Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“while Americans are having more and more difficulty getting access to pain-relieving opioids, the FDA forces them to wait for an alternative to opioids that people in much of the developed world have been using for years.”
https://reason.com/2024/06/20/if-opiates-are-killing-americans-why-wont-the-fda-let-us-try-an-alternative/
“Was OxyContin in fact “central” to the upward trend in opioid-related deaths? Estimates from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (now the National Survey on Drug Use and Health) indicate that nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers rose for 11 consecutive years before OxyContin was introduced, and then continued to rise. Even during the period highlighted by Gorsuch, OxyContin never accounted for a very large share of the prescription analgesic market.
Defending itself against all of those lawsuits, Purdue presented Drug Enforcement Administration data indicating that OxyContin accounted for just 3.3 percent of pain pills sold in the United States from 2006 through 2012. After adjusting for potency, ProPublica calculated that the product’s “real” share of the market was more like 16 percent.
ProPublica’s analysis is questionable, assuming the concern is how many opportunities nonmedical users have to get their hands on prescription opioids. But either way, the vast majority of pain reliever prescriptions involved products other than OxyContin, most commonly hydrocodone pills such as Vicodin and oxycodone pills such as Percocet. Those latter two types of products also figured prominently in the pain relievers consumed by nonmedical users, accounting for 75 percent of the total in 2018, according to the federal government’s survey data. OxyContin, by comparison, accounted for 11 percent of nonmedical use that year.”
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“According to a 2007 American Journal of Psychiatry study of OxyContin users admitted to drug treatment programs, 78 percent “reported that the drug had not been prescribed to them for any medical reason.”
Since Gorsuch and Kavanaugh both fault Purdue for contributing to opioid-related deaths by misrepresenting OxyContin as abuse-resistant, it is instructive to consider what happened after the company tried to make good on that promise by reformulating the drug. The new version, introduced in 2010, was much harder to crush for snorting or injection. The idea was to deter nonmedical use, and the hope was that the reformulation would reduce addiction and opioid-related deaths. That is not how things worked out.
The reformulation of OxyContin was instead associated with an increase in deaths involving illicit opioids and, ultimately, an overall increase in fatal drug overdoses. Researchers identified that pattern by looking at the relationship between pre-2010 rates of OxyContin misuse, as measured by surveys, and subsequent overdose trends. They found that death rates rose fastest in states where reformulation would have had the biggest impact.
The root cause of that perverse effect was the substitution that occurred after the old version of OxyContin was retired. Nonmedical users turned to black-market alternatives that were more dangerous because their potency was highly variable and unpredictable—a hazard that was compounded by the emergence of illicit fentanyl as a heroin booster and substitute. Nowadays illicit fentanyl accounts for around 90 percent of opioid-related deaths, which have reached record levels in recent years.
Interventions like the reformulation of OxyContin and the broader crackdown on opioid prescriptions not only failed to turn the tide. They contributed to the upward trend that Gorsuch blames on OxyContin. The story that he and Kavanaugh credulously echo turned out to be deadly as well as misleading.”
https://reason.com/2024/06/27/divided-over-purdue-pharma-deal-scotus-unites-in-accepting-a-dubious-oxycontin-narrative/
“Joe Biden “was a key figure in passing the 1994 Crime Bill, which disproportionately harmed Black communities through harsh sentencing laws and increased incarceration rates,” Donald Trump’s campaign reminded voters last week. If elected, Trump promised in a speech at the Libertarian National Convention two days later, he will free Ross Ulbricht, who is serving a life sentence for running Silk Road, an online marketplace used by illegal drug vendors.
Trump’s criticism of disproportionate drug penalties contradicts his own platform, which threatens defendants like Ulbricht with death. The former and possibly future president wants to have it both ways, slamming Biden for his long history as a zealous drug warrior while portraying himself as even tougher.”
https://reason.com/2024/05/29/trump-decries-disproportionate-drug-penalties-while-threatening-dealers-with-death/
“What once was a success story has now left a trail of failed businesses and cash-strapped entrepreneurs in its wake. Regulatory burdens, an oversaturated market and increasing competition from nearby states have all landed major blows, leaving other states with newer marijuana markets scrambling to avoid the same mistakes.
