In the 1970s and 80s, a New York metropolitan area electronics merchant, Crazy Eddie, advertised on television that his prices were "INSANE!!!!"
On December 26, 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported on the impact of Afghanistan heroin production on heroin use in southern California. The LA Times says that DEA is reporting that heroin is selling for $90 per gram in Southern California.
Table 45 of the White House Drug Czar's data displays the average price and purity of heroin in the United States for the years 1981 - 2003. At retail (purchases of less than a gram) in 1981, the average price of heroin in the U.S. was $1974.49 per gram. By 2003 (preliminary data), the price had plummeted down to $361.95 per gram.
Now, $90 per gram heroin? INSANE!?!?!? Yes -- an "insane" drug policy -- executed by agencies facing no repercussions for failure, led by indifferent management, and overseen by a Congress by turns hysterical, cynical or indifferent.
As Friedrich Nietzche noted in Beyond Good and Evil (1886), "In individuals insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule." (p.156, cited by George Seldes, The Great Thoughts, Ballantine Books, 1985, p.310).
Or, as has been widely and falsely attributed to Albert Einstein, but may be truly said of our drug policy, "Insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting a different result."
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Crazy Eddie: Southern California heroin prices are INSANE!!!!
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Reports on teenage drug use should include life-saving information
The latest federal report on adolescent drug use (Monitoring the Future) was released today. Generally fewer teenagers are using drugs of abuse, the University of Michigan researchers report. This is good news. But the anti-drug effort needs bad news or new dangers. This year’s “new” danger has been the methamphetamine “epidemic,” lamented by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the press conference at the National Press Club. However, the data shows that methamphetamine use among teenagers has actually declined dramatically since 1999.
For 2007, the danger du jour will be dextromethorphan (DXM), the common cough suppressant in cough syrup. The lead in today’s AP story on the Monitoring the Future study says teens “are turning to cough syrup.” The story should mention that when DXM is taken with acetaminophen, it is that common over-the-counter drug that can be lethal!
Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times had a major story, “Teens try cough medicine for a high,” (Dec. 5, 2006). The official press release on the teenage drug use study did not mention dextromethorphan until page 5. However, the rates of annual prevalence among teenagers of using cough or cold medicine to get high are much greater than most common illegal drugs – 4 percent for 8th graders, 5 percent for 10th graders and 7 percent for 12th graders.
What are the dangers?
A typical adult dose of dextromethorphan in two tablespoons of cough syrup or a pill is 20-30 milligrams, or about .4mg/kg of body weight.
Dextromethorphan intoxication varies by dose. A moderate high is achieved at 2.5 to 7.5 mg/kg, or between 5 and 15 times the usual therapeutic dose, which can yield closed eye hallucinations or a “shamanic feel,” but cognitive function is severely disrupted and reaction time is delayed. Mood can range from mania to panic. The most intense highs are achieved at 15 mg/kg or about thirty times the usual dose and are intensely mentally disorienting with an out of body experience. See Erowid for life-saving information.
Aside from the danger of serious mentally disorienting effects of high dose dextromethorphan intoxication, another of its most significant dangers comes from the other drugs that are often present in cough and cold preparations.
Ddextromethorphan is often packaged with acetaminophen, for example, in Nyquil® Cold/Flu.
Used to relieve pain and fever, acetaminophen, is commonly used at dosages between 325 and 650 mg. But the hepatoxicity – liver damage – from acetaminophen can be triggered by an acute dose of 7 grams – ten to twenty times the usual dose.
Teenagers who use DXM products that contain acetaminophen to get high are in severe danger.
The Los Angeles Times story on teenagers use of cough syrup concluded with the story of the death of teenager Lucia Martino of Anaheim, CA from liver failure after swallowing 20 Coricidin pills. But it did not mention the danger from acetaminophen. (Some Coricidin preparations include DXM and acetaminophen, some include no DXM, and others with DXM that do not include acetaminophen).
News coverage and government spokespersons must mention that one of the dangers from this kind of drug use is related to the overdose of common over-the-counter drugs such as acetaminophen.
# # #
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Teenager Expelled for TURNING IN a pellet gun
Across the nation, school bureaucrats continue their mission to bring disrespect to public education. The latest outrage is committed in Plainfield, Illinois.
CBS Channel 2 in Chicago reports
A 13-year-old Plainfield boy and his parents are stunned and outraged after the teen found a gun in school and turned it in to authorities, who then expelled him.
School board officials issued a statement Wednesday night saying due to confidentiality reasons they can't discuss the specifics of this case, but that "purposeful possession of weapons is a serious offense and deserves careful consideration by the administration and the school board."If you learned that the young man is an African-American, would that fact suggest an explanation for such an otherwise inexplicable decision was made?
Friday, December 08, 2006
Call Jeb Bush -- take one minute and do it now.
Today, Friday, Dec. 8, I called Florida Governor Jeb Bush asking him to immediately commute the sentence of Richard Paey.
Call 850-488-7146 in Tallahassee, FL in the Eastern time zone.
Please take one minute to call him too.
Please forward this post. Let's flood the Governor with polite and urgent telephone calls. Paey has been in prison three years already -- let's try to get him home to his wife and three children by Christmas.
