite?

Morons.

“We also refuse to look at the actual cause of the opiate epidemic, which is fairly clearly economic despair and hopeless lives.”

I’m not convinced that’s true, though it is the premise of the popularized Case-Deaton study.

Humans, Americans in particular, are very adaptable to changing circumstances. For a growing number of people, those circumstances have been deteriorating in some respects though not in others for quite a long time. People adapt to both the good and bad in their lives, but most find at least some happiness in even the worst of circumstances.

Drug use/abuse, whether opioids or some other, tends to operate independently of those circumstances. Whether or not you use opioids or other drugs to the point of overdose does not necessarily depend on your objective state of despair or hopelessness, contrary to the deeply flawed Case-Deaton study.

It depends first on availability, then on many social and cultural cues about the use/abuse of drugs — including alcohol — and then perhaps on physical/emotional vulnerability to them and their effects.

Somewhere in that constellation of factors, hopelessness and despair may occur — often as a consequence of drug use/abuse — but they are not necessarily primary at all.

And it should be recognized that many of those in high positions in our society also use and abuse drugs of all kinds at a rate that may actually exceed that of the iconically despairing white working class. Yet somehow they (mostly) manage. Some excel even though they under the influence most or all the time.

In many cases, their use of drugs is managed by professionals. Users are maintained at a functioning level no matter what else is happening in their lives. If it can happen among the High and the Mighty — as it does — then it can happen among just about any social/cultural group, including the despairing white working class.

But maintenance is on no ones agenda for the Lower Orders. Drugs for pain and drugs for pleasure are to be withheld or even forbidden altogether, punishment is to ensue in increasingly horrific ways, punishment not to curb or end drug use among the Lesser People, but to ensure that both use and punishment are profit centers for people who matter.

That’s what needs to change. But doing so is barely a matter of interest.

@ Webstir

Good luck to you. I mean that.

Of course, in the meantime, there is no reason not to suspect that your overall thought process might not be flawless. (Being as gentle as I can.)

Because, psychology. Got insight?

RC: Definitely not flawless. But always looking to improve. And thank you for the well wishes. I mean that too.

As to the “Because, psychology” part of the comment, you’re going to have to elaborate because I’m not following.

OTOH, if the “transference of wealth crisis” is indeed the root of all evil, should we be discussing this from that perspective?

We used to talk openly about them when it was Bush 43 under discussion. Now, it is politically incorrect

We used to talk openly about Islamic origins when it was Obama under discussion. Now, it is very politically correct?

Just because some groups feel empowered to voice opinions more loudly when they believe conditions are right, doesn’t mean that that volume determines reality.

Webstir,
Because of the nature of my work, I know many alcoholics. I would love to be able to offer beneficial support. Is there anything the average person can do to help?

@ Webstir

Well, I guess you’ve proved my point. In spades.

(All that you claimed above, was also true about Bush, btw.)

Willy, you make Webstir look fully functional lol. 🙂

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it, Willy-boy?

Feces, you say?

LMAO

Certainly bears repeating lol.

Well, in 2008 a drunk that I was helping out burned my house to the ground.

So pardon me if I am running a little low on sympathy for heavy drinkers. In fact, GFY if you don’t like it. I paid my dues for your little victim group.

I detest heavy drinkers, and for very good reason.

And a lot of recovering alcoholics exhibit the dry drunk syndrome.

Sorry if the facts upset you.

Ten Beers, I always give Viet vets a pass. Please don’t hurt me. 🙂

Sad? I never had to make amends for my history with anyone close to me, a-hole.

Get over yourself.

Classic dry drunk behavior.

realitychecker has never told me, in any detail, what he actually believes in. You know, itemized a top ten list. Yeah, everybody here knows that he believes this guy is a dumbass, that girl is dead to him, another guy’s an asshole… But what about his own values?

realitychecker once claimed to be a libertarian with humanist values who prefers progressive places because we’re nicer. Yet the libertarians I know hang out with the Lew Rockwells, the Justin Raimondos… and like Ron Paul, abhor things like violence and war. They occasionally call people rude names, but I don’t think they would ever try to shame anybody (hell, everybody…) for not revolting against the rich.

Is rc a special new kind of libertarian?

Now boys, pissing on each other in chat rooms is frowned upon. Fact is, we’re all embedded in our perception and it’s a rare human indeed who can honestly view themselves for what they are: a tiny piece of the universe that thinks it’s the center.