For years, Colorado’s marijuana market minted successful local entrepreneurs who bootstrapped small businesses into national brands. The market drew aspiring cannabis professionals from across the country, whether ambitious college grads with a business idea or investors looking to get in on the green rush.
In 2020, the market soared to $2.2 billion. But just three years later, sales had plummeted to $1.5 billion, leading to layoffs, closures and downsizing. The market downturn has spelled trouble for state finances too: Colorado took in just $282 million in cannabis tax revenues in the last fiscal year, down more than 30 percent from two years earlier.
A messy assortment of factors has led to the pioneering industry’s struggles. A supply glut caused weed prices to plummet in the wake of the pandemic. The spread of cheap, largely unregulated intoxicating hemp-derived products further heightened competitive pressures. And marijuana remains federally illegal, subjecting operators to sky-high taxes and costly regulations.”
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“more than any other factor, Colorado’s market has been sapped by the rapid spread of legalization across the country. Neighbors New Mexico and Arizona are among the 24 states with their own adult-use legal marijuana markets, wreaking havoc on the business plans of dispensaries on Colorado’s southern border. Tourists who once flooded the state for the opportunity to legally experience Rocky Mountain highs have largely disappeared as the novelty has worn off. Even Texans aren’t driving north to buy weed anymore, satisfied with the proliferation of intoxicating hemp products in their own state.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/colorado-booming-weed-market-went-110000414.html
“The cartels are now engaged in activities that make control over territory and local authorities a business imperative. Politicians and policemen are reluctant to stand up to them or are in their pockets. That helps explain why the Catholic Church stepped in to end the violence here. And Chilpancingo is the seat of the regional government, on the surface at least with the evident trappings of state authority. In the more remote hills around here and down to the Pacific coast around Acapulco, there are places run fully by the cartels. In nine municipalities they pick the mayor and police chiefs, according to a local security consultant who, out of fear for his safety, insisted we not use his name. Resistance is dangerous. Two years ago, in San Miguel Totolapan, the mayor and 20 other people were gunned down at his house and the town hall after defying a local cartel.
“The gangs love territorial control,” says Eduardo Guerrero, a former senior government security official who runs a consulting business. “You can do many kinds of business once you control territory. They seek political support. They intervene in elections aggressively. At the local level, we are losing sovereignty.””
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“Mexico’s criminal networks and their ability to whittle away at state power here present a national security threat to both Mexico and the U.S. These groups are growing in sophistication, corrupting state institutions and people, arming up and seeping into communities on both sides of the border. They pose a challenge to Mexico’s still fledgling democracy, at the federal level just 24 years old, and hence the stability of America’s southern neighbor. They have enabled a record number of migrants, mostly from other countries, to get north through Mexico. They’re responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in both countries. Some 26 per 100,000 people are killed in Mexico every year, the highest homicide rate among the world’s larger countries. Fentanyl, recently the most lucrative drug that the Mexican criminal groups traffic into the U.S., is responsible for the deaths of some 70,000 Americans every year.
Seen through the prism of violence there and its impact on the U.S., Mexico is the rich Afghanistan next door, a place where the central authorities have lost control over key territory to armed groups. Imagine if al Qaeda were killing that many Americans? “It may be the most important national security issue facing America, with the least amount of attention,” says Hank Crumpton, who ran the CIA’s covert operations in Afghanistan after 9/11 and works in security out of Texas. “I think of [the cartels] as enemies that exhibit in structure and behavior the same characteristics of terrorist networks and of an insurgency.”
Mexico’s narco-state problem matters for larger strategic reasons. Security is the biggest hurdle to Mexico fully becoming part of North America in more than a geographic sense — an economic and demographic engine for the region, and a strong and stable American ally in the global competition against China.
This more hopeful vision of Mexico can give you whiplash. The country is a daily contradiction. But put aside preconceptions and look even more closely at Mexico. The last couple decades have brought stunning violence — and stunning economic gains.”
