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The (latest) War on Drugs

Trying to make sense of a crazy world, with limited success mostly
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raison de arizona
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#1

Post by raison de arizona »

Well, they carefully aren't calling it that, but that is what it is. tfg has been calling for the death penalty for drug dealers since at least early 2018. Many, MANY other Republicans are following suit (The number I saw was 70-something percent.) A large amount of their grief over so-called liberal prosecutors is that they aren't prosecuting as many drug offenses, can't have that. Anyway, I expect this to ratchet up and become An Issue in the future, so here is a placeholder.

The new war on drugs, I'm sure this time it will be far more successful.
Trump called on lawmakers to institute the 'death penalty for drug dealers' despite the fact that he pardoned people convicted of selling drugs
Kelsey Vlamis - September 4, 2022
  • Trump spoke at a rally Saturday for the first time since the August 8 search at Mar-a-Lago.
  • Trump said he was calling on lawmakers to institute capital punishment for drug dealers.
  • But before leaving office, Trump pardoned numerous people who were convicted for selling drugs.
During a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, former President Donald Trump called for drug dealers to receive the death penalty, despite having pardoned several people convicted of selling drugs before he left office.
:snippity:
"Under Democrat control the streets of our great cities are drenched in the blood of innocent victims," Trump said, adding that drug dealers were responsible for killing hundreds of people every year.

It's unclear where the numbers Trump cited came from.

"Every drug dealer is responsible and that doesn't include what they've done to families of people that haven't died, but families that are just devastated by what happened to their children and to themselves," he said.

Trump then said he was calling for drug dealers to receive capital punishment, which he claimed would "reduce drug distribution in our country on day one by 75%" and "save millions of lives."

"We would solve that problem so fast and I'm calling on Republicans and Democrats immediately to institute, to get to Washington and institute the death penalty for drug dealers. You will no longer have a problem," he said.

:snippity:
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-called-law ... 16858.html
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams
Uninformed
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#2

Post by Uninformed »

As ever, the UK being a pale imitation of the USA.

“Make cannabis Class A drug, say Conservative police commissioners”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63115171
If you can't lie to yourself, who can you lie to?
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RTH10260
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#3

Post by RTH10260 »

‘Everybody’s dropping like flies’: Federal ‘tranq’ warning follows escalating concerns in Mass.

By Drew Karedes, Boston 25 News
March 24, 2023 at 2:44 pm EDT

BOSTON — The new warning from the DEA over “the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced” follows escalating concerns in Massachusetts about the dangerous animal tranquilizer.

Boston 25 News first told you about xylazine, also known as “tranq” and “the zombie drug”, back in September.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued an alert Monday warning of a “sharp increase in the trafficking of fentanyl mixed with xylazine”.

The anesthetic that’s approved for veterinary use with large animals is not an opioid.

That means Narcan, a crucial tool in saving lives in the opioid epidemic, cannot reverse its effects.

The latest data from a state-funded collaborative tracking program in Massachusetts shows that about a third of New England’s illegal drug supply is laced with xylazine.

“Everybody’s dropping like flies,” said Will Reavis, of Boston. “I know quite a few people that most likely passed away because of this new stuff. It’s just going to get worse. More people are going to die.”

Boston 25 News spoke with several people who believe recent overdoses involving people they know are linked to the animal tranquilizer.

“I have a few friends that are now six feet under because of the issue,” said one woman. “It’s scary to think about it. I’m about to cry… a horse tranquilizer should not be on the streets. It’s like rat poisoning.”

Public health experts believe people are taking xylazine both unknowingly and intentionally.

That’s because some people report that it lengthens the euphoric effects of fentanyl.

“It’s put my life in danger,” said Patricia McGrath, of Boston. “When I woke up, it was like a shock. A sense of something I can’t explain.”

Repeated xylazine use is associated with skin ulcers and severe wounds including the rotting of human tissue, which can lead to amputation.

Just last month, the FDA said it took action to prevent xylazine from entering the U.S. market for illicit purposes.

The DEA Laboratory System is reporting that - in 2022 - approximately 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.




https://www.boston25news.com/news/local ... TG47NPVCQ/
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pipistrelle
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#4

Post by pipistrelle »

We would solve that problem so fast
He has said this about every problem known to man, yet after four years they all persisted. Why is that?
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#5

Post by somerset »

pipistrelle wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 4:52 pm
We would solve that problem so fast
He has said this about every problem known to man, yet after four years they all persisted. Why is that?
Singapore has a mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking (defined by the amount of drugs seized). It has kept the issue in check, but hasn't "solved" it at all.
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#6

Post by MsDaisy »

A conversation with Dr. Wen: Should everyone buy Narcan now?
The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that Narcan, the nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose, will be available over the counter. The decision was years in the making and should have happened long ago.

Now that this essential drug will soon be more accessible, we had a discussion on how best to make use of it and save lives. Our conversation is below:

Robert Gebelhoff: So the big picture first. How big of a difference will this make in addressing America’s overdose epidemic?

Leana Wen: I think it’s a major step, but perhaps not for the obvious reason.

America is in a crisis, with record numbers of people — including teens — dying from preventable opioid overdoses. Naloxone, also known as the brand-name Narcan, can revive someone who has stopped breathing and would otherwise die within minutes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... -approval/

That is a very good idea, I told my Mister when it becomes available we should stock up and he agreed. :thumbsup:

The only bad thing about Narcan (as I saw repeatedly in my years running on the rescue squad) is that hitting a junkie up with Narcan will kill their buzz and most junkies do not react positively to that. I always carried duck tape in my jump bag and junkies were the only ones I ever needed it for.

