Rwanda makes its own morphine while U.S. awash with opioids:
It was something, the silence. Nothing but the puff of her breath and the scuff of her slip-on shoes as Madeleine Mukantagara walked through the fields to her first patient of the day. Piercing cries once echoed down the hill to the road below. What she carried in her bag had calmed them.
For 15 years, her patient Vestine Uwizeyimana had been in unrelenting pain as disease wore away at her spine. She could no longer walk and could barely turn over in bed. Her life narrowed to a small, dark room with a dirt-floor in rural Rwanda, prayer beads hanging on the wall by her side.
A year ago, relief came in the form of liquid morphine, locally produced as part of Rwanda's groundbreaking effort to address one of the world's great inequities: As thousands die from addiction in rich countries awash with prescription painkillers, millions of people writhe in agony in the poorest nations with no access to opioids at all.
Companies don't make money selling cheap, generic morphine to the poor and dying, and most people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford the expensive formulations like oxycodone and fentanyl, prescribed so abundantly in richer nations that thousands became addicted to them.
Rwanda's answer: plastic bottles of morphine, produced for pennies and delivered to homes across the country by community health workers like Mukantagara. It is proof, advocates say, that the opioid trade doesn't have to be guided by how much money can be made.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 30 2019, @10:05PM (10 children)
Opioids haven't always been expensive. In fact they weren't really at all until the government decided to regulate them. You could buy laudanum [wikipedia.org] at most any druggist or general store for a little bit of nothing and without involving a doctor up until the feds once again decided they needed to dictate how folks were living their lives because they weren't doing it properly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Monday December 30 2019, @11:13PM (8 children)
To my knowledge the ones to hike the price of opiates (and the aforementioned creation of the regulations) were the British when they run out of silver to pay the Chinese which led to the Anglo-Chinese opium wars.
Pretty important factoid considering the abandonment of the gold standard and the following great depression were the result of the brits and federal trying to devalue the silver and gold they traded to India and China by declaring it worthless.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:37AM (2 children)
That doesn't quite jibe with my memory of my studies of the Opium Wars. As I remember, the East India Company (remember them? They were the cause of the Boston Tea Party) ran afoul of the Chinese who wanted to cut opium shipments going into China. The East India Company implored the British Government to invade China, to enforce TEIC's opium trade in China.
I don't always trust Wikipedia, but they present a concise account of the Opium Wars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars [wikipedia.org]
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:54PM (1 child)
Wikipedia reflects what its editors believe in. This is what the academics believe in: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=ulra [lmu.edu]
Choose your poison. It's all lies one way or another.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @09:45PM
Yes I am former Wiki donor. Yes I am bitter as fuck!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:03AM (4 children)
They also were trading that silver and gold to other countries and people, including their own, and hence, devaluing those assets with everyone who used them for trade. It's not the trade with India and China that brought down precious metal standards, but bad economics.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:08PM (3 children)
The "trade with India and China" and "bad economics" are the same thing. It's the kind of classic game theory fallacies that are taught to econ majors: The British thought they had it under their control. They believed they could always devalue the precious metals and be done with it. But they failed to account for the state of the global market so when they made their move they collapsed international trade back.
What's worth remembering is that finances hasn't really changed all these years. The US and Britain are mercantile at heart and will always get pulled by the nose by all these self-destructive schemes. Sure, it's bad economics. But often enough, the oppositions has worth economics. And when competing on the global scale, that's all that matters.
compiling...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:53PM (2 children)
Based on what evidence? And what game theory? Here's my problems with the alleged central nature of trade with India and China. First, the two regions were peripheral to global trade by the 1930s. North American-European trade would dwarf that.
Second, the greatest impact was to the (what is present day) developed world. For example, Roosevelt's seizure of gold didn't directly affect people in India and China. Instead it affected people living in the US. Note the timing. Roosevelt forbid [wikipedia.org] the "hoarding" of gold in April 5, 1933 via executive order - that only affects people in the US. And then took [history.com] the US off the gold standard in June 5, 1933. Compare the relative blights of gold hoarders in the US versus China as of that latter moment.
