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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 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.