Posted on by Nathan Riley

Allow Grown-Ups To Use Drugs

It doesn’t matter if you’re a cosmopolitan sipping a martini after a day at the office or a gourmet tasting only half a serving of dessert, you must exercise self-control. Adults can’t stuff their face without getting fat, and an adult can’t spend an evening chugging beer without getting drunk. Self-control is a critical component of good health.

So it should come as no surprise that heroin users must practice self-control.

The best research confronts the obvious truth that people all over the world get high and that those foolish moralists who would ban drugs and alcohol use cause harm and threaten the liberty of our citizens.

Carl Hart, a Columbia professor who spent years doing biased research to prove that marijuana and other drugs were harmful until he reached a conclusion that a fair reading of the evidence demonstrates that using the illegal drugs with the same self-control that we promote for drinking and eating poses no danger to health and may in fact be a sensible part of a healthy life.

My father died at 91. He had his last martini on a Thursday and died on Saturday. Drinking was one of his great pleasures, and like many of his generation that lived through alcohol prohibition, he was convinced that marijuana and even heroin used judiciously were pleasures that any adult should be free to choose. What he knew from experience, scientists have supported with research.

Professor Hart is just one of a growing chorus of reformers who believe adults should be free to choose their pleasures. It is a well-known fact that moderate consumption of alcohol reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. Professor Hart extends this same principle to heroin. He uses it. But quite reasonably insists that the user should be prudent and exercise self-control. In his book Drug Use for Grown-ups, based on his research and his personal habits, he demonstrates that using heroin with self-control is fun and can be part of a happy life.

The research is extensive and available to those doubters who want scientific affirmation for what other people discover while growing up. If you aren’t self-aware and don’t control your use, all of these substances can cause substantial harm. But in fact the greatest harm is caused by the government and law enforcement programs to stop illegal drug use.

Perhaps the most important proof and one of the key points that another researcher, Dr. Peter Grinspoon, makes in his book Seeing Through the Smoke is that overeating can be an addiction. That is, what should be a pleasure, when used judiciously, can be life threatening if the eater insists on experiencing the pleasure of food to excess.

Without a doubt, obesity causes more premature deaths than fentanyl, alcohol, and car accidents. A study in the distinguished New England Journal of Medicine, concluded, “We are also simply eating more calories per person: Portion sizes have gone up, and eating outside of the home often means heavier, unhealthier foods, and sugary drinks to wash them down.” According to the researchers, a high body weight contributed to 4 million deaths globally — or 7 percent of the deaths from any cause — in 2015.

Eating unhealthy foods causes more deaths than fentanyl or car accidents. This is a worldwide problem. It is worst in the United States. Put bluntly, Coca-Cola and soft drinks kill more people than any of the illegal drugs. This is of course not a plea to make sugary foods illegal. In terms of policy, it is a plea to give public health officials more authority over the habits of U.S. residents.

Anybody my age, 82, has watched as public health techniques dramatically reduce cigarette smoking. When I was growing up, every house had ashtrays on most tabletops. A fun evening with guests would probably lead to the smoking of almost a pack of 20 cigarettes. Nobody went outside to smoke; it happened in the living room with everybody present. Public health messages, over decades, made smoking uncomfortable, a bad habit. Cigarettes are still with us, but their use is dramatically lower than it was in 1950. The discomfort with smoking is widespread. Among young people, who quite commonly decline not only tobacco but marijuana to protect their lungs. Without arresting anybody, public health policy changed our national habits.

In one of his most arresting passages, Carl Hart argues that the illegal drugs don’t follow this public health impulse because of racism.

Controlling illegal drug use costs billions that pay the salaries of police, judges, prison guards, and even drug treatment programs. The police prison industrial complex is uniformly racist, and encourages public fear, and its arrests threaten personal freedoms. It continues the U.S. history of applying terrorism against black and brown communities. Almost uniformly, white people who use the illegal drugs are given more compassion. They have a problem. Those with a different skin color are dubbed criminals, burdened with a record, and even imprisonment for their supposed moral failings. Sheepishly, Professor Hart admits that at the start of his drug research he believed drug use caused poverty and antisocial behavior in his communities. He has freed himself from these racist delusions.