In the US, one would have gold that is illegal to own or sell, except at reduced price to the US government. You'd have to sell it surreptitiously at significant cost or hide it somewhere and hope the regulations change (which they did in 1974!). Meanwhile what happens to the hoarder in China? The value of their gold goes up. The devaluation doesn't work at all since they didn't own what actually got devalued - the US dollar! And that's the third point, sure, gold was devalued in the US and elsewhere where gold was now illegal to hold as investment. But it increased in value in areas where that ban no longer applied. And the real consequence of taking currencies off of the gold (and later silver) standard was to devalue those currencies not the precious metals.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday December 31 2019, @08:55PM (1 child)
I've linked a random paper in the other thread ( https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=ulra [lmu.edu] ) touching on this but not the one I had in mind since I can't find it. Regardless, the modern research is far more data driven and unbiased than what Wikipedia uses and there's a lot of econ-math-history types asking these questions so you don't have to look too far if you google for scholarly works on the subject. I mean, most serious historians refuse to work on anything under 100years old since it's too politically risky. So whatever we were taught during high school is guaranteed be one form or the next of propaganda.
In currency but not in raws. Don't forget it wasn't supply and demand determining the prices of products in those regions. It was trade monopolies backed by military strength. The contemporary equivalence is oil: Barrels should easily cost 5-10 times what they currently cost but the US and Russia keep the prices down through force of arms.
And it's also where the game theory kicks in: While the whole nation doesn't necessarily benefit from these resource wars, it doesn't mean military contractors and energy multinational aren't. That's where the trading companies enter and the papers usually focus on.
Measuring everything in dollar signs doesn't work. While India was basically unaffected, the Republic Of China was taken over by the PRC during those years due to how the great depression affected the city people. Sure, things were already quite shaky... But this is all Opium Wars, late Qing era events and processes we're talking about here.
Again, bad economics and all that... And don't forget the people working at the federal didn't necessarily represent the nations' interests much like how regulatory capture currently damages national interests. There was noble prize awarded to an history-econ type a few years ago that looked at the actual people who supported WW2 and noted they and their business profited from the war despite their people's suffering. Don't assume the people sitting in congress that voted to do nothing about the great depression weren't profiting much like how the FCC and EPA operate under Trump.
Personally I feel it will take another 100 years before something worth while could be said about the events simply because half the senators in office had fathers and grand fathers involved in the (bad) decisions in question. And even then, it will be published in French, German, Spanish or even Chinese... But not in English. Maybe it will get translated. Referenced even... But to actually make it to the history books? I mean, wasn't it just a few years when they finally fixed the history books related to the storming on the Bastille? And that was a localized event... 200 years might not even be enough.
compiling...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:09AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:06AM
Opioids were pretty cheap in the '80s as well, long after the regulations.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday December 30 2019, @10:37PM (47 children)
Sure, after you disintermediate raw capitalism out from between care-of-health and profit/ability. Then that principle applies to a lot of stuff.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:27AM (45 children)
Newp, sorry, this ain't on capitalism. The only reason big pharma has a chokehold on prices, or even exists in the first place, is because the government has passed laws guaranteeing them monopoly powers and making it extremely expensive and legally complex to compete with them after those monopoly powers expire. Were either of those not the case, most medicines would be dirt cheap within five years of the patents expiring. Government choosing who wins and loses is not an aspect of capitalism.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:09AM (12 children)
It's certainly not solely on Capitalism, probably not even mostly, but there are a number of dirty tricks applied on top of the ill-thought regulations that make the problem much worse.
But uit seems even the Libertarians seem to have all but given up on dismantling any of that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:31AM
Nah, there just ain't very many of us around lately. We sat on our asses too long letting both parties trade us comfort for our liberties, so we have a lot of unfucking to do in the population before we can do much fixing in the government.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:09AM (10 children)
It's not capitalism at fault here. It's odd how capitalism gets blamed for deliberate breaking of it.
