“These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them”.
Strong words, eh?
It is bullshit.
But people don't tend to think through what is actually being said, as long as it feels like it is the right thing to do, to people who they believe are the enemy. Don't get me wrong though, because I am no fan of drug traffickers and especially their methods, but the problem is that in order for them to have their business, they need one thing.
Demand.
In the US there were about 105,000 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2023 and in 2024, it actually dropped significantly to 80,500. The significance of the drop isn't due to less drug addicts or disruption to the supply chain - it is because of expanded access to Naloxone, an opioid reversal medication they spray up the nose of someone who has overdosed. That means that a potential drug death has been avoided.
Great.
But the problem of demand still exists. It is just the law of economics, that if someone wants something and are willing to pay for it, no matter what it is, there is someone who will supply it. This is why paedophiles are able to buy children. And what this means is that no matter what happens to the supply chain of drugs, as long as there is demand, someone will supply the product, or a substitute. And while the prices might go up, pricing some out of the market, the supply will continue. For instance in Australia, some people sniff petrol for their high, because it is cheaper than drinking alcohol. It also causes severe side-effects, but that doesn't stop them.
Stop the supply of fuel?
Oh no.... we can't have that!
The biggest challenge isn't disrupting the supply of drugs, even though that is a game of whack-a-mole that is endless, for as said, there will always be new channels and chemicals created. And if solved, the drug problem stops dead in its tracks.
Stop creating drug addicts.
I know... Fucking crazy talk!
Are you a drug addict? I am not. I could be though, because there is a supply of drugs available in Finland too, just as there is in Australia and obviously in the US. I am not a drug addict because of lack of supply, I am not a drug addict because despite the many challenges I face, I haven't yet collapsed my life and emotional self to the point where all I want to do is escape at any cost. I haven't become the type of person who looks for an easy way to avoid dealing with my problems.
80,500 people in the US didn't die at the hands of "narco-terrorists", they died at the hands of a society that has degraded so far, that they were unable to cope with the life they had, the emotions they felt, and had very little of the right support to turn their life around.
They failed, and society failed them.
And it is because of this, that there was one more, two more, one million more people demanding a quick-fix to their problem, and then kept patching the fix more and more often. For the majority of them, they weren't forced into being a drug addict, they just went through the actions of a drug addict, and became one. They made themselves.
This doesn't mean that it is all their fault though, because just like a kid who was fed poorly by the parents to grow up into a fat adult struggling with weight issues, society is raising drug addicts. And because quality of life is degrading, wellbeing is degrading, mental health is degrading, and instant gratification of desires is increasing, there are going to be more demand on escapes in the future too. Most probably won't become drug addicts, many will just doom scroll Instagram and TikTok instead, but it is the same mechanism in play, it is leveraging the same parts of the brain, and many will look to increase their dosage of whatever "drug of choice" they demand, and the supply will continue.
The normal distribution shifts.
Cutting off some supply of drugs might make headlines for a government, but people should really question motives and effectiveness. Because it isn't the supply that is the issue, it is the demand. Cut the supply of demand and the business model collapses. There is no point creating and trafficking drugs, if there are no buyers of it. If everyone started demanding carrots and celery, the same drug traffickers would become farmers.
The incentive comes from the demand side, not the supply side of the equation.
And this is why people should question government motives, because the majority of the drug addict deaths are attributable not to the supply of the drugs themselves, but to the condition of the people involved in *taking the drugs. For a visualisation of this, have a look at the jump in overdose deaths between 2019 - 2020.
As you might remember, 2020 was the start of corona lockdowns and disruption.
Decreasing intergenerational income mobility was the strongest predictor of overdose rates each year of the study, according to multilevel regression models.
And while that last quote talks about "intergenerational income mobility" as the indicator, that in turn bundles a lot of other aspects together.
The other consistently statistically significant predictors were opioid prescription rates, social capital, and unemployment rates. Together these predictors, plus pupil teacher ratios, single parent families, and attending college accounted for approximately 47 % of the variance in overdose death rates each year.
So, the way to win the "war on drugs" is not to stop the supply, but create a society and culture that doesn't create drug addicts. It is about building a society that supports social cohesion, employment opportunity, education, and an environment and community that facilitates healthy minds, bodies and emotional states. If this isn't done, then the supply will just keep on increasing in an endless war, because the demand keeps increasing.