The simple truth is some of the people who use drugs harm themselves; others, quite possibly a large number of others, get pleasure and relaxation from their drug use. It contributes to their sense of well-being. The drug war and its billions of dollars threaten all users. Public health measures would dramatically reduce the number of people earning good wages to fight the drug war, but will be more effective. Without burdening the taxpayers, public health measures would solve most of the problems associated with drug use, just as it has reduced but not ended the health problems associated with smoking. And cause no threat to our freedoms.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of this approach would be the increase in freedom in the United States. Police intrusions into the lives of our citizens are prompted all too often by suspicions that an otherwise law-abiding citizen may be involved with illegal drug use. At its most extreme, hundreds of Americans have been shot and killed by police officers enforcing the drug laws. Freedom Democrats would end this threat to our liberties.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Fentanyl Doesn’t Kill, Bad Laws Do

Fentanyl keeps cropping up on the edge of the presidential election campaigns. Some Republicans claim Biden’s permissiveness has flooded the nation by allowing immigrants to bring this deadly drug across our borders.

This is nonsense peppered with half-truths. Each year over a hundred thousand drug users die an accidental death from a drug overdose. A major cause of these fatal events is tied to fentanyl. One reason people keep using it is that they don’t drop dead after getting high. This is always true. The deadly drugs that newscasters and politicians use to justify authoritarian laws kill some people while others survive.

The law and law enforcement give users a small choice of drugs. Then, in an extraordinarily vicious act of social ostracism, the drug users get damned for using the drugs. They are dangerous because they are potent, in other words, a little bit goes a long way. When trying to avoid the cops, a drug that gets many people high but is easily hidden becomes advantageous. This is the exact opposite of what doctors and public health officials would want from a drug.  The notion that illegal immigrants supply U.S. drug users would be silly if people weren’t dying. There are thousands and thousands of people who don’t want to get high from alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine and therefore are pushed into the illegal market. Americans were using opium during our revolution. And guess what? They are still using it.

Fentanyl is an extremely potent form of opium that is manufactured, whereas opium and heroin are plant based. As the newspapers have reported, the fentanyl epidemic started when the United States cut off legal supplies of oxycontin.

Drug companies and pharmacies, responding to new laws, vastly reduced the supply of this relatively safe pharmaceutical painkiller. These companies are law abiding, and when the law restricts supply they comply. Their business is legal, and they want to keep it that way.

It will come as no surprise to students of U.S. drug enforcement that no provision was made for the thousands who made oxy part of their lives. Some bit the bullet, obeyed the law, and stopped using. Others, as always happens, went to the illegal market. Evading the law makes potent drugs like fentanyl a good idea.

The notion that illegal immigrants victimized innocent Americans by supplying them with fentanyl is absurd. Drug users were looking for an alternative to oxy. Fentanyl could be purchased by mail from China. Drug syndicates in Latin America avoiding U.S. law enforcement by smuggling fentanyl into the United States. Immigrants crossing the border are no significant suppliers.

Congress and state legislators could have simply accepted the fact that some users didn’t feel able to give up oxy. It would take longer but would put fewer people in jail and drastically reduce the number of overdose deaths if the law showed some patience and worked with users, even those who kept using oxy.

It requires no special act of genius. This is what we do with people who want to give up drinking or become dangerous when they drink. The problems are similar. Drunk driving laws give law enforcement an entry point without authorizing the harsh and intrusive drug laws.

Drinking is controlled. Younger people have developed the habit of drinking water. At parties, they and their friends who do drink can hang out together without a problem. The same thing can happen with drugs that we label dangerous. What makes them dangerous is the bad laws governing their use. The control is exercised voluntarily, which is the way it should be in a democracy that is governed by the consent of the governed.