"Seems" to who? Are you demanding that we (temporarily putting myself in the Libertarian camp for rhetorical purposes) rule you with no-doubt benevolent tyranny?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @09:08AM (9 children)
Seems to me. I haven't heard anything from a Libertarian candidate about abolishing the FDA, prescription laws, controlled substances, etc other than marijuana in a long time. Some libertarians (small L), yes, but not the party.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @09:38AM
The L party is busy failing at trying to get attention. The media is an impenetrable barrier. Even YouTube is no good anymore. They will languish forever unless a miracle happens.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:05PM (7 children)
So what? Do you have some perception of Libertarians that is relevant to this thread? Seems to me that you don't.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @07:11PM (6 children)
Yes, I do. I have a perception of the offers on the table for representatives in the federal government.
If you know otherwise, perhaps offer it up rather than telling me to shut up.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:49AM (5 children)
On the FDA, I read of opposing [lp.org] a ban on vaping products and supporting [alibertarian.org] raw butter producers, both running counter to the FDA on the matters. So there's that. What I find puzzle is what is supposed to be the point of the exercise? It's one thing if the information is likely to be massively popularized like who is president of the US or a smoking gun for dire climate change. But the Libertarian Party's present day stance on niche issues? You happen to know any other third party's stance on these things too, with examples of those stances? They would be just as obscure.
It makes no sense to speak of your perception when it is ridiculously fallible, and you haven't actually bothered to perceive anything on top of that.
This is such a massive failure of thought. You're not saying that the Libertarians have no position concerning these things (ignoring that they can't possibly speak of every flaw of government, they don't have the media bandwidth to do so), but the ludicrously banal claim that you merely don't perceive them to have this position without even the slightest effort made to justify why that is supposed to be significant. You are a stain on humanity - unfortunately far from alone. turgid pulled some similar crap in his journal where he claims not to understand why people voted for Brexit, and yet, when I mention a bunch of reasons [soylentnews.org], he comes up with the bullshit excuse that they're "rebutted", indicating that contrary to original assertion he did know of these reasons and came up with a really silly ritual for mentally ignoring those reasons.
Perception is deceptive, particularly when you're buried in that echo chamber. And people who can't even google for information or ask/read about people with alternate beliefs and why they have those beliefs, have no business telling the rest of us about their perceptions. It's an utter waste of all our time.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:51PM
Ooooh, he used the word retarded?!?!
Whatever happened to civil discourse in our country? Oh right, Rtards elected Trump the bigoted wanker pedophile con artist.
GOOD JOB MORONS!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday January 01 2020, @10:03PM (3 children)
Sure, and Google's charter said "Don't be evil". I know what the "party line" is, not show me an actual candidate that is actually talking about DOING anything about it? Any nastygrams to the FDA, any bills introduced?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02 2020, @01:12AM (2 children)
Well, if you know the "party line", then you know a lot of what actual candidates are actually talking about DOING. Really, what do you think a "party line" is in the first place? This is a large part of why I described the argument as retarded. You've already allowed that you've witnessed what you're demanding to see. You've not only chased your own tail, but you caught it too. Good job!
I count two such nastygrams in my previous post. And how does one introduce bills to curb FDA power, when one doesn't have any elected officials at that level to introduce those bills?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday January 10 2020, @07:11AM (1 child)
Any action at the state level (there are a few in state government)? Any candidates talking about it lately?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 10 2020, @01:43PM
(Score: 1, Disagree) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:22AM (26 children)
Government choosing who wins and loses is not an aspect of capitalism.
Of course it is. And it's as natural as the sunrise, as is every human interaction. The government is just another player. The government is us. Everything happens because we let or want it to happen.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:32AM (13 children)
No, it is an aspect of government. Which economic system they pay lip service to is irrelevant. Saying otherwise when you know better is simply lying out your ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @07:33AM (12 children)
Please, don't take yourself so seriously. All our systems are still simple might makes right. Capitalism is just normal natural animal exchange, actually an abstraction layer, like Java, to hide the innards. Still just chimps trading bananas.
