Trump just signed the Halt act yesterday making fentanyl a schedule 1 drug which gives a much stiffer sentence if a dealer is selling. I agree 100% with what you’re saying and I am thankful for a President who is willing to make it happen. God continue to bless this nation and bless our President. All Americans should pick up the word of God and start studing it and living the way it shows us. This life is nothing but a test, read Gods word and see if your going to pass would be my suggestion. All the answers to life’s problems are in his word. Even drug addiction! Have a great day!
I imagine the wording of the text to be something along the lines of “non-pharmaceutical grade” fentanyl or perhaps even allowing that fentanyl sold without a valid prescription by a non-medical person be schedule I while valid RX / hospital use fentanyl retain Schedule II.
without knowing the exact details, it sounds to me as if the Schedule I designation would only apply to the "designer drug" analogs. And it wouldn't surprise me if carfentanil--100x as potent as the already scary-powerful fentanyl--is no longer available as a tranquilizer for large animals.
But banishing a substance to Schedule I does little or nothing in terms of enforcement. Diligent enforcement is what's needed.
I think the drug laws are long overdue for an overhaul, including the placement of substances on the DEA Scheduling list (fentanyl analogs belong there; substances like mescaline and LSD do not.) But what's also overdue is a crackdown on the de facto impunity provided to hard drugs retailers in some locales.
To mention only one feature of the problem, the absence of enforcement of the most basic principles of civic order results in ceding parts of the public square to criminals. I don't care whether it's fentanyl, meth, pot, or alcohol--when groups of users flaunt the law and take over parts of neighborhoods and public parks to convert them into open-air dope flea markets and bazaars featuring shoplifted goods, that really is an invasion, whether it's done by immigrants or native-born citizens. There's something really wrong when ordinary citizens find that it isn't safe or healthy for their families--or even themselves--to visit a publicly maintained park intended for public use, but EMTs and other first responders are routinely sent to the same place on emergency calls at public expense to revive the overdose casualties that are an inevitable side effect of dysfunctional shiftless drug addicts converting the territory into an outdoor skid row.
I agree. I'd go further and say that the Drug Schedule should be scrapped entirely.
Carfentanyl . . . this is the first I've heard of it. What possible use could this have? Fentanyl is already effective in doses measured in micrograms.
I advocate total legalization of all drugs, made available to adults 21 and over at pharmacies, with zero advertising and marketing. However, this can only work if harsh penalties are put in place for illegal sales and trafficking and for public intoxication and use.
The haphazard, piecemeal loosening of drug prohibitions has created a chaotic situation, leading to travesties like Kensington Ave. in Philly, Skid Row in LA, and other degenerate public drug markets with their crowds of nodding junkies and manic speed freaks.
Legalization can only solve the problem if it is nationwide and subject to the conditions I describe above. Of course, this will never happen, so we are faced with the status quo indefinitely.
Some products are too hazardous for retail sale, plain and simple. Fentanyl and its analogs, for example. I've read so much hype about the dangers of forbidden substances over the decades that I don't want to sound like I'm adding to it, but fentanyl and its analogs are lethal in such small quantities that the substances really do qualify as chemical warfare agents. Substacker Ben Westhoff wrote a fantastically informative book, Fentanyl Inc., that goes into a lot of detail about the rise of fentanyl. He also covers a lot of other "designer drug" substances. The frontier of mind-altering drugs subcultures--plural, each category of substances tends to have its users clustered as a particular niche--in the 21st century is mind-blowing.
And there's the rub, in terms of market legalization: some products are entirely too dangerous for unrestricted sale. Whether organophosphate pesticides or drugs so potent that they're lethal in easily ingested amounts.
I have put some thought into broadening the category of substances available for retail sale without prescription. Without going into detail, I'm considering the possibility that some substances that are currently Schedule II could possibly be made legally available for sale to adults if the purchaser-consumers consented to regulations to ensure personal accountability and purchase quantity limits subject to being tracked on a government database. That situation implies the sort of surveillance state tracking that many Americans are inclined to reflexively reject. But it's certainly less restrictive than total prohibition of any legal market whatsoever. In fact, I've already had the experience of being subjected to it, in a supermarket in Pennsylvania--for the purchase of a 6-pack of beer! The clerk required my drivers license to be photocopied as a condition of purchase. iirc, the State-run ABC store at the other end of the parking lot that sells distilled alcohol also scans all photo IDs at the point of sale.
That's the sort of tracking I'd suppose would be required in order to purchase a liquid suspension of an opiod, like Hycodan or Tussionex. Not a new regulation, in principle; in the early 20th century,, pharmacies in some states were required to keep a "poison register" of all purchases of medicines with a liability of poisoning or toxic overdose. A simpler time, when drug stores largely served a regular clientele of local community residents. Now, in this more cosmopolitan era, the technology is available to require similar purchaser accountability anywhere in the country. Which beings up the next restriction I'd consider necessary in order to permit a market regime of legal nonprescription retail sales of formerly Schedule II substances to adult individuals: quantity limits. Like one pint a week of an opioid liquid with the strength of Hycodan, or codeine cough medicine. One pint a week limit, anywhere in the US. That's an example; settling on exact limits would be negotiable. Maybe it should be one 4oz. bottle a day, to enable a maintenance regime. But I think there would need to be some enforceable limit. The government would be able to track everyone's use of these substances.