Posted on by Nathan Riley · 1 Comment

Families of state prisoners plead with Cuomo to relieve crowded conditions and stop the spread of the Covid-91 virus.

Pressure is mounting on Governor Andrew Cuomo to actively protect state prisoners from the Covid-19 virus.

Practicing social distancing behind bars, where people line up for everything from showers to meals, and most conversation take place on a face-to-face basis is difficult, if not impossible.

191 persons joined a virtual news conference on March 30th-a startling large number. Parents and friends reported that the individuals locked up in state prisons were terrified.

A conclusion buttressed by a New York Times front page story on the same day “Prisoners ‘Terrified’ as Coronavirus Spreads Behind Bars.”  The article warned the virus is taking its toll in prisons across the Country.

Failure to act, will turn “New York Prisons into death camps,” warned Jose Saldana the Director of Release Aging People from Prison the group that organized the news conference. Mr. Saldana was released from NYS prison in January 2018 after 38 years and four Parole Board denials.

His warning was reinforced by a letter signed by public health experts on Friday the 27th urging President Trump to commute sentences for the “medically vulnerable population including persons suffering from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, or cancer.”

Conditions in prisons are often compared to cruise ships or nursing homes that have become epidemic hot spots. “These people are housed cheek-by-jowl, they share toilets, showers, and sinks; they wash their bedsheets and clothes infrequently; and often lack access to basic personal hygiene items. Adequate medical care is hard to provide, even without COVID-19” the experts wrote in their letter.

Michelle Lynn spoke up at the news conference on behalf of her father Robert Lynn who is 73 and has been in prison for 37 years. His petition for clemency was filed in 2016; He could go home tomorrow if the Governor agreed.

Saying the virus forced his hand three days earlier, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom “commuted sentences of 21 California prison inmates — including 10 convicted of homicides— and granted pardons to five others” reported the Sacramento Bee.

New York City experienced a rapid rate of increase in Covid-19 cases Robert Cohen said at the new conference. The danger called for “immediate action” explained Cohen, a member of the New York City Board of Correction, and 12% of the City jail population was released.

According to David George, the media contact for Release Aging People, the Governor has been asked at new conferences about protecting state prisoners and said the matter is under consideration, but no decision had been reached.

 

 

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Proclaiming Victory

Proclaiming victory. The left should shout with pride-it’s a Bernie Sanders victory! His two candidacies arrived at an historic moment and given us the rebirth of a left-wing political force, well-financed, with the capacity to stay in the race and learn from its mistakes.

The result is awesome- the left has a future. After two presidential campaigns-an in-your-face unapologetic socialist movement had the support of about 3 in 10 of the people who voted in the Democratic primaries. This is the rebirth of the left as a significant political force. It’s an historic moment.

Even after victories, Joe Biden is looking over his shoulder to see if the pandemic will tip matters in Bernie’s direction. The left is a power in U.S. politics, it should savor its progress and pursue its campaign to make capitalism fair and just with renewed vigor.

The Corona Virus has made Medicare for all a national necessity. A first step is the $150 billion in the economic stimulus to help hospitals treat the surge in patients.

An obvious sign that this is historic moment is the abrupt return of the bi-partisan Congress. Remarkably the United States Senate is in a can-do mood. This Republican body where votes often divided on party line have unanimously passed the biggest economic aid package in history. The virus and public health warnings have united the warring political parties—historic.

Moreover the aid package includes key Democratic demands like increasing the miserly unemployment benefits, and money for income-tax filers. Passing in record speed again with Republican support.  Even Trump joined in.

Of course, Bernie has little to do with these changes. Events caused this new cooperation. But Republicans and Democrats adopted policies that are compatible with Bernie’s ideas. It’s a testimony to the validity of his ideas, just as the failure of his campaign to win the nomination is a reason to revise the left’s program.