You cannot separate yourself from your government. It is your creation.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:47PM (11 children)
Which neither alters nor refutes anything I've said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:45PM (10 children)
Of course it does. You're making distinctions without a difference. You cannot separate "government" from anything else.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:48PM (9 children)
You most certainly can. It is an abstraction but it has important facets that do not apply to individuals.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:56PM (8 children)
No different than any other large institution. It responds to the same stimuli, from the same people. It is still your creation.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @10:28PM (7 children)
No, in fact a government does not respond to the same stimuli as an individual or any other form of large institution. Its scope and function are different from every other sort, thus what it responds to differs accordingly.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 01 2020, @05:24AM (6 children)
You create differences where there are none. All power works the same way. The force is universal, and singular. The only "government" you are subject to is finance.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:52AM (3 children)
(Score: 0, Troll) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 01 2020, @08:26AM (2 children)
Only you can waste your own time. And you are still wrong... And since you don't listen, there is no point in explaining anything to you. You shall follow your master into the abyss.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:30AM (1 child)
Ah, the moderator, the scoundrel that has nothing to offer
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:48AM
fustakrakich is the embodiment of having nothing to offer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:36PM (1 child)
You might as well say that water and hydrogen peroxide chemically react the same because they have the same kind of atoms. No, that's not generalized to absurdity enough to cover your argument. You're arguing more along the lines of diamond and elemental sodium will react the same because they're both made of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:18PM
You're looking at the various reactions and fail to see that the force that causes a reaction is the same, regardless the composition. There is only one. Obviously this is the nature of people also. We are aggregated, animated dust.
"Capitalism" works because it occurs naturally. It works better if kept open. Communism is simply closed capitalism by an elite group. Like a monarchy it restricts upward mobility. On our side of the curtain we use finance for the same purpose, to ration capital and provide distraction to pacify, divide, and disperse the anger, and the voters give full consent when electing the bankers' servants to high office. This is the "government" they want. If you got any complaints, chalk it up the well documented natural long term effects of majority rule and collective living [urban lifestyle]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:13AM (11 children)
FTFY. Amazing how your post goes poof, when we correct this minor detail.
Remember capitalism is just private ownership of capital and the rules necessary to make that happen. Magical leaps of logic to claiming that deliberate breaking of capitalism, such as via the said non-private choosing of winners and losers, do not change that in the least.
(Score: 0, Troll) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @07:38AM (10 children)
You, as a simple mouthpiece of your benefactors, just express denial.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:19PM (9 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:17PM (8 children)
You remain wrong
Your simple repetition does not make it so.
Words mean things.
And you make it clear they mean different things to different people, but yeah, you should listen to them some time.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:10PM (7 children)
Fortunately, I did more than merely repeat myself. Let's move on:
If I can't find your meaning in a dictionary, then fuck off. Semantics woo where words mean whatever you currently feel like is a waste of time, particularly, when you can't even be bothered to state the meaning as you choose to feel it. Look at this thread, for example. It's not just you. Nobody states a definition of capitalism until I do. In case you're wondering if my definition matches the real world, here's a real world definition of capitalism [merriam-webster.com]:
Where does governments picking winners and losers fit into that? It doesn't.
And I find it remarkable how you claim "mean different things to different people" while ignoring the explicit meaning of capitalism I stated. I made it quite clear what capitalism meant to me and you just blew it off with an idiotic conspiracy quip.
Practice what you preach instead of practicing semantics fallacies.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:25PM (6 children)
Where does governments picking winners and losers fit into that?
You pick the government. You are the government. You are the ones picking winners and losers. In both economics and politics your collective has all the power. It's why we can't get the sports package without all the ugly chrome trim and landau roof.
Everything you ever say is nothing but an appeal to authority. It defines your world, hence the corruption of "meaning".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:06PM (5 children)
Still quite irrelevant to capitalism even if those sentences were true.
Collectives aren't capitalism.
No authority and no appeal to said authority makes that yet another false assertion.
And now semantics nihilism. You're subject to your own logic. Stop wasting my time.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:54PM (4 children)
Collectives aren't capitalism.
Again you prove yourself wrong. The market is a collective, on both sides, buying and selling. The collective decides what you see on the shelf and at what price. Your "capitalism" is communist!
And nobody is "wasting" your time but you.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 01 2020, @02:58AM (3 children)
"A collective" what? Words have meaning.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 01 2020, @05:30AM (2 children)
A collective mass of capital.
You keep repeating your little meme there, and still fail to comprehend... There is one word to define you... obtuse.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:13AM (1 child)
As opposed to "idiot" for you? You can't even explain the meaning you think words have much less say anything relevant and coherent. It's quite the remarkable dysfunction there.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 01 2020, @08:29AM
You're moving the semantics goalposts.