The price also needs to be high enough to allow alcohol to remain competitive as a substance with mind-altering properties, because legal nonprescription opioids with a price advantage over alcohol is a formula for increasing opioid addiction.
I get that this offends the sensibility of libertarians in principle, but in practice, I don't find much difference between having my photo ID copied for a beer purchase or having it copied for a purchase of formerly forbidden pills of some sort. Having thought it through, it's the only practical way to do it without beckoning a large increase in bad outcomes, particularly in terms of diversion. I even support limits on the amount of distilled alcohol that one individual can buy within the span of week--an amount much lower than what's permitted to purchase in many States, where it's possible for one adult with ID to buy liters of distilled beverages with >50% alcohol content by the caseload as a single purchase.
The reality of the pill trade is that the volume is much more compact; it's theoretically possible to fit >1000 5mg. hydrocodone pills into a liter-size container. That makes street retail diversion simple, if there's no purchaser identification or limit on their purchase quantity in a given week. Simply having each pharmacy impose a limit of 50mg for a given purchase is not sufficient, either. The implicit tradeoff needs to be "you can buy this stuff and get high with it on an occasional basis. But as for using it every day, you need to get a personal physician to sign off on that." Because otherwise, you'll end up with diversion to minors, easily available mass quantities encouraging abuse, social contagion, and an addiction epidemic that could potentially dwarf the era of the slipshod prescription of Oxycontin, with its pill mills, pharmacy shopping, and all the rest of it. The mass derailment of lives is not worth it, and that's practically an inevitable result of legal market availability of practically unlimited amounts of inexpensive opioid pills.
Alternatively, it's possible that a legal mail-order trade in dried opium poppy pods might obviate most of the problems associated with pills. Opium poppies are bulky, harder to conceal than powders, and less practical to divert and retail illicitly. They also require some time and effort in order to process for ingestion. It's technically easy to do, but not effortless. The difference between carrying around a bottle of pills to instantly pop and the requirement to take 30 minutes to brew and consume opium poppy tea is a lot more significant than it seems to be on first notice. As for the process of refining it further to concentrate the morphine, that adds several additional levels of practical difficulty and inconvenience. Practical difficulty and inconvenience deserve to be recognized as being more effective at curbing overconsumption of mind-altering substances than the legal prohibitions and criminalization measures that result in pushing 100% of consumer demand into an illicit market monopoly with no limits on potency or purity, with the supply run by career criminals.
Thanks for recommending Westhoff's book. I will read it. Ain't technology wonderful? The more people learn of how the brain works, the more precise the targets of drugs becomes. Wouldn't surprise me if eventually you could pop a pill to program specific dream content. Look at the psychedelics. Since Shulgin's pioneering work on tinkering with and trying out hundreds of variations on the mescaline molecule, the synthesis of analogs of the classic psychedelics has exploded to the point that regulating analogs is impossible. In fact, as you probably know, MK Ultra was using psychedelic chemistry to find new "nonlethal" chemical warfare agents and drugs capable of creating programmable assassins, all that "Manchurian Candidate" jazz. You likely have read "The Search for the 'Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences." by John Marks. Again, just because it can be done, should it? That's probably the biggest ethical question of our lifetime, considering AI and Elon Musk's efforts to create some sort of post-human society, a robot workforce, or a human/machine hybrid that can be sent out to colonize Mars or something.
I agree that it would be a mistake to grant complete freedom to market and sell any new drug that comes down the pike.
The dispensation of controlled drugs is already heavily monitored by the state, so I would expect the same in any regulation of a freer market in direct-to-consumer sales, and privacy has become an antiquated notion. Even if you go totally "off the grid" you can't avoid being identified by the all-seeing eye when you go into town for the inevitable ER visit or purchase of supplies.
My legalization scheme would discourage inflating the price of OTC opiates to compete with alcohol. It is common sense to assume that the number of opiate addicts would rise with legalization, but it is also important to recognize something Ron Paul pointed out some years ago--not everyone would use these drugs if they became legally available. I would add that not everyone enjoys their effects, and once one becomes aware of the facts, one of them being that it takes a month's daily use of an opiate to establish addiction, it would be possible to self-medicate for pain management or even use opiates for pleasure while avoiding addiction. In fact, I think codeine is available OTC in many European and South/Central American countries without any evident social problems resulting from it. That is, unless Uncle Sam has pressured everyone into stopping that just as he put a stop to the centuries-old trade in Cannabis in North Africa and the Near East, only recently easing the pressure to prohibit. As far as the problem of addiction itself, it is not the nightmare it's been made out to be. As long as addicts can get their supply of pure and affordable opiates, they tend to be as conforming and productive as most other citizens.
Diversion to minors is a problem that we'd just have to live with just as we have to live with the time-honored tradition of kids hanging outside the liquor store waiting for a sympathetic adult to buy them a case of beer, but it would be less likely if, again, there were no marketing or advertising of OTC opiates and other "recreational" drugs. The number of minors getting unscrupulous adults to buy them dope from the drug store would remain probably close to the number of kids who are likely to raid mom and dad's medicine chest. You cannot completely end this and it shouldn't be the state's job to try to do so anyway. It's a matter of ending the romanticization of doping, countering the various vapid "drug cultures" with the honest truth about drugs, and. again, prohibiting any advertising and marketing of dope, including cannabis. It was a huge mistake to permit advertising and marketing that one.