The US government keeps on hyping their "kill the terrorists" rhetoric, but they are not the cause of the problem. To get to the cause, we have to look at the source of the demand, and what is driving those people to demand in the first place. And if you go digging in there, what you will discover is that it is the very policies the governments have enacted over the last several decades in the name of increasing shareholder wealth and lining the pockets of the few, that has led to this continuous breakdown in society to the point that more and more people are failing in conditions that are counterproductive to building wellbeing, safety, family, community, friendships, and health.
Killing terrorists might be fun, but it changes nothing.
You want the drug trade to stop?
Fix society.
What are the governments doing about that?
Taraz
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We keep a few doses of naloxone at our apartment just in case people party too hard. We've both been trained to use it, although it is pretty simple to pop the spray nozzle up a nose and squirt. Luckily, I've never had to administer it myself, but I've been to plenty of nightclub raves and EDM festivals over the past few years where I've seen the spray in action. Seeing someone pop out of an OD from the spray is something you don't soon forget.
We all know the excuses to blow up these drug ships is garbage. They are only killing off the supply because the government wants more control over the drug trade themselves. They don't care to stop the flow of drugs, they just want to make sure they get their fair share of the profits.
All that being said, I've definitely gone through phases in my life where my use was closer to addiction than recreation. I use the excuse of my teenage trauma of sexual abuse, but it is just lazy justification rather than putting in the work to deal with my issues. It's caused issues in my marriages, relationships with family and friends, and my ability to show up for myself.
I have, and it is no fun. Just floating through life on autopilot. After months of smoking weed every day (well really since 1994), like a habit without even a thought, I've put the pipe away and taken another THC break. Nothing lasts forever, but we'll see what type of clarity I get from this latest pause.
Don't you find this pretty wild? But I get it.
It is laziness, but it is also the way we are wired. We aren't made to deal with trauma very well, which is why the conditions affect us so much. In a perfect, untraumatising world, perhaps there would be no addiction.
And these all have impacts too. it snowballs and turns something manageable, into a mountain. It is happening to more and more people in many different ways, and more will fall into the "can't cope" categories and turn to avoidance of some sort. Unable to show up for themselves - and no one else willing.
An interesting journey so far?
Putting the pipe/bong down was the first step in taking back my will to improve. More time to write. More time to cook. More time to give help and attention to others. More time for myself. I am getting there!
I'm more worried about someone taking a bad dose laced with fentynol than someone doing so much that they OD. Typically it is tainted products that cause the deaths, not too much of the product. Either way, better safe than sorry.
I have heard it said that the real reason the US is attacking Venezuela is at least two-fold, and has nothing to do with drugs. Venezuela sends far fewer drugs to the US than other countries, so that justification is illusion. Maduro, the president the US was unsuccessful in overthrowing recently, opposes the US. Reason #1. The second reason is that V is loaded with oil, and if we can control that, we can postpone the impending collapse of USD. Maybe long enough to blame that on the next administration. I'm no expert on any of this, but having watched the US's actions world wide since the attempted coup in the Ukraine in 2014, and being quite aware of the kinds of lies my government tells us, I think these factors are far greater than the influx of drugs.
somewhat related is our medical industry, always in cahoots with the government, was probably very happy to make us believe oxycodone is a big problem, because that stuff was both very effective and really inexpensive. We had all gotten used to getting a dozen or more doses after just about any medical event, and we all know full well just how good it is at alleviating pain. So what do they do to all if us? Take it away, seemingly overnight. That is a fabulous method, if your goal is to make addicts. Or patients with stashes who take it without medical supervision. One might think they are trying to make us sicker. Oh wait! They are!
The US government is the largest terrorist organization on earth.
And the family of the pharma that systematically engineered and drove the problem, didn't do a minute of jail time, and instead keep on going as "philanthropists". It is sick.
Yet, most Americans don't seem to see it, and will even fight for it. Oh hang on... this is what happens with terrorist organisations....
I agree with you that this is just political points scoring by the current administration, but I am not sure drug problem could be solved by creating a better society... It seems to me that choice to drug use is heavily dependent on the individual.
Yes. But we are products of our environment. This is why the linked study is interesting - because it shows how different conditions will affect people on average.
The last time I was hearing down to Ohio I stopped in a new rest area they built just outside of the Columbus area. I was a little surprised to find they had a thing on the wall in the bathroom that had Naloxone in it. It's crazy what we have come to.
Yes it is. Yet, people are still celebrating.