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“If there was an easy solution, it would’ve been tried by now. The security expert Eduardo Guerrero, like some other experts on both sides of the border, says the Mexican authorities alone can’t handle the challenge from the cartels. “If we don’t stop them they will take over several key Mexican states at this rate,” he says. “We need help. We aren’t able to control these groups alone.”
Some polls in Mexico show support for U.S. help, including even the deployment of troops, which won’t be politically workable with the current government. Its critics are trying to nudge the option on the table.
What’s indisputable is that this isn’t only the Mexicans’ problem.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/01/us-mexico-border-drugs-immigration-00160725
“As earlier threatened, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just issued new rules that will significantly slow down the development of new diagnostic tests. Specifically, the agency requires that all laboratory-developed tests (LDTs) be submitted to its regulators before the tests can be offered to patients and physicians. As I explained earlier, LDTs are in vitro diagnostic (IVD) tests for clinical use that are designed, manufactured, and performed by individual laboratories. They can diagnose illnesses and guide treatments by detecting relevant biomarkers in saliva, blood, or tissues; the tests can identify small molecules, proteins, RNA, DNA, cells, and pathogens. For example, some assess the risks of developing Alzheimer’s disease or guide the treatment of breast cancer.”
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” “Laboratory developed testing services are not medical devices and subjecting them to medical device regulation will harm patient access to needed testing and compromise innovations that drive personalized medicine,” said American Clinical Laboratory Association President Susan Van Meter in a statement. “The rule will limit access to scores of critical tests, increase health care costs, and undermine innovation in new diagnostics.””
https://reason.com/2024/04/29/fda-once-again-stands-athwart-biomedical-innovation-yelling-stop/
“Drug cartels and human traffickers aren’t the only people dodging border patrol officers these days in southern New Mexico. The state’s cannabis businesses — which operate legally under state law — are also desperately trying to evade border checkpoints.
That’s because U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have seized more than $300,000 of state-licensed cannabis in New Mexico in the last two months. These seizures occurred at border patrol checkpoints, some of which lie as far as 80 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The crackdown has created tension between the Biden administration and Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham — who championed marijuana legalization and touted it as an economic boon for the state. The enforcement actions are occurring as the Justice Department is preparing to loosen federal restrictions on marijuana, which would mark the biggest liberalization of drug policy in more than half a century.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/01/federal-crackdown-new-mexico-weed-farmers-00155624
Government Data Refute the Notion That Overprescribing Caused the ‘Opioid Crisis’
https://reason.com/2024/04/15/government-data-refute-the-notion-that-overprescribing-caused-the-opioid-crisis/
“New York’s rollout of marijuana legalization has been a “disaster,” as Hochul conceded in January. “Every other storefront” is an unlicensed pot shop, she told The Buffalo News. “It’s insane.”
That disaster has frustrated would-be retailers, left farmers in the lurch, played havoc with tax revenue projections, and made a joke out of any expectation that New York, by learning from the experience of states that legalized marijuana earlier, would do a better job of displacing the black market. The insanity that Hochul perceives is a product of bad decisions by politicians who should have known better and obstruction by regulators who sacrificed efficiency on the altar of diversity.
Unlike states such as New Jersey, where voters approved legalization in 2020, and Maryland, where a similar ballot initiative passed two years later, New York did not initially allow existing medical dispensaries to start serving the recreational market. Its slow and complicated licensing process, which was skewed by an “equity” program that prioritized approval of applicants with marijuana-related criminal records or their relatives, is maddeningly hard to navigate.
Those preferences invited lawsuits by people who were excluded, which further delayed approval of licenses. Guidance and financial help for people struggling to jump through the state’s hoops never materialized. And as in other states, high taxes and burdensome regulations have made it hard for licensed businesses to compete with unauthorized dealers.”
https://reason.com/2024/03/22/political-stupidity-and-bureaucratic-bungling-created-new-yorks-pot-legalization-disaster/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRGrKJofDaw