Now that I got your attention, I have to admit that I was exaggerating. But just a little. In California, for instance, prescription drug deaths are more prevalent among adults than automobile related deaths. It has become the second leading cause of death in California with only heart disease unnecessarily taking more lives. Over the course of the year, the Los Angeles Times ran a series on the problem of prescription drugs and focused on corrupt doctors, victims, pharmacies, law enforcement, and family testimony (also victims). I enjoyed the series, but it left out the major culprit which is clearly the pharmaceutical industry and those who invest in it.
A few decades ago, hairy bush was the order of the day. Disco was inescapable, and lots and lots of people took Methaqualone, or Quaaludes. You could go to a "Stress Clinic" where the Dr. Feelgood of the day would write you a prescription for these hypnotic sedative pills so you could get your filthy seventies unprotected venereal disease sex on and do a line or two of coke afterwards. Maybe you were listening to Steely Dan at that time. Then, suddenly, the pills disappeared from the market after someone in the DEA realized that they were going to cause some big problems in the future like overdose, addiction, and misery. The reality was that this substance was toxic and the pharmaceutical companies knew that they had strict liability. So they shut the production of the precursors down, and rescheduled the drug to Schedule I. Almost overnight, the problem evaporated.
What is stopping the DEA from going after Watson, Pfizer, and all of the other companies manufacturing and peddling death? The astonishing amount of money that legal drug manufacturers rake in dwarfs the narcos. With everyone getting their beak wet, these manufacturers are going to remain immune. Far more people die from prescription drug overdoses than cocaine or heroin. A large number should be added to those figures to include people who overdose on Tylenol which is a component in Vicodin and Percocet. We are talking 600 or more people who overdosed on Tylenol in California last year. That is a higher number than homicides in Los Angeles which this year are under 550 so far. What an outrage that our government who is supposed to be regulating the pharmaceutical industry and overseeing it is instead allowing these companies to more than double their narcotics production every year since 1999.
There is a problem with all of the current addicts. I believe sincerely that we have medicated a generation or two and we have to write a lot of those people off as chronic addicts that cannot be rehabilitated. I do not realistically visualize the Oxycontin addict voluntarily stopping, and if they do, I expect them to encounter a lot of problems. Instead of allowing the drug companies to further victimize these addicts and make a profit off them or off their insurance, they should be switched over to morphine sulphate and given a maximum dose of 120mg daily. Supplied by Uncle Sam, of course.
When I look at death statistics, I see a lot more people dying because they are buying. Buying bacon cheeseburgers, buying pills, spending hundred dollar bills. I see death from heart disease as a result of buying shitty food. Overdose deaths because you are buying shitty pills. Nowhere do I see big numbers of Americans dying at the hands of Muslim terrorists. In these statistics, depicting death in the United States by cause, I see no reason why we should be involved in the business of any other country when ours is so broken that it is going to take generations to unravel the damage done by the guy you see looking at you in the mirror.