Nonsense, there are no goalposts, you are simply blinded by your own bias.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:39AM (3 children)
Maybe not, but it sure as hell isn't a free market. Unless a "free market" includes negotiating with the government to ensure monopoly powers and legal complexity -- which it might, depending on the extent of "free" in that concept.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:16AM
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:31AM
You ain't wrong. We're way the hell off of anything resembling free market capitalism, or even well managed capitalism, as far as drugs go. Which is exactly why you have to have insurance for routine prescriptions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:31PM
Guess where there aren't a whole lot of regulations around this stuff: RWANDA!
And in fact, the place where the FDA DOESN"T exist has the expensive drugs where the place where it DOES exist has the cheap drugs.
Hmmm....
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:29PM
So did y'all forget we're talking about RWANDA here or what?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tokolosh on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:17PM
If you think America is a bastion of free markets and capitalism, and the Nordic countries (and others) are state-directed socialist regimes, I urge you to read "The Great Reversal - How America Gave Up on Free Markets" by Thomas Philippon. To quote from the blurb:
In this much-anticipated book, a leading economist argues that many key problems of the American economy are due not to the flaws of capitalism or the inevitabilities of globalization but to the concentration of corporate power. By lobbying against competition, the biggest firms drive profits higher while depressing wages and limiting opportunities for investment, innovation, and growth.
Why are cell-phone plans so much more expensive in the United States than in Europe? It seems a simple question. But the search for an answer took Thomas Philippon on an unexpected journey through some of the most complex and hotly debated issues in modern economics. Ultimately he reached his surprising conclusion: American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on healthy competition. Sector after economic sector is more concentrated than it was twenty years ago, dominated by fewer and bigger players who lobby politicians aggressively to protect and expand their profit margins. Across the country, this drives up prices while driving down investment, productivity, growth, and wages, resulting in more inequality. Meanwhile, Europe—long dismissed for competitive sclerosis and weak antitrust—is beating America at its own game.
Philippon, one of the world’s leading economists, did not expect these conclusions in the age of Silicon Valley start-ups and millennial millionaires. But the data from his cutting-edge research proved undeniable. In this compelling tale of economic detective work, we follow him as he works out the basic facts and consequences of industry concentration in the U.S. and Europe, shows how lobbying and campaign contributions have defanged antitrust regulators, and considers what all this means for free trade, technology, and innovation. For the sake of ordinary Americans, he concludes, government needs to return to what it once did best: keeping the playing field level for competition. It’s time to make American markets great—and free—again.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 30 2019, @10:52PM (28 children)
People will abuse almost any kind of substance as long as they have a need for escapism. They outlaw pot, so people drink themselves to death instead. They restrict alcohol, and people smoke like chimneys. Perhaps worst of all, they turn to sniffing glue.
So while the government is busy giving itself more and more control of everyone's private lives and empowering corruption and organized crime, we lose entire classes of incredibly effective drugs. You can't buy cough syrup that works at all anymore because first they took away codeine, and then they took away ephedrine. You can't use any of the opiates, the most effective pain killers there are. Cocaine is right out.
That's why I say they should de-criminalize drugs entirely. Switch money to prevention and treatment. The same people who abuse those compounds still will, but without all the crime and corruption and violence that go along with prohibition. We'd dramatically reduce the population in prison, too, with all the problems that causes.
It is high time we close the door on the legacy of Reefer Madness.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Monday December 30 2019, @10:57PM (1 child)
Modded you insightful because you are.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:20PM
Thanks.
Saw your sig--RIP MDC. You are missed.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 30 2019, @11:00PM (2 children)
How much civil forfeiture would your plan prevent?
Sorry, we're going to have to table your ideas indefinitely. Be careful while driving.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:20PM
Unless it's a nice car, then leave a baggy in the back seat to expedite the process.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:19PM
The Cynic is strong with this one... :-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday December 30 2019, @11:59PM
Do you mean any and all drugs?
I mean that anybody can buy in stores and online from abroad any substance medical or not, except weapons.
I do think it is logical. It will crash medical mafia, which is good.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:42AM (12 children)
Umm... did you see what they're (The GOVVVERMENT OOOOH) is doing in liberal states? Pot is legal, mushrooms coming soon. Booze and cigs still legal. What are you (not) smoking where you live?