You’ll all have less heart attacks if you stop admiring your cruelty so much. Yves and Lambert would have shut their comment section years ago with this crowd.

@Willy

I read the Fox News Portugal link and it verified much of what I wrote earlier. The state is saving money not prosecuting users and the drug ghetto was dismantled. Now the junkies are free range in the open parks and they mention bus stops where they gather for supplies. The government supplied needles do keep disease down just as it has done here for decades. The diversion programs into treatment are what has already been done here for decades.

They even interviewed a couple of recovering addicts but they don’t address the actual percentage of addicts who are successful or even try to quit. This may be why they are moving to forced treatment regimes. The stats I read stated about 10% of junkies voluntarily seek treatment and about half of those are able to quit. This means there is a 95% failure rate and I doubt forced treatment will change that number much.

The big spin in most of these accounts is that the War on Drugs is focused on users and this is what is filling the prisons,this is bogus. Portugal is still fighting the War on Drugs and sending dealers to prison along with others convicted of crimes related to drugs. When I read about this months ago the police there reported a huge drug smuggling bust with dozens of arrests.

Peter,
I note some widely held misperceptions about addiction treatment in your last comment.

Particularly this passage, “The stats I read stated about 10% of junkies voluntarily seek treatment and about half of those are able to quit. This means there is a 95% failure rate and I doubt forced treatment will change that number much.”

I published a study for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research during my psych undergrad, titled “A Measure of Giving and Taking Behaviors on Long-Term Sobriety Outcomes.” One of the things I learned during my Lit. Review was that the numbers you cite don’t really tell the whole story. Initially, in my recovery, I was one of those 95%. I relapsed at about 4 months on my first try. It’s now been 12 years on my second try. And there it is — your statistic — which is based upon a meta-analysis done years ago using data from multiple physician based treatment studies. But the study, and virtually no study since, has tracked long-term sobriety outcomes because it is nigh-on impossible to do as a researcher. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that it generally takes people a few tries before recovery sticks. So, if you were to track these addicts over, say, a 5-year span while they are trying, failing and trying again, I think you’d find the numbers are much much higher.

If you can find a longitudinal study that tracks this my hat is off to you. But, the reality they just don’t exist because insurance companies don’t like relapses, and AA doesn’t give out data.

Those who are convinced that they’re the smartest guys (usually) in the room and can spout truth beyond the capabilities of anyone who doesn’t agree with them are annoying. They’re like people who drive the biggest SUV they can afford into a picnic area and blast the sound system at a 10, because it’s so, you know, funny to watch other people being annoyed. I don’t understand the attraction of the behavior, but I see it often enough to know that it’s how the guys make themselves feel good.

For the most part, I just ignore the turkeys. It helps not to read most of their comments. Where I get into trouble is when they misrepresent reality in ways that defend and advance policies and behaviors that are just morally wrong. I’m inordinately distressed over America’s genuinely evil incarceration policies and practice. It doesn’t do anything but thrill the turkeys when you point out that they’re lying, so the question is, does it do any good for others to know or to be reminded of the actual situation?

I’m upset that you didn’t cite my extraordinarily high IQ! LMMFAO

What an asinine thing to say for such an intelligent being, but I do agree with your putative epistemology. I wonder what behaviors would ensue were you to practice it with the fervor you declare it?

fwiw I really miss FDL

@webstir
thx for the nakedcap link. the main show is dancing around the campfire. always will be. despite “our” being told otherwise by “authorities” — money/ celebrity confer authority — it’s jungle fuking law.

Lol. My wife just said “If you have to tell people how smart you are … you’re not very smart.” She’s pretty sharp.

You know, Web, you are really a piece of work. How many times have you bragged here about earning three degrees in a decade?

Were you trying to show us how smart you aren’t?

Try rehearsing your shit in front of a mirror before you type it.

@Webstir

I’m not sure we disagree about causes of addiction including genetic propensity and stress. I merely point to other important factors including availability and social/cultural cues. If neither exist, then even propensity and stress are not going to induce substance abuse or addiction. That doesn’t mean there won’t be other responses.

I’d be careful about the Case-Deaton study. Lambert’s reliance on it is unfortunate.

Did everyone else catch all the creepy Dear Leader moments from yesterday as the Republicans celebrated their trillion dollar heist of the middle class to pay off their Big Money campaign contributors? Whoever owns the kneepad concession in DC must have made a killing. All the cynically transparent sucking up to their demented idiot child President was so bad it left you feeling unclean. Then there was the spectacle of all these super deficit hawks adding a couple trillion to the deficit without a blink like it was just so much carrying around money. There were also all the regular order Senators who passed this hurriedly concocted tax bill so that they could find out what was in it. Beyond the oceans of hypocrisy, the in your face criminality of it all, was the sheer, unadulterated arrogance toward, and contempt of, ordinary Americans. We’re just rubes to them. Screwing us ten ways to Sunday and then selling this shit to us is the easy part for them. Trillions for the rich, a couple of dollars for you. Sure, it will get eaten up by higher healthcare insurance rates and possible cuts to food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We don’t expect much, just that you crawl on your bellies to thank us and then go quietly to die in a ditch somewhere, preferably far we live.

If there ever is a revolution, I hope to see some of the videos from yesterday at these smirking malevolent shits’ treason trials. Yes, the Democrats are dreadful too. But yesterday belonged to the Republicans.

“far we live” meant “far from where we live.”

@Hugh

Yup. The difficulties are tremendous and largely beyond the scope of individuals. All one need do is familiarize themselves with Cicero and Voltaire to come away feeling rather depressed by the (w)hole thing, although insightful knowledge about wtf is going on around is extant from all cultures. Some more than others, which would go without saying elsewhere but we do need to slow down so rc can keep up, poor dear.

Wait for the follow up kick to the gut when they start dismantling what little is left of the public weal. Well, they’ve already started a good way down that path. I’m looking at you Obama. Shit heel.

Personally, I’m moving out of the big city and heading somewhere near large bodies of fresh water and few roads for the last phase of this incarnation. I’m too damn old to be rioting in the streets and I learned very well how little good that does anyone in the long run.

Us prols have always had it rough and like millions upon millions before me, at this point I’m just making my death bet and I don’t have much sympathy for the shit storm we not merely inherited, but make a lot worse, although I really don’t envy the young ones inheriting this once beautiful garbage dump.

Oh, rc…I’m willing to bet a) my IQ is higher than yours, and b) we’re both dumber than we were when the boffins tested us. I still have PSTD from the extra spin around the cyclotron us smarties got treated to. How about you? You do seem a bit butt hurt.

@ Covergirl

Well, since you don’t even seem to realize I’ve been the radical screaming about the oppression of the corporatocracy and how they have all but sewn up our future already FOR 15 FUCKING YEARS. I would advise you to keep your money. I used to get attacked for wanting to have a discussion about revolution. Maybe check yourself? (Frankly, I have no interest in meauring penises with you lol.)

But, I will agree that I was sharper when I was tested as a child. So was everybody else. Duh.

Do you even get it when I say nothing personal about me should matter? That the quality of the thought is what should be evaluated in a venue like this?

Honestly, I’m only ever offering up things, usually glaring unresolved contradictions, that should be blindingly obvious even to the low-normals. In hopes of prompting folks to think further about them on their own. But many don’t want to think about anything that might disturb their status quo, do they? In that regard, the lefties are just as stubbornly stupid as the righties we love to make fun of.

Contradictions are my targets. Why aren’t they everybody’s?

@ Covergirl

Giving the benefit of the doubt to your sincerity at the end of your comment above, I think if you are what you say you are, you know very well that there are many downsides to being too ‘gifted’ in modern America. Or too ‘anything’ from the norm. I was not immune. Lots of dollars contributed to the therapy industry lol. You have my sympathy.

Ok. I read Gelman along with some follow up articles to boot. Having done so, I don’t agree with your conclusions for two reasons.

You said “ … Case-Deaton is more a political work than scientific, an effort to prove a conclusion … .”
First, there is nothing wrong with the study. They made one statistical decision, among many options, to not use age adjustment because there are many different ways to age adjust. This isn’t “dodgy.” I know stats from my own research projects. You have to make decisions like this. Anne Case admits that they intentionally didn’t age adjust because “‘there are a very large number of ways someone can age-adjust this cohort.’ In a followup email she said it’s important to realize out that each method comes “‘with its own implicit assumptions, and that each answers a different question.’” This is good science. They were transparent about their decision. That Gelman doesn’t agree is fine. He can do his own study and dsprove their work. That’s how science gets done. It’s wasn’t political. It may have been made so later, but that was not their intent.
Which leads me to number two. How did they try to prove a conclusion when they didn’t even know a problem existed yet prior to 2015 when they were conducting the study?

