US Drug Epidemic: Obama joins fight against opioid abuse -yearly in America more people die from drug overdoses than from car accidents

Lending his voice to the fight against a drug scourge that kills 28,000 Americans a year, President Obama told nearly 2,000 policymakers, professionals and parents Tuesday that the nation must provide more treatment for people addicted to opioids and reframe the addiction problem through the lens of public health.

“The most important thing we can do is reduce demand for drugs, and the only way that we reduce demand is by providing treatment and thinking about this as a public health problem and not just a criminal issue,” Obama said during a panel discussion at the 2016 National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit.

“Part of what has made it difficult to emphasize treatment over criminal justice system has to do with the fact that the populations affected in the past were ... stereotypically identified as poor and minority,” he said. “And as a consequence, the thinking was it is often a character flaw in those individuals who live in those communities. ... One of the things that’s changed ... is a recognition that this reaches everybody.”

Given its widespread reach, administration officials announced a wide range of actions to fight the epidemic, such as expanding access to drug treatment, bolstering efforts to ensure health coverage for substance abuse and mental health are on par with benefits for other medical services, investing in partnerships between law enforcement and communities, and providing guidance on using federal funds to start or expand needle exchanges.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy,meanwhile, said he will release a report later this year on substance use, addiction and health, similar to the landmark surgeon general’s report on smoking released 50 years ago that focused public attention on that issue.

US Drug Abuse: 't’s a plague for families and communities 

They shared their news at the fifth annual summit, organized by Operation UNITE, an Eastern Kentucky anti-drug organization launched in 2003 by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers. The summit has grown from an upstart event into the major national gathering on the issue, drawing people from both sides of the political aisle.
“This is a bipartisan issue — actually a non-partisan issue,”

Rogers, a Republican who represents Kentucky’s fifth district, said in an interview. “We’re united in the drive to stop this death rage that we’re in.”

Across the USA, more Americans die every year from drug overdoses than from motor vehicle crashes. In 2014, drug overdoses killed 47,055 people, the highest number on record, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority, around 28,000, involved opioids such as prescription painkillers and heroin.

In fact, heroin-related overdose deaths have more than tripled since 2010, totaling 10,500 in 2014.

Bottom line: believing that people are able to act responsibly when it comes to recreational, hard drugs or other opiods is total nonsense. Just say no to drugsand report anyone selling drugs immediately to the police.

 Read more: Obama joins fight against opioid abuse | WUSA9.com

U.S. gun culture has become a destructive social disease

American physicians consider the US  gun violence a social disease. Mass murders of citizens by other citizens occur here with a frequency seen in no other nation in the world.

The mass murders in Colorado and the racist mass homicides in Wisconsin  and Connecticut are illustrative of a type of tragedy for which the U.S. holds a near monopoly. The background facts speak for themselves.

First, the U.S. is awash in firearms. There are roughly 300 million guns in American households (per capita a gun for every citizen - this is the highest concentration in the world).

Second, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has a hugely powerful lobby that has been able to stop nearly any national debate on the issue.

Third, the U.S. has a history of hideous, omnipresent racism that has spawned a proliferation of hate groups among some white Americans -- citizens who have a very deluded, paranoid sense of victimization.

Fourth, massive inequality and poverty, long present in communities of color, has started to impoverish the ranks of hitherto comparatively prosperous Euro-Americans.

Fifth, there are 58 million Americans with significant mental problems (1 in 5).

Sixth, there has been a severe decline in mental health facilities (for this we can thank President Reagan: as California governor he systematically closed mental hospitals, and later as president he cut aid for federally funded community mental health programs).

Seventh, we have an arms industry, opting for profit over humanity, that makes billions each year on the sale of arms to hate-filled racists, the mentally ill and the general public.

With massive numbers of guns available in the US to the mentally ill, the race haters, the drug deranged, the people haters, and with huge inequalities, a lot of innocent citizens will be shot on a regular basis.

But we also need to look at the recent history of the arms business in the nation. At the end of World War II the Allies had a huge surplus of still very usable guns. There was no ready market anywhere for these firearms but in the U.S., as no other large and wealthy nation would have them within their borders. Even more weapons became available in the 1950s, when NATO forces changed to uniform cartridges and relinquished a stockpile of outmoded rifles. These also flooded the U.S., were imported very cheaply, often at less than $1 apiece, and could be sold at a huge profit, but still inexpensive for a purchaser - the rifle that killed President Kennedy cost $12.78.

Massive imports of weapons took place at a time when the country was in the midst of serious political crises, which often incited violence. All this was with massive advertising by the NRA on the joys of gun ownership. A typical ad of the era read, "MORE FUN ... with YOUR GUNS ... the Year Around!"

However, also needed is an answer to the phenomenon of the young American white male misanthrope who hates and kills. Is it just untreated mental illness? If so, why is it affecting mostly young white males? Or are these crimes also largely drug induced? More analysis is needed on this tragic phenomenon, particularly from the perspective of the "Marxist" theory of alienation, whereby some citizens become estranged from their own humanity.

In the meantime, to protect US Citizens there needs to be a "National Commission on Hate Crimes and Mental Health;" the tightening of gun laws; a huge reduction of public access to guns; banning of advertising and sales of the most lethal guns, assault weapons, etc.; national restoration of the mental health system; and a banning of huge ammo clips -- and that is just for starters.

EU-Digest

US Gun Control: how many more innocent people need to be killed?

Promoting the sale of guns

In the past three weeks there have been two major shootings by deranged people in the US. Latest one this morning at a Connecticut elementary school with reportedly at least 27 killed of which many children. 

Advertisements promoting the sale of guns appear regularly in the US press. Maybe one of the first steps to eventually curb this madness is to put a ban on all gun and assault weapons advertising.
  
Promoting a NATO 30 rounds rapid loader rifle for some reason does not seem to accurately reflect  what is meant in the Second Amendment of the Constitution: "to protect an individual's right to possess a firearm" ? 

Write your Congressional representatives, take action on your campuses and schools - let your voice be heard. 

EU-Digest