(Score: 2, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:33AM (11 children)
Cigarettes are all but outlawed not just in progtard towns but all across the country. Don't believe me? Clip a clothes pin on your nut sack and don't take it off except during what would be smoke breaks for a smoker. See how long it takes you to start getting pretty pissed off from what the government says you have to go through for five minutes of relief.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:17AM (6 children)
What are you talking about? Cigarettes are fully legal (as long as you're at least 21, thanks to new legislation that Trump just signed) in all 50 states. No one is stopping you from going outside and smoking all you want. You just can't smoke in restaurants and other places where it's going to bother people. But boo hoo, you might have to stand outside in the rain to do it. I fail to see how this is a problem.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:27AM
No one is stopping you from going outside and smoking all you want.
*cough* [publichealthlawcenter.org]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:33AM
Not a smoker, I see.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 31 2019, @07:20PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @10:32PM (2 children)
And choosing to expose yourself to second hand smoke ethically differs from choosing the more direct route enough to warrant government prohibition, how? That's not a smoker beef by the way, that's a libertarian, WTF business is it of the government's beef.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:53PM (1 child)
God DAMN you take libtard to a new level.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:36PM
Eat a dick, lung-nazi.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:45AM (3 children)
So you are saying that government regulations have been effective at getting people to quit smoking?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @05:32AM (2 children)
In the sense that finger amputation would prevent nose-picking, yes. That it was a governmental goal and how it was gone about are both still egregiously oppressive though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:31PM (1 child)
If you can convince people to vote for a different government, all your problems are solved.
Some day you will recognize that the government is nothing but a reflection [gallup.com].
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:52PM
Not telling me anything I'm not already well aware of. People are quite greedy and even more stupid though. Not the people at the top; all of them. Whether you're using regulatory capture to avoid competition or voting yourself someone else's money makes no difference; the cause is exactly the same. Plus, it's no easy task to convince people that selling their liberties for all time in exchange for a cookie now is the height of idiocy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:42AM (2 children)
Opiates don't "kill" pain, they only provide the illusion of painkilling by making you "happy" in a particular way.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
Mostly they just make me sick to my stomach. Doubly so if I enjoy any caffeine while taking them. So I don't except in pain level 10 cases, because caffeine withdrawal headaches are a 9 for me and opiates don't do a thing for them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:31PM
The first two days, drinking lots of caffeine to counteract drowsiness, produces the loveliest effect. After that, nausea overpowers all.
It's a limited window, but it's the only thing I've ever found to erase pain level 10.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:19AM (1 child)
>dramatically reduce the population in prison
Yes and no.
Almost half the people in Federal prison are in on drug charges but by far most prisoners are in state prisons, where only a small minority had drug convictions, BUT --
Some non-drug convictions were caused by drug problems. The example that comes to mind is the woman who died of untreated leukemia in an Arizona prison where she was sentenced for reselling stolen goods to support her addiction.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:28AM
Of course, if the drugs were legal, she wouldn't have needed to steal to afford her habit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:21PM
Glue, so expensive. Sniffing gas is what's cheap and most don't care.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4332342/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday December 31 2019, @07:55PM (2 children)
All drugs? Do you really want anyone being able to buy and abuse antibiotics? Make them easy to acquire and people will take them for any stupid reason, stop taking them to soon and breed super bugs and soon we'll be back to infections being the number one killer.
There's also some forms of opioids that are actually quite dangerous, where a piece the size of a grain of salt will poison a few people, seems it would be better to encourage safer drugs like heroin and morphine, which should still be regulated much like alcohol, to ensure you're buying what is advertised to avoid something like the current opioid poisoning crisis (most opioid deaths are caused by not getting what was advertised, but rather something way stronger)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @10:35PM
Regulation wouldn't be necessary. You could easily talk them into submitting to random sampling by an independent third party that would allow them to put a badge on the packaging marking it as a certified quality. Ask the MPAA, video game makers, comic book publishers, or any number of other types of product makers if you don't believe me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 01 2020, @04:22AM
Yes, all drugs. People already don't take antibiotics the way they should, which is why superbugs have already been bred. Every time I travel to third world countries I stock up on them because I like to have a ready supply.