Finally, even with Gelman’s correction, mortality has flatlined. This in itself is significant and still provides fuel for Lambert’s argument. Do you disagree with his assessment of moving away from the “self-actualizing” (identity) issues that seem so all important to the 10% that comprise the establishment neoliberal democrat base? Rather than the issues that concern the 90% who have no political champion and are constantly casting about willy nilly for a party that will represent thier interests?

Personally, I agree with what I see as a synthesis of both Lambert and Ian’s core philosophy. People expect governmentt to enact policies that contribute to an increase in the concrete material benefits in their lives (the lower order heirarchy needs) or else they kick the bums out and go with a different party the next round. It’s an obvious, and endless, cycle that only benefits the 1%. Time for a new approach.

Che:
Similarly, I came across this the other day:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171206122502.htm

Here is the money quote:

“This will be one of the biggest challenges of this century as the added pressure from anthropogenic activities will be responsible for damaging effects on human health and the environment.” Prof. Toussaint predicts. “The current declines in human capacities we can see today are a sign that environmental changes, including climate, are already contributing to the increasing constraints we now have to consider.”

Different context, but one can arrive at the same neoliberal influence upon the outcome. Why do we continue to trash the planet (and hence our own longevity) in the face of overwhelming evidence that it’s killing us? Because of the two golden rules of neoliberalism: (1) Because markets, and (2) Go die.

See reality checker and Peter! Isn’t it so much more fun to have a discussion grounded in evidence rather than “believe me … my brain is big.”

The CDC reported Thursday that life expectancy from birth has declined in the US for the second straight year. When this happened in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was taken as evidence of Russian weakness and failure, a society that had lost its way. True of us as well.

IMNSHO, too much kneejerk-internalized-paradigm-projection in evidence. While I do think systemic eoconomic policy is largely to blame, favoring the capitalist-run-amok profiteers of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, I can’t see ignoring the people who most directly enable opiod abuse, viz., doctors.

Let us consider a different aspect of physician greed, as detailed by Dr. Schwartz.

“Sadly too many doctors tempted by easy money, choose the wrong path to follow. All you have to do is read the newspaper. Rarely does a week go by that a doctor doesn’t get caught fraudulently extracting monies from insurance companies by taking advantage of the coding and documentation loopholes. Most do it in underprivileged areas, where assembly-line medicine prevails. But there are others, even in top academic institutions, who abuse the system in plain sight.
I practice medicine in New York City, a Mecca for advanced medical care. Somewhere in my city, there is a group of ob-gyns that brings in a lot of money to the University Hospital they refer their patients to. The practice is made up of young female doctors, and the group is primarily motivated by financial incentives not care or compassion for its patients. The doctors routinely frighten pregnant women into unnecessary procedures often times because the insurance companies pay higher reimbursement rates when the doctor classifies a patient as high risk. This is just one of the many horrific side effects of the documentation game and the lack of ethics in the profession. But the story doesn’t end with pregnant women. In this elite group, all women are potential prey to these dishonorable doctors.”

Schwartz MD, Dr. Erika. Don’t Let Your Doctor Kill You: How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed and a Broken System (p. 87). Post Hill Press. Kindle Edition.

These sorts of observations should spark serious inquiry and societal correction at the level of how physicians practice their craft, and not just at some other levels (Big Pharma, misogyny, whatever) in the hierarchy of causation.

I’m not suggesting ignoring any aspect of the problem. As Michael Moore asked in his documentary, Sicko, “Who are we?”

That’s a legitimate question, but, at least in the case of an issue like the opiod crisis, no more legitimate than the question, “Why are the doctors so unethical, and what can we do about it, both in the near-term, as well as the long-term?”

rc: all I have ever asked is that you find some cattle to go with your rhinestone hat.

metamars: upon what do you base your not so humble opinion that “there is kneejerk-internalized-paradigm-projection in evidence”
Or, was that just a kind of intellectual sounding belch?

rc does have a cow. It has a rhinestone cowbell. Don’t ask what it’s doing in his bedroom. But that’s his business, lol de frickin lol. Speaking of revolution…

I’ve had a black ninja suit and ied-making supplies gathering dust on the kitchen table for over ten months now waiting for you geniuses to come up with a plan. Last time we had a “serious” revolution discussion rc got his feelings hurt and we had to sit through dozens of back and forth insults that had nothing to do with anything.

We’ve gotta be tougher than this if we’re gonna be successful revolutionaries.

@Webstir

Basically, Case and Deaton reject any criticism of their work because they’ve reached the conclusion they wish.

This doesn’t invalidate their study, but it does subject it to reasonable skepticism — which in some ways is too bad because there are genuine issues regarding opioids, overdoses, and declining life expectancies — among the rabble, not among the high and the mighty. Simply attributing it to the despair of the white working class (male aspect) misses the mark. As Gelman shows, deaths are rising among females, not so much among males in the study cohort.

In other words, the issue is far more complex and the problems run much deeper than Case-Deaton (and Lambert) allow for.

As to the question of the proper role of government, that’s been a subject of debate for some centuries now, hasn’t it? Clearly the US government and most state governments do not necessarily see themselves in the proposed role of providing concrete benefits that improve the lives of the underclasses. Instead they are organized to defend and protect the interests of the Overclass against the demands and needs of everyone else. It has ever been thus.

If that means that from time to time government does provide or enable those concrete benefits that improve lives of the lesser people, so be it. But let’s not fool ourselves about why that sometimes happens. It isn’t for the benefit of the lower orders. It is to protect and defend the Overclass from the untermenschen.

Our neoliberal rulers believe the rabble already receive too many concrete benefits as it is and they are working diligently on their program to remove as many of those benefits as they can without risking a rebellion that would result in their heads on pikes or other unpleasant inconvenience to themselves.

Changing that state of affairs becomes more difficult day by day. Whatever the case, positive change is unlikely to come through elections.

Willy, I told you to take your hand off your penis when talking about me!!!!

You just can’t quit me lol. 🙂

rc: I find it amusing that I substantively dismantle your B.S. on a regular basis, and your only response is to name call. Does that make me troll, too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrm-rPSCIBw
I can’t say it any better than Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction …

@ Webbie

The fact that you obsessively ‘dismantle’ me in your fantasies is just more data supporting the conclusion that you are stuck in your dry drunk syndrome.

Keep it up. It’s instructive. 🙂

Your ‘commentariat’ is Webbie, Willy, and Willy’s willy. 🙂

Dry drunk syndrome. Google it at the AA website, or many other places.

How long since your last meeting?

I don’t want to be the thing that makes you start drinking again.

Seriously.

Ask your ‘pretty smart’ wife what you should do next.

The plot thickens. A user name “Tristan” commented on the breitbart article “Jeff Sessions Creates ‘Opioid Tsar’ as Overdose Deaths Surpass Those from Breast Cancer” @ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/21/jeff-sessions-creates-opioid-tsar-od-deaths-surpass-breast-cancer/

“This is all a big farce! The FDA announced a Public Warning earlier this month on a Monday regarding a plant called Kratom. The alkaloid in this plant has the exact same effect on the opioid receptors as pills. However, it is not addictive and it is impossible to OD on it. People have been using it with a great deal of success to get off of heroin, pills, methadone, suboxin, plus vets have been using it for PTSD and having great success where other meds failed them.

Using faulty data, data that has been proven wrong and shown to the FDA/DEA etc, the FDA issued this warning that those using it to come off of the addictive drugs are doing so at their peril. . . a clear lie.

Three days later on the following Thursday, guess what the FDA announced? “FDA Approves Merck’s Opiod Withdrawal Apparatus” This is all a scam and the Federal government doesn’t even try to hide how dirty they are anymore. In fact, they flaunt it!”

@RC

You are a clever devil using mockery and manipulation to prod these Igors onto the revolutionary road. Witless Willy has already braged about his ied’s so it’s good they have a lawyer in the band, they are going to need one or more.

Pooter,
rc’s revolution talk is his way of blowharding the “politically incorrect”. You’re the only one who takes it seriously. He couldn’t lead a hill of ants to honey.

Edit: Meant to type “the wisdom of the ages.”

Meaning that we seem to be losing much of it already.