The subject is complex but it is true if the public is looking for something they will go to buy it and if there is a lot of demand the price will go up, in addition a true businessman looks for where the most money can be made with the least effort, in my country the deogas make a lot of money but now they focus more on illegal mining selling gold makes more money than substances, before manual work gave $ now technology generates more and does less damage many still do not update themselves on how the world has changed but some live doing what they should in their comfort zone
The high price and dangerous conditions of the drug market are far more a consequence of prohibition than of drug use demand.
Although many former producing countries have switched to more profitable businesses, and even have more legal loopholes or fewer illegal problems that are less dangerous for them, many still continue in that production.
People act on incentive. Business acts on money. The demand for anything, will create the supply for that thing, whether it is morally right or wrong.
The iron law of prohibition: the harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs. America has major problems, but they cannot be solved with more state violence. We need economic stability and dynamic grassroots communities for both social stability and mutual aid. Instead, we have government bureaucracies offering counterfeits of charity and service, totalitarian enforcement of bad laws, and crippling economic policies hampering both trade abroad and investment at home. The solution will not come from D.C. or state capitols.
No it will not. Do you see any hope in the community there currently?
There was a local food bank in town, but service was sporadic. A private charitable organization was developed with weekly community dinners and a more accessible food bank, school supply collections, and more, all run by volunteers. The focus on community as a foundation, with funding through donations, has accomplished a lot with very little. It works.
That's a bright idea, but the only problem is that the governments aren't that much interested in fixing the society more than lining their own pockets. That's why they seemingly offer the wrong solutions to pressing problems in the society. We are often wont to view their self-serving agendas as being meant for the good of the society. That's the view I've adopted. Whatever the government is doing is mainly for their benefit and not the society's even if it seems superficially so.
Once you realize politics is about concentrating power and wealth in the hands of a sociopathic elite class instead of actually serving the public like they say, everything makes a lot more sense.
Indeed.
Precisely. But "who do they work for?" If we want change, we have to change the decisions we make.
I can see you point, and if you research the Portugal approach, when they invested in emotional treatment for drug addicts and reintegration with family, while providing some drugs and drug replacements in a safe environment, their numbers dropped significantly, much faster than doing a war on drugs. As they addressed the problem, the feelings of displacement in people who do drugs.
https://www.governmentevents.co.uk/learning-from-portugals-health-based-approach-to-drug-and-substance-misuse/
I think it was similar in Switzerland, where it was possible for an addict to get doses for free from the government, but they had to go to meetings and improve their social circle. Most weened themselves off and back into society.
Sometimes common sense prevails.
In fact, the success of the drug trade can only be increased by increasing demand by getting more people addicted to drugs. This has become a high-income business network in the world. The only difference is that this is illegal. In fact, I am against the drug trade. But although many governments have taken action to stop the trade, it seems that the drug trade is not stopping. Our current government has arrested several major drug traffickers through the International Police and revealed a lot of information about the trade. Although it was shown how many stocks of drugs were found there, it was not shown how they were destroyed. That is a serious problem. Perhaps these are being socialized for high commissions. If more antibiotics could be produced for drug addicts, it could curb the demand for this illegal trade.
There's a common saying in economics: "supply creates its own demand." This is false, at least in the way most understand it. Entrepreneurs can offer a product to test consumer interest, often discovering a demand the public did not know could be served, but if the entrepreneur errs, his investment evaporates and his business tanks.
The drug market isn't really any different despite the scare stories we heard from D.A.R.E.
The infamous tests with lab rats that showed how addictive drugs were have been run again with better rat conditions, and when rats are not isolated, but instead in a rat social structure with rat toys and a góod rat habitat, they are far less susceptible to addiction. The same applies to humans. We have to do the work to build a supportive society as a safety net for our communities, and remove the stigma of substance use on its own.
We know many people who drink alcohol in moderation with no societal collapse, but there are some who, through trauma or genetics or any number of factors, succumb to alcoholism. We know prohibition was not a solution that helped anyone, though. The same applies to drugs.
Being legal doesn't make the actions of the pharma companies any better. Being legal means they should be held to an even higher standard, but it isn't often the case.
A society, in order to evolve positively, in civilizational terms, needs a first-class educational system and a cultural tradition, assumed from historical consciousness, where ethics and justice are the north. The rest is straw and smoke, ideology, propaganda and manipulation.
Abd this is what is driving voters, rather than what is actually required.
Absolutely true... but that is the part that actually needs work to be acomplished, and a ton of them; better to shout some catchy phrases and shoot "bad guys". We're having some of that speech here too, fortunately adapted to our reality, that doesn't involve going rambo mode; but still, the problems that do need fixing keep getting kicked forward with mini patches (or no patches at all), without a real solution in place.
And people keep buying into the catch phrases, while the things that matter go unchecked.
Deaths due to drug overdose are increasing day by day where you have shown the death toll of 105,000 people in America. These are very sad. To stop these, we must first protect the drug traffickers. Because drugs destroy a society and a country. To be honest, here too, a few days ago, a poor girl got the opportunity to study govt medical college but she died due to excessive alcohol consumption at their religious ceremony, which has cast a shadow of grief on the family. Even in our village, I see that those who take drugs, due to lack of money, eventually start stealing and start engaging in misdeeds starting from extortion and the law and order situation also becomes abnormal for them. Therefore, these drug terrorists should be stopped, regardless of the country or nation they belong to.
The drug problem everywhere is a symptom of the cause, not the cause itself. It is tied into so many aspects of life, most of which come down to the quality and health of society. Improve the conditions for people, and most problems fall away. Make the conditions worse, and more problems arise.
Talking about hunting and killing traffickers, this sounds tough, but it's mostly kind of if you want to shut down one cartel lab, maybe there might be someone else that might still fill the gap, as long as there is demand for these same drugs. The root causes are mostly loneliness, poverty, and lack of opportunity.
If government can spend so much energy in supporting childhood, proper treatment, and job programs, then we might see some real change. When the government prioritizes these things, education and social safety, then we can save.
There will always be someone to step in to fill the gap, when there are profits to be made. End demand, profits evaporate accordingly.
The problem it's not just the people that sell drugs rather those who patronize these people selling it.
When we are in a society that is broken, people look for a way to just escape pain and stress and drugs is the closest way to achieve that. If you want fear of overdose of these drugs, we need better mental health care, we need stable jobs, we need schools, affordable housing, and we need support from the government and there must be policy to focus on punishment. Severe ones.
If someone is caught with this, and we should also invest in prevention, not just arresting of people engaging in these drugs.
I think that is the only way to shrink the demand or make the drug market collapse.
There should be severe punishment of governments that aren't working in the best interest of the wellbeing of it's people.
a drug that sucks or absorbs the overdose of another drug?? that's kinda cool sounding.. but ye, crug abuse.. massive problem. :(
It is cool. But it shouldn't be necessary to even invent.
If we are to treat addiction just like a crime, I think it will not stop, we will still get the same results. There will be more prisons, more violence, more people dying day by day out of this crime. If we treat it like a health and social problem, then we can give people a chance to recover and to give them a new life. That means we need clean spaces, we need to support people, we need them to access treatment without shame.
We have to address them in the decisions they make and encourage them. I know this might not be easy because humans can be hard to control. But when this demand drops, when people begin to chase purpose, stable income and other things, then this can be reduced drastically.
It isn't easy, but if we think about what is required for human wellbeing, rather than how much profit can be made by reducing human wellbeing, then it isn't that hard.
Drugs are destroying this worl
I think governments are.
Absolutely and stunningly agree with what you write. Don't even have much to add. Maybe this:
The Government stems from the society that it represents. As that society is becoming more and more superficial (thanks to some of the addictions you mention), the Government is becoming the same. Maybe a little slower, as most of them are older, but steadily. But that's maybe too long term.
More likely: The drug problems come from a point that benefits the system, and the rich and powerful. Preventing drug abuse has a lot to do with community, starting at the household, and then the first safety net (neighborhood, village...). But the communities are falling apart thanks to the rising individualism, which benefits the capitalist system through self-exploitation and consumerism.
I agree with most of what I just read here. I grew up hearing about how Marijuana was "The Gateway Drug"
Maybe for some. But not me. Nasty shit that dope is. Stinks and I do not inhale with out choking half to death. Had many a contact high from just being in the room/car tho. So I been high many times. While many of my friends as teenagers were burning the weeds and laughing at things that just were not that funny I was discovering new and tasty ways to consume alcohol. Boones Farm apple wine. Wine coolers, hard cider. Good old Jack Black and the sweet bibble gum flavor of southern comfort. Captain Morgan will agree I am sure of it. Yep alcohol was my gateway drug.
I can honestly say I never dropped a hit of acid, snorted a line of coke, without first being intoxicated on good old legally store boughten alcohol."Legally" being a grey area. The age thing was a minor inconvenience we overcame with fake i. d.'s and good old father time.
Now I still like me some cold beers now and then. They are few and far between and most commonly will be used to wash down some chicken wings.
The first 29 years were spent crossing that "gateway" and the 2nd 29 have been avoiding it. 😉
Thanks.