Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Prescription For Disaster

By Bill Maher

One of the big problems with the Drug War is that it goes after the wrong drugs. Because of prescription abuse, drug-related overdoses have doubled nationally in the last decade. We should lay off the pot and start curtailing the pharmaceutical companies and doctors peddling the prescription shit.

The Los Angeles Times ran an eye-opening series last month, revealing that prescription drug overdoses kill more people than heroin or cocaine. Over a five-year period in four counties in Southern California, The Times found 3,733 deaths from prescription drugs. Compare that to the number of deaths from OD'ing on marijuana, which was just one guy in the Valley who giggled to death.

298 of those deaths resulted from just 71 doctors; 16 of them were under the care of one guy named Van Vu. Ask your doctor if Dr. Van Vu is right for you. Amazingly, he has a spotless record with the Medical Board of California.

Wouldn't we be a lot better served asking our drug czar to stop worrying about the other drugs and focus instead on cleaning up this problem?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you consider that Dr. Vu may be a cipher for the late Dr. Kervorkian and just helping terminal patients live their last painful hours with a reasonable degree of comfort and dignity...just saying.

wayner said...

Young people need to be seriously educated about legal and illegal drugs, and the effects of tolerance/addition. It is all about removing the demand for drugs/alcohol.
-The human brain's operating system is based on chemical neurotransmitters and neural connections working in natural harmony. Mess it up with drugs long enough and addiction is the result. Quitting an addiction is a hell that lasts weeks and months.
-The War on Drugs is doomed to failure because of simple economics; when supply goes down the price goes up; when the price goes up then the incentive to increase the supply is there, and the Cartels get rich. Legalizing and controlling, and serious education will get better results.

Brian Metzko said...

The problem with the war on drugs is that it has been going on longer than any of us are aware, and it is more of a religious battle and a violation of the first Amendment. The Ancient Prussians Believed that everything needed for survival could be grown in what was called a Romuva. A Romuva was a centrally located garden that was able to meet the needs of the entire village.if you asked yourself, how did they do this you would find that they grew the Canvas plant, today more commonly known as Hemp or Marijuana. Because Prussians refused to submit to taxation and Capitalism. This led to the crusades. Although the reasons given where the implementing of women, homosexual rights and the warship of Lucifer. During which the treaty of Christburg 1249 was the first time that the use of what is now known as Marijuana or hashish, was outlawed to be used in a ritual to communicate with the dead.In fact it can be said that from the time of discovery around 600 b.c., the fighting did not stop other than brief periods of peace until the 1700's, all because the Prussians refused to give up there means of self sustainability and "modernize" into a system of economic oppression. Monopoly was a game invented to warn of the Evils of capitalism. Hemp cultivation was a staple during the early years of America, you could actually pay your taxes with hemp. But during the early 1900's America was turned into a corporation, and bought as i like to say.
Anti German hysteria was created after WW1 as Prussia wanted to reclaim Germania and give it back to its people. Of course, the Prussians where Demonized for this and an Anti-German hysteria created, with which all over the world they where forced to give up everything and where chased out of there homes or killed, some of the resulting damages where the German American Bund, The German Benevolent society, H&H Hackfield and sons, not to mention insurance companies and real estate, In America Alone the combined stolen total was more than today's national deficit.
Soon Germany found its self land locked, no natural resources, everything they ever worked for stolen, and the whole world was Demonizing them, So the Germans did as was predicted(well more planned in secret meetings), see back during this time modern medicine did not exist, so German culture was very important to them, and as part of there culture some times you had to send a child into the woods to be eaten by a wolf so the whole group does not starve. everything done was done to save lives, yet the second they did what they had to do out of necessity the whole world Demonized them once again.
Today German are still being hunted down and killed , they have never received a fair trial and in most countries it is illegal to protest. And the worst part is the doctors that submitted the worst tests where actually pardoned by the U.S. government for information obtained. And this is where the art of poisoning your self ,"modern medicine" comes from.
When actually taking all of these Medicines is only stopping the bodies natural purification process, resulting in toxins accumulating and said sickness regressing later in a much worse form e.g. Cancer.
Not to mention i am tired of being called a supremacist, the Ancient Pagan religion of Prussia is Lucifarianism, Lucifer was cast from heaven because he fought for equality, Jew/Christianity is the attempted re enslavement of the people. The legend of Thor, Lucifer and Hercules, are all the same less cultural differences. The Ancient symbol for this deity would be two lightning bolts overlapped to form the swastika.
not to mention why where the crusades fought? because we implemented women and gave Homosexuals equal rights, yet in America Women did not get equal treatment until the 1920's, the Negro, 1960's, and it can be said homosexuals still don't have equal rights today. Not to mention the KKK is a Christian organization that resides in the "bible belt" and claims the south will rise again, and Neo-Nazi are Christian not Pagan.