@about rc’s “wisdom”

Pooter doesn’t respond to punishment. I don’t either. Has rc ever responded to punishment? Why the hell do you expect Jihadists to respond to punishment?

morons like you don’t even seem to comprehend what you are losing

Prove it.

LOLOL

Prove that you’re not sexually obsessed with me. Go ahead, prove it!

And take your hand off your penis!!!!

Countries such as Portugal have done the right thing. It’s working there. If it doesn’t work here it will be because the Drug Business per se and War On Drugs are too profitable to abandon. I have commented here and elsewhere about the many issues regarding drugs, so let me just say Ian is correct that 90% of the problem is economic & social.

@Steel

You are conflating two different problems in the US and Portugal. Portugal doesn’t have a fentanyl caused spike in OD deaths. Their smugglers bring in higher quality heroin than the black tar our smugglers supply. They are saving money and have healthier junkies because of free needles. Their claims about reducing drug use or curing more addicts are vague but they do admit to no reduction in pot use.

Our fentanyl OD deaths are caused by poor quality control by the dealers because they are lazy or just don’t care. A pinhead amount of fentanyl will kill you. The improper doses have been found in heroin and counterfit painkiller pills. Decriminalizing the use of these drugs won’t have any effect on the people who mix and sell them.

RC: I know you’re a little thick, but “whatevs” means you are again on the persona non grata list. Bye now.

Oh, and rc, this doesn’t mean I’m not going to land on you occasionally. It just means I won’t be interacting with you once I’ve pointed out your lazy thinking.

You guys are a pair of open wounds. So nice to see you bleed.

Willy who slurs with “gay porn sites.”

Webstir who slurs with “twat.”

Yeah you guys are the ones we should all be striving to emulate.

Willy, get your hands off your damn penis!!!

Webstir, go look up “dry drunk,” and tell me which symptoms you don’t exhibit.

Two nothings, thinking they are somethings. The wave of the future.

Daddy issues and alcoholism frequently combine to make a very nasty package. You show a stunning lack of self-awareness, and I am quite sure you have not understood anything I have every typed here.

Your compulsive inability to stop seeking me out is psychologically telling.

You are also a great example of the frog in a small pond syndrome. You could never survive in a larger pond than your little two-grocery town, where you can pretend to be the town genius. That is a major dry drunk symptom, btw. You should look it up. Everybody should, in fact, if you are going to continue to try and dominate these threads with your insipid nonsense, encouraged and abetted by/abetting your feces-flinging friend Willy, who also seems unable to stop seeking me out.

Your joint efforts have destroyed this place as a venue for careful good faith analysis and dialogue. I hope you are happy with your ‘achievement.’

A neocon lol???

Too many little green worms running around inside that psychological wound you call a brain, sonny.

And keep your hands off your damned penis as you think about me! Too creepy.

Perhaps you’d be willing to ex[lain to us exactly what your problem is with “gay porn sites”?

Reminder–This is YOU, Willy-boy:

” Willy permalink
December 23, 2017

But you’ve obviously visited a lot of gay porn sites.”

Explanation?

I don’t think homophobes get a lot of cred around here. I note you say you come from a VERY conservative family.

And I don’t think anyone has missed your obvious obsession with me.

You just can’t quit me.

Now get your hand off your penis!!!!!

@ MW

I respect and like you, and I hear you.

There are difficulties in dealing with determined online stalkers, and Willy is mine. If you haven’t witnessed it, I know it looks messy. In person, I would have dealt with a coward like this long ago, in private. And the coward depends on that, of course.

I don’t believe in censorship, so I would never ask to ban him. But ignoring him carries its own difficulties, because our cred is all we have online, and slanders and false attacks that go unchallenged get believed by many who just don’t want to debate the points I might raise.

We are in a place where departures from dogma are deplored and attacked, but the dogma, unchallenged, is clearly delivering us into dystopia. That is the fight I am trying to fight, and it is a fucking lonely fight, Wolf, let me tell you.

I wish you would come around more with your reasonable voice, and your good faith approach to things. I never have a problem with reasonable folks like you, do I? Your voice is always a good influence, IMO.

Best to you.

Scrap that. I had written something lengthy about my mother passing away this morning but decided it was inappropriate for a Merry Christmas thread. But that is why I have not much else to say right now. Peace to you.

Appreciate it, RC. You as well.