Anticipating that unemployment applications would go through the roof, the Senate’s $2 trillion package boosted unemployment insurance payment by $600. This is a radical move. The national average unemployment benefit check reports the Washington Post is currently $385 a week, which is “less than half the typical weekly paycheck in the United States.” Supplementing this money, most income tax filers will be eligible for one-time payments of between $1200 to $2400 and $500 per child. This is compatible with a guaranteed income, the socialist alternative to welfare payments for those belittled as needy.

Bernie insisted his plans weren’t radical. It turns out he is right. Confronting a public health imposed recession, Republicans and Democrats responded by helping the wage earner. Sander’s values and politics are majoritarian.

The package started at one trillion and but to become law it reached $2T, the path to unanimity required spend, spend, and spend more. Traditionally Republicans have criticized this policy but practiced it, the Democrats usually opted for a balanced budget. Bernie was identified with those who thought government spending would increase wages and economic growth. When push came to shove everybody accepted this policy.

The day after Senate passage came the news that the United States had entered a new era-3.3 million wage earners had filed for unemployment insurance. It dwarfed a 38-year-old record from 1982 when 665,000 applied in one week. This number is a mere fraction of 3.3 million, another sign that we are in a historic era. In the space of three weeks the United States has gone from full employment at 3.5% to projections of 5% or more.

A sudden government imposed economic downturn is a new historic reality. Only time will tell if it brings an authoritarian or democratic result. One thing is certain the left will fight for a democratic result.

Bernie’s plea for Medicare for all met a vicious counterattack from Democrats. The stand patters claimed it would harm those with gold plated health insurance exploiting divisions within the Democratic Party. The attackers called themselves pragmatists and take pride in their political realism refused to recognize that this line of attack weakened the Democratic Party. These supposed realists created conflict when harmony is a wiser course.  Bernie’s policies often strengthen the party by uniting the prosperous and those struggling to make ends meet. This is an opportunity the pragmatists rejected. They asserted, it would never work, it would never pass. In a few short weeks, this political realism evaporated.

Bernie would bring those who have seen their living conditions stagnate back into the Democratic Party. This 2 trillion-dollar package creates such an opportunity for Democrats. Bernie would be wise to point this out and try to persuade the pragmatist to try idealism. Leadership from the left is possible.

The Corona Virus has shown that Bernie is right, big activist government is in the national interest and in the Democrat’s best interest. The left shouldn’t be shy about pointing out the political realism of their policies.

Normally, politicians believe the candidate who articulates an optimistic view of the future wins.

The Democratic Party has yet to take advantage of the left’s view that global warming represents a unique opportunity to move the United States into a prosperous future.  The pragmatist should embrace the policy of rebuilding the American economy so that is environmentally friendly. This is the path to economic prosperity, higher wages, and shorter work week giving Americans more hours of leisure.  This is the socialist nirvana that the Left can urge on the Democratic Party.

The left will have an opportunity when it comes time to restore the U.S. economy to press its objective. Party leaders would do well to see the essential realism in left-wing demands.

Bernie has started the ball rolling. Events have demonstrated that the Federal Government not private enterprise is the safety net.  Bernie offers an alternative.  It is more than a safety net, it should be the engine of prosperity and may be just maybe after we will restore prosperity and bring climate change under control.

 

 

 

Posted on by Nathan Riley

No New Money, No New Ideas in Trump’s Opioid Response

This article appeared on GayCityNews.com on Oct. 30, 2017

BY NATHAN RILEY | Donald Trump’s declaration of a public health emergency to end the epidemic of opioid overdose deaths wraps itself in virtue, but avoids the burning question about the nation’s drug policy: What works?

During the 1990s, Switzerland and Portugal were among the nations that experienced the growth in opioid use seen here in the US as well. In those two nations, however, the response was radically different than in the US.

Switzerland and Portugal asked public health officials to solve the problem and minimized law enforcement activity in response. As a result, there, drug use seldom involves criminal sanctions and services are provided by health and social workers comfortable in working with drug users. The Swiss offered medically-assisted therapy with methadone, and for a smaller group of users medical heroin itself. Programs were geared toward aiding drug users in managing their habit. There were never grand declarations to “end” drug use.