I was inspired by Maia Szalavitz's outstanding column on the decision
Richard Paey was in a car wreck and suffered a devastating spinal injury in 1985 while a student at the University of Pennsylvania law school. He has struggled to control the sometimes excruciating pain ever since with high doses of powerful pain killers. After he moved to Florida in 1994, he continued to see his doctor in New Jersey. Paey last saw his doctor in December 1996. In February 1997, a Florida pharmacy tipped off the Sheriff that Paey was buying large quantities of pain killer. A deputy observed Paey fill a prescription issued by the NJ doctor. The deputy then called the doctor who first admitted and then denied writing the prescriptions. Over 34 days, Paey had seven prescriptions filled to acquire about 1400 pills. Paey never sold the pills, but kept them to relieve his suffering. As a convenience to Paey, the doctor had sent undated prescriptions to him -- a minor offense. The doctor, fearing prosecution, changed his story and denied writing the prescriptions. Paey had used the prescription blank of his New Jersey doctor. Paey was charged with drug trafficking, but even though he was under continual police surveillance, there was never any evidence that he sold any of his pills, as he has always insisted.
After turning down a plea bargain offer to attempted drug trafficking with a sentence of three years of house arrest and eight years of probation, because he knew that he was not a drug trafficker -- attempted or otherwise -- and because he feared that with a drug conviction no doctor would ever write a legal prescription for him again, Paey went to trial in 2002. Cary David first told the story in the St. Petersburg Times. He was convicted of seven counts of drug trafficking based simply on the possession, and sentenced to a mandatory 25-years in prison due to weight of the pills he possessed. In prison he is now on a morphine pump getting as much pain killer as he was using when he filled the prescriptions.
Paey's appeal was featured on CBS News 60 Minutes, January 29, 2006, Morley Safer reporting. Paey's case was featured on the New York Times op-ed page on July 19, 2005 in a column by John Tierney that was reprinted all over the country.
Paey appealed his conviction, including arguing that this sentence amounts to cruel or unusual punishment under the Florida Constitution or cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution. The Florida Court of Appeals (Second District) rejected his appeal 2 to 1 on Dec. 6. The opinion is worth reading. The dissent, by Associate Judge James H. Seals, is outstanding. But even the majority conceded that the sentence was too long, and said that Paey's appeal properly lies with the Governor and his power of clemency, not with the court.
Paey had also been found guilty of four counts of forging a prescription, each count drawing a sentence of one year and one day, all to be served concurrently. He has served more than three years already. He should be freed!
Paey is now 48 years old, married with three children.
These accounts report on the denial of the appeal: The Tampa Tribune and the International Herald Tribune.
Richard's lawyer, John P. Flannery, II, of Leesburg, VA, has filed a petition for commutation of sentence with Governor Jeb Bush.
Please call Governor Bush and encourage him to grant the petition.
Call 850-488-7146 in Tallahassee, FL.
Eric
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Are we protecting children?
Two stories today about the threats our kids face from drug prohibition exemplify the inevitable consequences of not regulating the market for drugs desired by about 20 million Americans:
The youngest kids: The Milwaukee Journal- Sentinel reports that seven day care centers have been closed down from June 2005 to June 2006 because drugs are being sold or used on the premises. In a recent case involving "A Helping Hand Creative Learning Place,"
Why don't you find day care centers that also sell jewelry or insurance or whiskey? Because those products can be sold legally and openly.When police executed a search warrant at the day care last fall, they found a duffel bag containing 2 pounds of marijuana, a digital scale and a Helping Hand business card.
Upstairs from the day care, where Mosley [a helper at the child care center] and his wife [the proprietor] resided, police found two loaded pistols, $7,000 in cash, three cellular phones and a pager. And Mosley's wife admitted that she knew her husband was selling drugs, records show.
Prohibition businesses require fronts. A day care center, with a constant flow of young people coming in and going out to drop off or pick up their kids, has great value as a cover for a place that sells prohibited drugs like marijuana.
Undeniably, it is despicable to put kids at risk of firearms injury or death when robbers (or SWAT teams) come to take down your drug business. Federal law provides that whatever punishment one's drug crime carries will be doubled for doing so at a public or private elementary school (21 U.S.C. 860(a)). Whether this offense includes a day care facility is arguable. To use children to avoid detection for a drug offense carries a tripled penalty (21 U.S.C. 860(c)(2)).
In the second instance, teenagers are tempted by the money, excitement and rebellion of the illegal drug trade.
The Wilmington (DE) News-Journal reports on the violence in Wilmington. The headline is a grabber, "Youths fear for their lives in housing project." The murder count is now tied with last year, the most deadly in Wilmington history. Teenagers fear being shot on the street. Others are tempted by the drug trade.
Jea Street, executive director of the Hilltop Lutheran Neighborhood Center, said he loses children to the streets all the time.
"When the kids turn 12 or 13, I'm in immediate competition for their destiny with the drug dealers, who give them a lot of money and ask for very little, while we can only give them a safe haven and some hope for the future."
Are young teenagers being recruited to enter other businesses? Only minimum wage jobs like retail, fast food, or mowing lawns, or slightly better jobs such as life guard.
Prohibition profits offers a mediocre or unmotivated student an easy justification for dropping out of school.
Too bad Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) doesn't see the connections.
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