The idea of a legal trade in dried opium poppies as part of a scheme to create "practical difficulty and inconvenience [as a method of] curbing overconsumption of mind-altering substances" is food for thought. (Poppy seed muffins, anyone?) I would only add that the freedom to grow one's own poppies could be a rewarding hobby that could allow someone to provide himself with a more or less unlimited supply of opium without having to contend with the market or the authorities at all.
Well, that was one of the more enlightened and civil conversations about the "drug crisis" than I have had in quite some time. I look forward to reading what you have published here on Substack.
If you have the ear of the President please include Portland Oregon in your plea for help. The cartel have been controlling downtown Portland for years now. 😫
The same with the Palisades, they voted DEMRATS, and look what they got, kicked out of their beautiful homes, nobody is paying them, they are running the red tape
on them, 6 months and nothing, JUST A LOT OF ASBESTOS FLYING ALL OVER AND KILLING PEOPLE SOFTLY. But DEMRATS' idea is to build up LOW-INCOME HOUSING at the Palisades.!!!!! Lol.
Another Portland refugee now living in Eastern Oregon. The drugs, homelessness, and crime are overwhelming. They legalized all drugs a few years ago and it made things even worse.
CARTEL and BASS, GAVIN, SOROS, CARUSO'S CARTEL are destroying Los Angeles's business district. The 20 million that came across the border illegally, those are the ones causing terror in our Business District 26th between Broadway and Main in Downtown L.A., you see how these cartels took over the street, burned the whole block, and are sitting down in the terrible burned area, and nobody is moving them.
Their poor hygiene has led to a resurgence of typhoid due to the presence of rats' feces. IT IS SO BAD HERE.
Progressives want chaos, disorder, and division among people. Anything to make America a 3rd world hell hole, since they live in walled enclaves and don't experience it. I agree with the author. Start with the worst places. Show the world it doesn't need to be this way, and deport the drug dealers. It's about perception. The working class and poor are basically forced to live in these areas, since they don't have the resources to move (or maybe have hope their city will return to a former glory). This is also another way to show people that forever handouts never work. A job and the dignity of work can help many who are not mentally ill.
Team Red and Team Blue point fingers at each other to score points, but these complaints about public disorder go back to the dawn of time.
Rufo could be right here in that this performance he suggests could be good politics for Mr. Trump. It won’t actually “work” outside of the few weeks the show of force happens and handful of people they arrest.
People want their drugs. They pay big money for them, so the black market will find a way. Just like the Rum Runners, Moonshiners and the Mafia back during Prohibition.
The problem is not just ideological; it is grift. Cities with open air drug markets have huge budgets for social service providers for the so-called "homeless," i.e. drug addict customers. These providers operate on a pay to play basis; they have to make political contributions and support the politicians to get the lucrative contracts. We have seen cities temporarily clean up the open air markets for special events, but the politicians in charge have no incentive to do more than that. It is the politicians that are the problem, but it is not easy to prosecute for non-feasance, and proving pay for play is difficult even if there were the will. Where ideology comes in is in the way it makes the city voters blind to this reality. They believe they are being humane by supporting the perpetuation of these open air drug markets, but there is nothing compassionate about facilitating such misery.
When was it kind to tolerate people living in the streets awaiting their next fix and eventual death? We deserve better from our leaders. The solution is not NGO’s scamming the public with expensive solutions.
Man, did you nail it, Thucydides. I followed Rufo when I started a grass roots campaign to clear a massive encampment in a 14 acre public park in a major US city. I formed a team to shame the mayor, to turn public opinion, to spotlight the violence & drug market, and on and on. The biggest opposition we hit was from city councilmembers, some of whom regularly sat next to non-profit reps at city homelessness meetings. It became clear there were reciprocal perks the two groups gave one another. Good news is we got our park back. Bad news is one of those councilmembers is now our mayor. His support from the professional social justice league was unmatched and my supporters who possess a different ideology were intentionally blind to his complicity, in spite of our calling him out, and they voted for him. They weren't at those meetings. I was and could see what was going down. Like you said, I just couldn't prove it.
You’re so close to getting it, but these social service contractors donate to the politicians BECAUSE they are in power. If it was Team Red instead of Team Blue they’d donate there instead. Politics is pay to play just the same in the Reddest Red State and the Bluest Blue State. Most industries like mine (seafood) pay both sides and play both sides. Win-win for us.
I saw your documentary on PBS before I read your book. It is heartbreaking to see these broken people in our major cities. Univision is daily showing the arrests by ICE as something racist. They also interview lawyers for advice on how to avoid the authorities. Then the activist bishop of San Diego gives the illegals Dispensation from the obligation of Holy Mass on Sundays. I pray the illegals go back to where they came from.
I Agree, Chris; we do not do enough enforcement and proactive measures. Much of the crime in this country could be squashed, if it was desired, within hours and greater operations within days and weeks.
But I’d add: do not just focus on “foreign” criminals. We have countless American criminals and thugs running streets, and have been for decades and generations. Black, white, whatever. Nail them all.
And, it’s not just cities, which to this day people generally assume and disregard the idea that much of this activity is right in their own suburban and rural backyards. The “broken window” effect is in full display in countless areas across our great country, sadly.
It needs a multi-layered approach, but its needs action and swift, aggressive action at that. Ignore the social justice cowards and manipulators, and reign hard down upon every facet of criminality.
Our federal, state, and local “leaders” have all failed to do so
Consistently, and I would add so have the American people - we need to step up, take action, call the police when we see something instead of ignoring it or not getting involved.
Agree. I appreciate your work Chris. You think if more ppl get behind Trump and his admin instead of distracting them with Epstein nonsense that all of us would be better off? The 1000 victims are older now. Get names from them. Leave Bondi alone. Like she doesn’t have enough to do rooting out the Democrats in the DOJ. Same thing with Dan and Cash. Trump only has so many waking hours. If ppl expect him to do this, clean up America’s Leftist run cities and do the million and one other things, they need to let him focus, focus, focus. Just support him and his team. They’re good ppl. Let them do their work. Cash sent out 1000s of FBI agents to the worst cities. I heard 1000 new agents are in my city now.
This is a great idea, but ... As a retired law enforcement officer I know that federal agencies don't have the manpower to do this without the help of local law enforcement, which is a problem - proven by the current lack of assistance given ICE and the Border Patrol in the form of operational security, in some locations. If they want to close down open air drug markets, and similar problems, most local agencies can find a way to do it without federal help. If the feds decide to take this kind of action they will need to followup regularly in the same city until local law enforcement is forced to take over because of public demand. I recommend they start with a handful of medium size cities where they can provide enough resources for the job without local help, and whose citizens are tired of the local agencies inaction and are ready for a change.
Alternatively we could let leftist cities rot and focus on the less progressive cities. The conservative states helping out progressive cities like San Francisco seems an awful lot like nation building in the Middle East.
Alex, although I may agree with you that action would only bolster the “left” that believes the “right” is inconsiderate, uncaring and unkind. I know it is just the opposite and why most find San Frans of the US so appalling.
I have lived this experience having to work in SF for years. I travel to LA and see it there. I see videos of it in Philly, where I also use to live. When I moved to the Bay Area some 20 years ago, it was firsthand observation that made me realize that SF was too liberal for its own good. Since then, I realize that SJWs should not be running cities, and that "social justice" policies in general simply don't work to protect law-abiding taxpaying businesses and residents in our cities.
It's disgusting what is happening in these cities. It's not acceptable. We can't vote our way out of it, people and businesses have just left SF because it's a shithole. Trump needs to take Portland and Seattle back from Antifa and clean up the lawless areas mentioned in this article. The entrenched liberal mayors in these cities will never do it.
If I sound angry, I am. My red pill moments started with someone getting shot and killed in broad daylight because of SF's "Sanctuary Cities" policies, which at the time, I'd never heard of (a transient known criminal with an unregistered gun was the killer, of a young woman). When I looked into it, I realized this was absurd but a result of the left-leaning SF Board of Supervisors, a bleeding heart liberal clown car if there ever was one.
Once you start stepping over junkies shooting up on City Hall lawn and open area drug dealing blocking the ATMs nearby, you start to get really angry and jaded.
My wife and I would commute home from the Tenderloin and it was like a zombie apocalypse, people just stumbling into the streets, screaming, pooping on the sidewalks and god knows what else. It was so depressing she asked to take a different way home, but this mess was all over the city, anyway.
THIS IS NOT A THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY. This is not acceptable. I can only pray to god Trump or someone like him gets another term, if this can all be turned around. We cannot let leftists run our cities into the ground like this anymore. We can not let liberal rot take over our country. Everything they touch turns to trash. Just look up YouTube videos of these areas. They do not care about our taxes, borders, or safety.
You know DemocRATS and the Fake News Media (But I repeat myself!) will vilify Trump if he goes after the drugs markets and the invaders who run them. "This is just like the NAZIS!!"
Bust these people, and (in California) Newsom loses a fair chunk of his electorate. Should this be attempted, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the "targeted unfairness" of it all ... to which I say, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
Perhaps the reason so many people are willing to turn a blind eye to the drug dealers in the inner city comes from the NIMBY (not in my backyard) philosophy. Many people have been misled to believe that if they provide a space for drug dealers, crime will be contained to that area. This is a false assumption, as we can see from the spread of fentanyl use in rural areas. We need stricter penalties for drug dealers, and Trump is fulfilling the promise he campaigned on. The Big Beautiful Bill will help put wheels under his policy to eradicate the problem, and using the Federal government to enforce this will probably be the only way to get it done.
We actually need a better understanding of why some get trapped by drugs. For many the initial pleasure of casual use turns into a physical need that can’t be satisfied. We need a way to reverse that. Despite great effort rehab is less than 50% effective but at considerable cost.
Trump just signed the Halt act yesterday making fentanyl a schedule 1 drug which gives a much stiffer sentence if a dealer is selling. I agree 100% with what you’re saying and I am thankful for a President who is willing to make it happen. God continue to bless this nation and bless our President. All Americans should pick up the word of God and start studing it and living the way it shows us. This life is nothing but a test, read Gods word and see if your going to pass would be my suggestion. All the answers to life’s problems are in his word. Even drug addiction! Have a great day!
Americans and God? Living in the way of God who drowned every man, woman, child, animal, insect and plant on Earth, because???
Umm…Noah? He did not destroy all species as you claim. Instead had Noah save worthy ones from peril.
God promised not to flood the world again but said nothing about fire or plague. Perhaps another cleansing of the gene pool is in order?
Fine for illegal traffic, but it is a valuable painkiller for certain types of cancer and post-operatively. Will this bill end medical access to it?
I imagine the wording of the text to be something along the lines of “non-pharmaceutical grade” fentanyl or perhaps even allowing that fentanyl sold without a valid prescription by a non-medical person be schedule I while valid RX / hospital use fentanyl retain Schedule II.
That would be quite sensible.
no
Good.
without knowing the exact details, it sounds to me as if the Schedule I designation would only apply to the "designer drug" analogs. And it wouldn't surprise me if carfentanil--100x as potent as the already scary-powerful fentanyl--is no longer available as a tranquilizer for large animals.
But banishing a substance to Schedule I does little or nothing in terms of enforcement. Diligent enforcement is what's needed.
I think the drug laws are long overdue for an overhaul, including the placement of substances on the DEA Scheduling list (fentanyl analogs belong there; substances like mescaline and LSD do not.) But what's also overdue is a crackdown on the de facto impunity provided to hard drugs retailers in some locales.
To mention only one feature of the problem, the absence of enforcement of the most basic principles of civic order results in ceding parts of the public square to criminals. I don't care whether it's fentanyl, meth, pot, or alcohol--when groups of users flaunt the law and take over parts of neighborhoods and public parks to convert them into open-air dope flea markets and bazaars featuring shoplifted goods, that really is an invasion, whether it's done by immigrants or native-born citizens. There's something really wrong when ordinary citizens find that it isn't safe or healthy for their families--or even themselves--to visit a publicly maintained park intended for public use, but EMTs and other first responders are routinely sent to the same place on emergency calls at public expense to revive the overdose casualties that are an inevitable side effect of dysfunctional shiftless drug addicts converting the territory into an outdoor skid row.
I agree. I'd go further and say that the Drug Schedule should be scrapped entirely.
Carfentanyl . . . this is the first I've heard of it. What possible use could this have? Fentanyl is already effective in doses measured in micrograms.
I advocate total legalization of all drugs, made available to adults 21 and over at pharmacies, with zero advertising and marketing. However, this can only work if harsh penalties are put in place for illegal sales and trafficking and for public intoxication and use.
The haphazard, piecemeal loosening of drug prohibitions has created a chaotic situation, leading to travesties like Kensington Ave. in Philly, Skid Row in LA, and other degenerate public drug markets with their crowds of nodding junkies and manic speed freaks.
Legalization can only solve the problem if it is nationwide and subject to the conditions I describe above. Of course, this will never happen, so we are faced with the status quo indefinitely.
Some products are too hazardous for retail sale, plain and simple. Fentanyl and its analogs, for example. I've read so much hype about the dangers of forbidden substances over the decades that I don't want to sound like I'm adding to it, but fentanyl and its analogs are lethal in such small quantities that the substances really do qualify as chemical warfare agents. Substacker Ben Westhoff wrote a fantastically informative book, Fentanyl Inc., that goes into a lot of detail about the rise of fentanyl. He also covers a lot of other "designer drug" substances. The frontier of mind-altering drugs subcultures--plural, each category of substances tends to have its users clustered as a particular niche--in the 21st century is mind-blowing.
And there's the rub, in terms of market legalization: some products are entirely too dangerous for unrestricted sale. Whether organophosphate pesticides or drugs so potent that they're lethal in easily ingested amounts.
I have put some thought into broadening the category of substances available for retail sale without prescription. Without going into detail, I'm considering the possibility that some substances that are currently Schedule II could possibly be made legally available for sale to adults if the purchaser-consumers consented to regulations to ensure personal accountability and purchase quantity limits subject to being tracked on a government database. That situation implies the sort of surveillance state tracking that many Americans are inclined to reflexively reject. But it's certainly less restrictive than total prohibition of any legal market whatsoever. In fact, I've already had the experience of being subjected to it, in a supermarket in Pennsylvania--for the purchase of a 6-pack of beer! The clerk required my drivers license to be photocopied as a condition of purchase. iirc, the State-run ABC store at the other end of the parking lot that sells distilled alcohol also scans all photo IDs at the point of sale.
That's the sort of tracking I'd suppose would be required in order to purchase a liquid suspension of an opiod, like Hycodan or Tussionex. Not a new regulation, in principle; in the early 20th century,, pharmacies in some states were required to keep a "poison register" of all purchases of medicines with a liability of poisoning or toxic overdose. A simpler time, when drug stores largely served a regular clientele of local community residents. Now, in this more cosmopolitan era, the technology is available to require similar purchaser accountability anywhere in the country. Which beings up the next restriction I'd consider necessary in order to permit a market regime of legal nonprescription retail sales of formerly Schedule II substances to adult individuals: quantity limits. Like one pint a week of an opioid liquid with the strength of Hycodan, or codeine cough medicine. One pint a week limit, anywhere in the US. That's an example; settling on exact limits would be negotiable. Maybe it should be one 4oz. bottle a day, to enable a maintenance regime. But I think there would need to be some enforceable limit. The government would be able to track everyone's use of these substances.
The price also needs to be high enough to allow alcohol to remain competitive as a substance with mind-altering properties, because legal nonprescription opioids with a price advantage over alcohol is a formula for increasing opioid addiction.
I get that this offends the sensibility of libertarians in principle, but in practice, I don't find much difference between having my photo ID copied for a beer purchase or having it copied for a purchase of formerly forbidden pills of some sort. Having thought it through, it's the only practical way to do it without beckoning a large increase in bad outcomes, particularly in terms of diversion. I even support limits on the amount of distilled alcohol that one individual can buy within the span of week--an amount much lower than what's permitted to purchase in many States, where it's possible for one adult with ID to buy liters of distilled beverages with >50% alcohol content by the caseload as a single purchase.
The reality of the pill trade is that the volume is much more compact; it's theoretically possible to fit >1000 5mg. hydrocodone pills into a liter-size container. That makes street retail diversion simple, if there's no purchaser identification or limit on their purchase quantity in a given week. Simply having each pharmacy impose a limit of 50mg for a given purchase is not sufficient, either. The implicit tradeoff needs to be "you can buy this stuff and get high with it on an occasional basis. But as for using it every day, you need to get a personal physician to sign off on that." Because otherwise, you'll end up with diversion to minors, easily available mass quantities encouraging abuse, social contagion, and an addiction epidemic that could potentially dwarf the era of the slipshod prescription of Oxycontin, with its pill mills, pharmacy shopping, and all the rest of it. The mass derailment of lives is not worth it, and that's practically an inevitable result of legal market availability of practically unlimited amounts of inexpensive opioid pills.
Alternatively, it's possible that a legal mail-order trade in dried opium poppy pods might obviate most of the problems associated with pills. Opium poppies are bulky, harder to conceal than powders, and less practical to divert and retail illicitly. They also require some time and effort in order to process for ingestion. It's technically easy to do, but not effortless. The difference between carrying around a bottle of pills to instantly pop and the requirement to take 30 minutes to brew and consume opium poppy tea is a lot more significant than it seems to be on first notice. As for the process of refining it further to concentrate the morphine, that adds several additional levels of practical difficulty and inconvenience. Practical difficulty and inconvenience deserve to be recognized as being more effective at curbing overconsumption of mind-altering substances than the legal prohibitions and criminalization measures that result in pushing 100% of consumer demand into an illicit market monopoly with no limits on potency or purity, with the supply run by career criminals.
Well I just accidentally deleted a lengthy response when I subscribed to your account. I'll give it another go later. Goddamn it anyway.
Excellent comment! Ii want to reply after some thought
Thanks for recommending Westhoff's book. I will read it. Ain't technology wonderful? The more people learn of how the brain works, the more precise the targets of drugs becomes. Wouldn't surprise me if eventually you could pop a pill to program specific dream content. Look at the psychedelics. Since Shulgin's pioneering work on tinkering with and trying out hundreds of variations on the mescaline molecule, the synthesis of analogs of the classic psychedelics has exploded to the point that regulating analogs is impossible. In fact, as you probably know, MK Ultra was using psychedelic chemistry to find new "nonlethal" chemical warfare agents and drugs capable of creating programmable assassins, all that "Manchurian Candidate" jazz. You likely have read "The Search for the 'Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences." by John Marks. Again, just because it can be done, should it? That's probably the biggest ethical question of our lifetime, considering AI and Elon Musk's efforts to create some sort of post-human society, a robot workforce, or a human/machine hybrid that can be sent out to colonize Mars or something.
I agree that it would be a mistake to grant complete freedom to market and sell any new drug that comes down the pike.
The dispensation of controlled drugs is already heavily monitored by the state, so I would expect the same in any regulation of a freer market in direct-to-consumer sales, and privacy has become an antiquated notion. Even if you go totally "off the grid" you can't avoid being identified by the all-seeing eye when you go into town for the inevitable ER visit or purchase of supplies.
My legalization scheme would discourage inflating the price of OTC opiates to compete with alcohol. It is common sense to assume that the number of opiate addicts would rise with legalization, but it is also important to recognize something Ron Paul pointed out some years ago--not everyone would use these drugs if they became legally available. I would add that not everyone enjoys their effects, and once one becomes aware of the facts, one of them being that it takes a month's daily use of an opiate to establish addiction, it would be possible to self-medicate for pain management or even use opiates for pleasure while avoiding addiction. In fact, I think codeine is available OTC in many European and South/Central American countries without any evident social problems resulting from it. That is, unless Uncle Sam has pressured everyone into stopping that just as he put a stop to the centuries-old trade in Cannabis in North Africa and the Near East, only recently easing the pressure to prohibit. As far as the problem of addiction itself, it is not the nightmare it's been made out to be. As long as addicts can get their supply of pure and affordable opiates, they tend to be as conforming and productive as most other citizens.
Diversion to minors is a problem that we'd just have to live with just as we have to live with the time-honored tradition of kids hanging outside the liquor store waiting for a sympathetic adult to buy them a case of beer, but it would be less likely if, again, there were no marketing or advertising of OTC opiates and other "recreational" drugs. The number of minors getting unscrupulous adults to buy them dope from the drug store would remain probably close to the number of kids who are likely to raid mom and dad's medicine chest. You cannot completely end this and it shouldn't be the state's job to try to do so anyway. It's a matter of ending the romanticization of doping, countering the various vapid "drug cultures" with the honest truth about drugs, and. again, prohibiting any advertising and marketing of dope, including cannabis. It was a huge mistake to permit advertising and marketing that one.
The idea of a legal trade in dried opium poppies as part of a scheme to create "practical difficulty and inconvenience [as a method of] curbing overconsumption of mind-altering substances" is food for thought. (Poppy seed muffins, anyone?) I would only add that the freedom to grow one's own poppies could be a rewarding hobby that could allow someone to provide himself with a more or less unlimited supply of opium without having to contend with the market or the authorities at all.