I remember taking one guy to the ER with his wrists and ankles taped to the cot and one of the ER Docs who called us all "Rescue Squad" pulled out her scissors and started to cut the dude's arm loose from the cot. I was standing right beside her and said, “Ummm I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, and she just rolled her eyes at me and kept cutting. I stepped back a bit and when that arm got loose it started swinging every which way. She grabbed it and tried to hang on while shouting for security. It took her and two security guys to get that arm re-restrained. When she finally turned away from the patient to walk away I was still standing right there and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “told ya so”.

Some months later that same doc got into a terrible accident and had to be cut out of her car unconscious and rushed to the hospital. (I was not on that call) But after being through all of that and 3 months in the hospital she was a changed person and treated us like gold and called us all by our actual names, which had always been right there on our on our uniforms.

So FYI taking away a junkie's buzz even to save their life may not always be appreciated by the junkie at the time. :shrug:
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#7

Post by Slarti the White »

MsDaisy wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 4:42 am A conversation with Dr. Wen: Should everyone buy Narcan now?
The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that Narcan, the nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose, will be available over the counter. The decision was years in the making and should have happened long ago.

Now that this essential drug will soon be more accessible, we had a discussion on how best to make use of it and save lives. Our conversation is below:

Robert Gebelhoff: So the big picture first. How big of a difference will this make in addressing America’s overdose epidemic?

Leana Wen: I think it’s a major step, but perhaps not for the obvious reason.

America is in a crisis, with record numbers of people — including teens — dying from preventable opioid overdoses. Naloxone, also known as the brand-name Narcan, can revive someone who has stopped breathing and would otherwise die within minutes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... -approval/

That is a very good idea, I told my Mister when it becomes available we should stock up and he agreed. :thumbsup:

The only bad thing about Narcan (as I saw repeatedly in my years running on the rescue squad) is that hitting a junkie up with Narcan will kill their buzz and most junkies do not react positively to that. I always carried duck tape in my jump bag and junkies were the only ones I ever needed it for.

I remember taking one guy to the ER with his wrists and ankles taped to the cot and one of the ER Docs who called us all "Rescue Squad" pulled out her scissors and started to cut the dude's arm loose from the cot. I was standing right beside her and said, “Ummm I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, and she just rolled her eyes at me and kept cutting. I stepped back a bit and when that arm got loose it started swinging every which way. She grabbed it and tried to hang on while shouting for security. It took her and two security guys to get that arm re-restrained. When she finally turned away from the patient to walk away I was still standing right there and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “told ya so”.

Some months later that same doc got into a terrible accident and had to be cut out of her car unconscious and rushed to the hospital. (I was not on that call) But after being through all of that and 3 months in the hospital she was a changed person and treated us like gold and called us all by our actual names, which had always been right there on our on our uniforms.

So FYI taking away a junkie's buzz even to save their life may not always be appreciated by the junkie at the time. :shrug:
I have friends in the recovery community who hand it out for free -- I've got several myself, although I've never had the need for it nor do I expect to, it's something that could save a life if I'm wrong and it's far better to have it and not need it than the other way around.
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#8

Post by Phoenix520 »

This is two years too late for my nephew. A Harm Reduction counselor who spoke at his memorial handed out expired canisters to everyone, which was all she could get.

I still take mine when I go certain places.
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#9

Post by RTH10260 »

The China-Mexico fentanyl pipeline: increasingly sophisticated and deadly
Advanced money-laundering techniques and clandestine precursor imports combine to stoke the opioid crisis – can the US stem the flow?

Jennifer Doherty in Washington
Thu 18 May 2023 10.00 BST

For a few days in April, news sites across Latin America were running Instagram photos of a glamorous blond woman enjoying trips around the world.

There were pictures of Ana Gabriela Rubio Zea, 32, posing in a blue dress and Yves Saint Laurent handbag outside San Miguel de Allende, ice skating in a miniskirt in Central Park and laughing in the Forbidden City.

The social media images were then followed by more recent photos: Rubio, in a sweatshirt and jeans, flanked by officers from the national civil police of Guatemala, where she was arrested on 17 March for her alleged role in sourcing fentanyl precursor chemicals from China for the Sinaloa cartel.

According to the arresting agency and a federal indictment released on 14 April, for almost 10 years Rubio arranged illegal imports of controlled drug-making substances, sometimes hiding them in food containers and leveraging corruption to deliver the chemicals to the cartel.

“We are the biggest in Mexico so we can purchase a lot,” the indictment quotes Rubio telling Wu Yonghao, a sales representative for the chemical supplier Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Co Ltd, in an encrypted message before her arrest.

A new crackdown

The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, called the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel “the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world” in a statement accompanying the sweeping indictments covering cartel bosses, enforcers and suppliers such as Rubio and Wu.

The pair are just two links in a chain connecting the Sinaloa cartel to Chinese companies and criminal organizations, relationships that are now drawing increasing attention from the US government after years of investigation by law enforcement.

On 9 May, three weeks after the US Department of Justice issued the sweeping indictments that caught Rubio and Wu in their net, the US treasury department followed up with sanctions against Joaquín Guzmán López, 36, one of the four sons of the Sinaloa cartel founder, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, who have amassed power and steered the cartel into the fentanyl trade since their father’s last arrest.

The sanctions notice identified the younger Guzmán as a manager of the cartel’s “super labs”, which turn precursors bought from China and elsewhere into fentanyl.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -sanctions
Dave from down under
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The (latest) War on Drugs

#10

Post by Dave from down under »

Importers of 80.5 kilograms of cocaine, 344.2 kilograms of MDMA, or ecstasy, and 171.2 kilograms of methamphetamine.

Stopped by a valiant SEAL!
(see spoiler or link)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-22/ ... /102376598
► Show Spoiler
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