rsoldford said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rsoldford said...

I live in a place in canada which oxycontin overdosing is so rampant a documentary was done.( http://www.nfb.ca/film/cottonland/ ) Now look at the laws and impressions of the drug war in my country(canada), the United States and the world, and you see a trend for a complete disregard for reason. oxycotin kills alot of people but it benefits some. Well Cancer kills alot of people, but it does benifit doctors, and technicians who run machines to detect cancer and without cancer they would not have a job, but no one suggests we shouldn't try and cure cancer because people will lose there jobs. Plus there are alot of non addictive pain killers that can be prescribed instead, marijuana being one of them. Tons of people are harmed or killed by the action or indirect result of many prescription drugs, all you need to do is watch some cable TV to hear an eccentric lawyer wanting everyone effected by a certain prescription drug to join this crusade against the drug company. Also you must add that alcohol and tobbacco individually causing more deaths then heroine or cocaine overdoses. Both of which as everyone knows are legal. Im not saying make them illegal I am merely pondering how there footing of reason is held. and as much as I think the governments of the world need alot of change, Id rather have a business man have someones money and the government take the taxes off of someone buying marijuana or even heroine and cocaine. Then the money being in the hands of international or local criminals, and having everyday regular people have to involve themselves in criminal activity to smoke a joint and have 0 chance of dying that night, when the legal choice and the choice with a much less of a stigma of evi attached to it, is go obtain legal liqour and maybe you'll pass out on your back and sufficate, or maybe you'll be drunk enough to think your not drunk enough yet and die of alcohol poisoning. Or you break your leg and the doctor gives you highly addictive pain killers, and you get addicted, spend all your money, ruin your life and die on the street. I dont remember any governments constitution or bill of rights stating that your right as an individual can be superseeded by your right to live and the government can inforce your right to live even if you wish them not to. But wont inforce your right to live when pharmaceutical companies who endorse them make money. I think that the sick in the shadows will never be healed by the doctors in the light, if the sick are afraid of the light. People are ashamed when they have a problem like heroine or oxycotin, and criminalizing and demonizing the actions of doing these drugs, let alone abusing them, makes people hide and no one seeks.

Anonymous said...

This comment is somewhat off topic with respect to prescription drugs but wondered whether you could ever interview Dr. William Courtney of Cannabis International Foundation(www.cannabisinternational.org). His expertise regarding the physical and ecological benefits of cannabis is unparalled. He could shed a very bright light on the substantial benefits associated with this plant to your audience and start a nationwide interest and boost to the decrim or legalization.

mrgordo said...

The Drug War IS a huge failure BUT the answer is not making more laws regarding prescription drugs. Doctors and legitmate patients all ready face HUGE hurdles due to the grandstanding laws of politicians around the country. Laws that, again, only make it difficult for doctors to treat patients and patients to get decent care.
The answer to the prescription drug problem is the same as the answer to any drug problem: education and treatment not more laws.

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