Well, that was one of the more enlightened and civil conversations about the "drug crisis" than I have had in quite some time. I look forward to reading what you have published here on Substack.
Thanks for your time and energy.
If you have the ear of the President please include Portland Oregon in your plea for help. The cartel have been controlling downtown Portland for years now. 😫
And Seattle!
@Kelli-Husband and I are going to Seattle next month. I'm disappointed because I wanted to see the city but I'm not sure...
I’d suggest skipping SeaTac
@Pine- we're flying into Seattle then going on an Alaskan cruise. Staying with husband's niece for a few days. Le sigh....
@Char- my brother lives in the city. He said he won't go downtown anymore because it simply isn't safe. Portland used to be beautiful.
The USPS no longer delivers mail to Amazon HQ, which is located downtown, due to safety issues.
Bull! My office looks at Amazon HQ. It is a normal and busy area. Zero such issues there. Why lie?
@Kelli- Ho. Lee. Chit. No way...
Nah, you people dug your own grave. Let you lie in it.
You voted for this.
Portland serves as a valuable lesson for any who follow the Left where it wants to go.
The same with the Palisades, they voted DEMRATS, and look what they got, kicked out of their beautiful homes, nobody is paying them, they are running the red tape
on them, 6 months and nothing, JUST A LOT OF ASBESTOS FLYING ALL OVER AND KILLING PEOPLE SOFTLY. But DEMRATS' idea is to build up LOW-INCOME HOUSING at the Palisades.!!!!! Lol.
Another Portland refugee now living in Eastern Oregon. The drugs, homelessness, and crime are overwhelming. They legalized all drugs a few years ago and it made things even worse.
CARTEL and BASS, GAVIN, SOROS, CARUSO'S CARTEL are destroying Los Angeles's business district. The 20 million that came across the border illegally, those are the ones causing terror in our Business District 26th between Broadway and Main in Downtown L.A., you see how these cartels took over the street, burned the whole block, and are sitting down in the terrible burned area, and nobody is moving them.
Their poor hygiene has led to a resurgence of typhoid due to the presence of rats' feces. IT IS SO BAD HERE.
Progressives want chaos, disorder, and division among people. Anything to make America a 3rd world hell hole, since they live in walled enclaves and don't experience it. I agree with the author. Start with the worst places. Show the world it doesn't need to be this way, and deport the drug dealers. It's about perception. The working class and poor are basically forced to live in these areas, since they don't have the resources to move (or maybe have hope their city will return to a former glory). This is also another way to show people that forever handouts never work. A job and the dignity of work can help many who are not mentally ill.
The “former glory” never existed in my opinion.
Team Red and Team Blue point fingers at each other to score points, but these complaints about public disorder go back to the dawn of time.
Rufo could be right here in that this performance he suggests could be good politics for Mr. Trump. It won’t actually “work” outside of the few weeks the show of force happens and handful of people they arrest.
People want their drugs. They pay big money for them, so the black market will find a way. Just like the Rum Runners, Moonshiners and the Mafia back during Prohibition.
The problem is not just ideological; it is grift. Cities with open air drug markets have huge budgets for social service providers for the so-called "homeless," i.e. drug addict customers. These providers operate on a pay to play basis; they have to make political contributions and support the politicians to get the lucrative contracts. We have seen cities temporarily clean up the open air markets for special events, but the politicians in charge have no incentive to do more than that. It is the politicians that are the problem, but it is not easy to prosecute for non-feasance, and proving pay for play is difficult even if there were the will. Where ideology comes in is in the way it makes the city voters blind to this reality. They believe they are being humane by supporting the perpetuation of these open air drug markets, but there is nothing compassionate about facilitating such misery.
When was it kind to tolerate people living in the streets awaiting their next fix and eventual death? We deserve better from our leaders. The solution is not NGO’s scamming the public with expensive solutions.
And the Heads of these groups pay themselves a nice large salary! Conflict of interest!!
Man, did you nail it, Thucydides. I followed Rufo when I started a grass roots campaign to clear a massive encampment in a 14 acre public park in a major US city. I formed a team to shame the mayor, to turn public opinion, to spotlight the violence & drug market, and on and on. The biggest opposition we hit was from city councilmembers, some of whom regularly sat next to non-profit reps at city homelessness meetings. It became clear there were reciprocal perks the two groups gave one another. Good news is we got our park back. Bad news is one of those councilmembers is now our mayor. His support from the professional social justice league was unmatched and my supporters who possess a different ideology were intentionally blind to his complicity, in spite of our calling him out, and they voted for him. They weren't at those meetings. I was and could see what was going down. Like you said, I just couldn't prove it.
You’re so close to getting it, but these social service contractors donate to the politicians BECAUSE they are in power. If it was Team Red instead of Team Blue they’d donate there instead. Politics is pay to play just the same in the Reddest Red State and the Bluest Blue State. Most industries like mine (seafood) pay both sides and play both sides. Win-win for us.
I saw your documentary on PBS before I read your book. It is heartbreaking to see these broken people in our major cities. Univision is daily showing the arrests by ICE as something racist. They also interview lawyers for advice on how to avoid the authorities. Then the activist bishop of San Diego gives the illegals Dispensation from the obligation of Holy Mass on Sundays. I pray the illegals go back to where they came from.
I Agree, Chris; we do not do enough enforcement and proactive measures. Much of the crime in this country could be squashed, if it was desired, within hours and greater operations within days and weeks.