The Swiss program — designed by doctors in tandem with users — conflicts with basic American attitudes toward drug use. A cardinal principle is that the user picks their dose. Overdose levels, of course, bring intervention, but the program design is clear that the user must determine their comfort level. After 20 years without a major backlash, heroin users, over the long run, tend to abandon their habit. And, crucially in the context of the link between drug use and other criminal behavior, most live without relying on illegal activity to pay for their habit.

Drug users have easy access to medically-assisted treatment. Those users permitted access to medical heroin in Switzerland must stop over a three-to-10-year period. The number of Swiss narcotics-related deaths in 1995 was 376; by 2012, it had fallen two-thirds to 121.

These nations have housing and psychological services available to all, one of the key demands of drug reformers. The presidential commission appointed by Trump and headed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie endorsed that idea, but there is no money in Medicaid for these services.

Donald Trump had two ways to go — finding more money for health services or making bold but empty promises. If he had declared a “national emergency” — as he initially pledged — it would have created claims on a $53 billion federal fund. For the “public health emergency” he declared last week, there is currently $57,000 in the kitty. Hence the Times’ headline: “Trump Declares Opioid Crisis a ‘Health Emergency’ but Requests No Funds.”

A swift warning came from Gay Men’s Health Crisis about the “potential efforts under the Public Health Emergency Declaration to redirect funding from HIV/ AIDS programs.” The Daily News also voiced suspicion that money would be siphoned from AIDS/ HIV services.

But the biggest howl of fury came from the new executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, who blasted the president’s speech saying it showed “a profound and reckless disregard for the realities about drugs and drug use.” Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, a human rights activist who replaced Ethan Nadelmann, challenged Trump, poopooing his recommendation that drug prevention programs revive the “just say no” evangelizing of Nancy Reagan and his faith that public service announcements would “prevent” drug use.

“He made a big deal” about taking a pharmaceutical opioid off the market, she scoffed, noting that such a strategy is years out of date. “The opioids involved in overdoses are mostly coming from the illicit market” today, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno said. Drug users have gone from the gray market to a wholly criminal underground market of drugs laced with fentanyl — a transformation that is a damning indictment of the prohibition and the criminalizing of drug use. Drug deaths have been rising for years. Last year, there were 64,000 overdose deaths — roughly equal to all Americans killed in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan conflicts combined.

Trump also showed his ignorance about how drugs enter the US, when he spoke lovingly of how his Mexican border wall would halt the inflow. McFarland Sánchez-Moreno was unconvinced; the illicit drug trade, she said, “always” finds ways to “get around the walls and barriers the US has put up to block it,” with many drugs smuggled inside freight containers as part of our heavy border commercial traffic with Mexico.

Pointing his finger at immigrants, she added, has a sinister motivation. Trump blames “immigrants for bringing drugs across the border, ignoring that immigrants are overwhelmingly more law-abiding than US citizens,” McFarland Sánchez-Moreno said. The entire presidential declaration, she said, provided yet another excuse for “talking about criminal justice answers to a public health problem, even though the war on drugs is itself a major factor contributing to the overdose crisis.” Trump is still trying to use a hammer to smash the drug problem, with immigrants hit with a special ferocity.

The president’s plan, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno charged, will spread pain and misery, “condemning even more people to death, imprisonment, and deportation in the name of his war on drugs.”

Sadly, as if on cue, Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the US Senate, answered Trump’s call, finding $12.5 million to fund a new DEA team to focus on the smuggling of fentanyl at Kennedy Airport. Look for the arrest of black and brown baggage handlers.

Nobody expects this one unit to make a real difference, but it points up drug reformers’ fears that in a nation that refuses to give up its belief that criminal law protects its young from drug addiction, law enforcement will get the bulk of any new funds identified. A public health approach, based on strategies that “work,” remains the low man on the budget totem pole.