For all the drugs abused for recreational use, creating a legal market for them might actually lower deaths from overdoses because the quality, consistency, and potency would be more regular than the Russian Roulette of the current situation.
I know that I would vastly prefer to have a supply of morphine on hand for the next time I take a fingernail off while working on various projects, instead of waiting a week to get an appointment with a stupid doctor only to have him write a prescription for an extra big dose of ibuprofen (yippy-skippy).
Those are the practical reasons, but above and beyond that is my general weariness with a bunch of fucking bureaucrats thousands of miles away having minute control over what I put into my body. I am an adult and can make those decisions for myself.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @10:59PM
that Rwanda is about to become a holiday destination from half of Greece.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 30 2019, @11:15PM (18 children)
We used to let doctors make their professional decision to prescribe pain relievers to patients. Now we hold them with one leg in jail for considering to prescribe pain relievers.
This story is praising Rwanda for doing what we are trying to eviscerate the Sacklers and many doctors for.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Gaaark on Monday December 30 2019, @11:57PM
EXACTLY!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @12:44AM
We used to let priests have unlimited access to minors... your argument is bullshit. Try again.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:14AM (2 children)
Same thing with phoney studies that supported Prozac for kids. [madinamerica.com]
At least half of all approved psychiatric medications don't work; many do real harm.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:19AM (1 child)
But think of the jobs created!
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:50PM
Think about the jobs lost because the dead can't pay taxes, don't buy stuff, don't halo create jobs with their spending.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday December 31 2019, @01:21AM (10 children)
I'd be happier if those professional decisions were based on the doctor's own judgement and not on bribes and lies from Big Pharma.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @02:40AM (7 children)
There's a solution to that. Stop allowing the government more and more control over medicine. They use it to further entrench and protect the big players every single time. If they had to fight for their profits like everyone else, you'd see much lower prices and efficiency. What you wouldn't see would be huge drug companies with all the money in the world to bribe physicians.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:36PM (1 child)
So then what you would see are the big pharma companies still lying to the physicians about the indicated uses and dependence and tolerance factors, but nobody to stop them. And we've already seen from Epipens and Shrkeli that gouging (to the tune of "all the market will bear") would be the norm. You would still see huge drug companies with all the money in the world to influence the process.
Now, if you're suggesting that drug patents should go away... OK. Then describe how meaningful research will be done, because right now that is fueled entirely by the profit process.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @06:47PM
No, what you would see would be no big pharma companies. They exist solely because the government protects their position through patent law and other legislation. It certainly wasn't their shining customer satisfaction that got them the market shares and capitalization they currently enjoy. It wouldn't happen immediately of course but it would without a doubt happen.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday December 31 2019, @08:09PM (4 children)
My country banned the pharmaceutical companies from advertising and wining and dining doctors. It helped a bunch but we live next door to a capitalist country and the pharmaceutical companies have used their capital to buy their government.
What would be good is more free markets, but that is at odds with capitalism as it creates competition and decreases profits.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @10:39PM (3 children)
You have a very screwed up idea of what capitalism is. Capitalism, unlike socialism, has been practiced in the real world even at large scale in nearly pure form.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday December 31 2019, @11:39PM (2 children)
Capitalism is using capital to acquire more capital with capital usually meaning money.
My Credit Union and the Co-op I visit are both examples of well working socialism, thanks to a fairly free market.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:38PM (1 child)
No, that is in fact not remotely what capitalism is. Grab a dictionary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:11PM
From dictionary.com. Don't see how that negates private people or corporations buying laws to enhance their exchange of wealth.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:20AM (1 child)
That's not such a great thing either. 50+ years ago, doctors used to advise patients to take up smoking cigarettes.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 31 2019, @04:34AM
They still do in way under a pack a day levels, given the right circumstances.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:31AM
No, the Sacklers and many doctors are eviscerated for their predatory pricing and pushing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 31 2019, @03:31AM
We're trying to eviscerate the Sacklers for willfully misleading doctors about the addiction risk of the opioids they sold. Meanwhile, the Sacklers certainly weren't trying to sell their opioids cheaply.