But I’d add: do not just focus on “foreign” criminals. We have countless American criminals and thugs running streets, and have been for decades and generations. Black, white, whatever. Nail them all.
And, it’s not just cities, which to this day people generally assume and disregard the idea that much of this activity is right in their own suburban and rural backyards. The “broken window” effect is in full display in countless areas across our great country, sadly.
It needs a multi-layered approach, but its needs action and swift, aggressive action at that. Ignore the social justice cowards and manipulators, and reign hard down upon every facet of criminality.
Our federal, state, and local “leaders” have all failed to do so
Consistently, and I would add so have the American people - we need to step up, take action, call the police when we see something instead of ignoring it or not getting involved.
Agree. I appreciate your work Chris. You think if more ppl get behind Trump and his admin instead of distracting them with Epstein nonsense that all of us would be better off? The 1000 victims are older now. Get names from them. Leave Bondi alone. Like she doesn’t have enough to do rooting out the Democrats in the DOJ. Same thing with Dan and Cash. Trump only has so many waking hours. If ppl expect him to do this, clean up America’s Leftist run cities and do the million and one other things, they need to let him focus, focus, focus. Just support him and his team. They’re good ppl. Let them do their work. Cash sent out 1000s of FBI agents to the worst cities. I heard 1000 new agents are in my city now.
This is a great idea, but ... As a retired law enforcement officer I know that federal agencies don't have the manpower to do this without the help of local law enforcement, which is a problem - proven by the current lack of assistance given ICE and the Border Patrol in the form of operational security, in some locations. If they want to close down open air drug markets, and similar problems, most local agencies can find a way to do it without federal help. If the feds decide to take this kind of action they will need to followup regularly in the same city until local law enforcement is forced to take over because of public demand. I recommend they start with a handful of medium size cities where they can provide enough resources for the job without local help, and whose citizens are tired of the local agencies inaction and are ready for a change.
Yep.
Alternatively we could let leftist cities rot and focus on the less progressive cities. The conservative states helping out progressive cities like San Francisco seems an awful lot like nation building in the Middle East.
Alex, although I may agree with you that action would only bolster the “left” that believes the “right” is inconsiderate, uncaring and unkind. I know it is just the opposite and why most find San Frans of the US so appalling.
I have lived this experience having to work in SF for years. I travel to LA and see it there. I see videos of it in Philly, where I also use to live. When I moved to the Bay Area some 20 years ago, it was firsthand observation that made me realize that SF was too liberal for its own good. Since then, I realize that SJWs should not be running cities, and that "social justice" policies in general simply don't work to protect law-abiding taxpaying businesses and residents in our cities.
It's disgusting what is happening in these cities. It's not acceptable. We can't vote our way out of it, people and businesses have just left SF because it's a shithole. Trump needs to take Portland and Seattle back from Antifa and clean up the lawless areas mentioned in this article. The entrenched liberal mayors in these cities will never do it.
If I sound angry, I am. My red pill moments started with someone getting shot and killed in broad daylight because of SF's "Sanctuary Cities" policies, which at the time, I'd never heard of (a transient known criminal with an unregistered gun was the killer, of a young woman). When I looked into it, I realized this was absurd but a result of the left-leaning SF Board of Supervisors, a bleeding heart liberal clown car if there ever was one.
Once you start stepping over junkies shooting up on City Hall lawn and open area drug dealing blocking the ATMs nearby, you start to get really angry and jaded.
My wife and I would commute home from the Tenderloin and it was like a zombie apocalypse, people just stumbling into the streets, screaming, pooping on the sidewalks and god knows what else. It was so depressing she asked to take a different way home, but this mess was all over the city, anyway.
THIS IS NOT A THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY. This is not acceptable. I can only pray to god Trump or someone like him gets another term, if this can all be turned around. We cannot let leftists run our cities into the ground like this anymore. We can not let liberal rot take over our country. Everything they touch turns to trash. Just look up YouTube videos of these areas. They do not care about our taxes, borders, or safety.
Enough is enough!
You know DemocRATS and the Fake News Media (But I repeat myself!) will vilify Trump if he goes after the drugs markets and the invaders who run them. "This is just like the NAZIS!!"
But I completely agree he should do it anyway.
I like it. One thing you did not discuss, what do you do with the hundreds of drug addicted street people? You can’t just leave them there, can you?
What they do in Holland: either prison or treatment.
Bust these people, and (in California) Newsom loses a fair chunk of his electorate. Should this be attempted, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the "targeted unfairness" of it all ... to which I say, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
Vance/Rufo 2028!
Perhaps the reason so many people are willing to turn a blind eye to the drug dealers in the inner city comes from the NIMBY (not in my backyard) philosophy. Many people have been misled to believe that if they provide a space for drug dealers, crime will be contained to that area. This is a false assumption, as we can see from the spread of fentanyl use in rural areas. We need stricter penalties for drug dealers, and Trump is fulfilling the promise he campaigned on. The Big Beautiful Bill will help put wheels under his policy to eradicate the problem, and using the Federal government to enforce this will probably be the only way to get it done.
We actually need a better understanding of why some get trapped by drugs. For many the initial pleasure of casual use turns into a physical need that can’t be satisfied. We need a way to reverse that. Despite great effort rehab is less than 50% effective but at considerable cost.
Who's in charge of the DEA??