DEA to take ‘new’ approach

Just got this news release from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration: “DEA set to announce comprehensive strategy to deal with heroin, r/x abuse, violent crime.”

And the release said”

Special Agent in Charge Gary Tuggle of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Philadelphia Field Division announced today that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania will be the first city in the nation where the DEA will implement a new comprehensive strategy to address prescription opioid abuse, heroin use, and violent crime. [emphasis added]

Wow. They finally have come up with a new strategy. Wonder what it’ll be?

Oh wait, they tell us:

The goals of the new strategy include stopping the deadly cycle of prescription opioid and heroin abuse by eliminating the drug trafficking organizations and gangs fueling violence on the streets and addiction in communities.

Um… really? This sounds vaguely familiar. Sure you haven’t tried this before? With a complete lack of success?

Oh, there’s more:

The strategy will also include partnering with healthcare professionals and engaging and strengthening community and social service organizations that are best positioned to provide long-term help and support for building drug-free communities.

Yeah, no, that sounds pretty familiar as well, and that “drug-free communities” thing hasn’t worked before either.

So they’re going to have a press conference to announce this tomorrow. All you media types will probably want to rush over to Allison Park, Pennsylvania to catch the details on this revolutionary new initiative.

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30 Responses to DEA to take ‘new’ approach

  1. Francis says:

    Drug warriors lying to the public by claiming that their same tired and failed strategy is a new strategy? Hell, even that’s not a new strategy.

    • Duncan20903 says:

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      I agree that Nobody is the best choice for POTUS. So talented…Nobody can lower taxes and balance the budget. Nobody can stop violent crime. Nobody cares about the poor. Nobody can make prohibition work. Nobody is perfect. Nobody can fix the economy. Nobody can wipe out crime in the streets. Nobody can end all wars. Nobody will live forever. The best part? Nobody works for free.

      • jean valjean says:

        Nobody gets my vote!

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
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          Nobody has been running for POTUS since at least 1976 when the Youth International Party gave him their 1976 nomination.

        • DdC says:

          Nobody’s History

          Nobody for President
          Nobody for President was a parodic campaign for the United States presidential election, 1976.

          Wavy Gravy, master of ceremonies for the Woodstock Festival and official clown of the Grateful Dead, is believed to have nominated Nobody at the Yippe national convention outside the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976. Another of those responsible, Arthur Hoppe (a syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle) claims to have distributed “several thousand” Nobody for President campaign buttons and to have written “dozens of columns extolling Nobody’s virtues”.

          The organizers of the campaign staged a ticker-tape parade down a boulevard in Berkeley, California, with motorcycle police flanking a convertible limousine occupied by nobody. The campaign’s slogans included “Nobody’s perfect” and “Nobody should have too much power”

          Curtis Spangler & Wavy Gravy October 12, 1976
          Photograph: James Stark
          http://www.nobodyforpresident.org/images/curtiswavy-stark1976.jpg

          On December 8, 1975, I spoke with Wavy Gravy at the United State Cafe on Haight Street in San Francisco, about voter apathy.

          I pointed to statistics showing people were not registering to vote and approximately fifty (50) percent of the people who could vote were not showing up at the polls.

          Wavy responded, “You mean Nobody is winning the Presidential elections?”

          That question became the spark that ignited the “Birthday Party’s Nobody for President Campaign.”

          Wavy Gravy became “Nobody’s Fool,” Curtis Spangler became “Nobody’s Campaign Manager,” and the rest is history!

          Fare Thee Well Interview Series: Wavy Gravy
          June 11, 2015

          NOBODY for President!
          Well, The Committee supported LBJ, and then he came in with Bob McNamara and killed more than anybody since Atilla the Hun. In ‘68, we ran a pig for president, Pigasus, and she was the first black and white and female candidate. In ‘72 we came back from Asia and ran a rock for president. I had this great rock I got from the base of Mount Ararat and we ran a roll for vice president. At different rallies we passed out different rolls, like cinnamon rolls, or jelly rolls, or bagels, so you could always eat the Vice President, as the roll kept changing.

          Then up the spinal telegraph came the concept of “Nobody for President”

          Youth International Party
          In 1976, Yippies took a cue from Isla Vistans, running “Nobody” for President.

  2. Duncan20903 says:

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    Allison Park PA? Isn’t that Harry J’s hometown?

    Edit: Oops, sorry about that. My mistake. Harry J’s hometown is Altoona.
    ————————–

    Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol says it’s collected more than 100,000 signatures.

    64,750 valid signatures are needed to get on the Massachusetts ballot.

  3. n.t.greene says:

    Next they’ll start telling us about revolutionary tools like “fire” and “the wheel” as if they were cutting edge technologies.

  4. Duncan20903 says:

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    .

    South Dakota authorities managed to get the Santee Sioux to shut down their grow and their plan for a 420 friendly resort. Now, how the heck did they do that? In South Dakota possession of THC-cooh can get you up to a year in jail. Yes, internal possession is a crime in South Dakota. If it’s one of the more hated names on the governments’ naughty lists internal possession is a felony, including metabolites.
    Tribal Members React to Marijuana Grow Closing Down

  5. Servetus says:

    For months now, press releases have broadcast an alarm about an upsurge in heroin use among former pain-prescription users. Regrettably, the only source of information for this phenomenon has been government agencies speaking to the media, agencies in some cases mandated by law to lie. Some solid numbers from independent sources would be welcomed.

    Part of the function of governments is to justify their own existence. That appears to be what the DEA is doing with their latest heroin assault. It could also be the first salvo of directorship-grandstanding for Chuck Rosenberg. Mr. Boy Scout is going to prove himself to the world by showing that he, and only he, has the key to success against the evil scourge of witches…er, I mean drugs.

    If Rosenberg really wanted to eliminate an upsurge in heroin use by former pain-prescription consumers, he could always arrange to give them back their access to their original Pharma meds. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about the profits going to “criminals”.

    • B. Snow says:

      I don’t know how easy it is to get meds for chronic pain in the “problem states” – from Florida up to ‘Appalachia’ or in the rural NE parts of the country – I’ve never lived there…

      But it ain’t like that in TX – and if they plan on continuing to harass, threaten, scare, or otherwise dissuade doctors out of the practice of prescribing pain killer s that actually work…

      Because some (or even ‘many’) people misuse/abuse/divert them to the black market… Where ironically the prices went so high that people switched to Heroin = Not only because it was cheaper in comparison, But also due to the fact that the supply could rise to meet demand.

      Something that became increasingly difficult to do with pharmaceutical opiates of known strength and purity – that was one Type of drug that the DEA could really “control” = By both tracking them from the manufacturers, to the pharmacy,to the patients (with patient prescription monitoring programs already in place for over a dozen years now)
      In combination with the DEA cracking down on doctors and threatening their practices and making examples of certain doctors saying they were prescribing “too many” of whatever meds.

      Which made it even harder to find a doctor willing to treat patients chronic pain – the fewer doctors prescribing meant those that did were (often) prescribing more OR not = they were turning away patients out of fear of losing there practices/careers.

      Which they very much did – doctors got letters saying think about it every time you write a prescription for pain meds – if it turns out the person is/was scamming you (if they’re part of a sting or a faker diverting them to the black market) = it could cost you and your family everything!

      If they want to deal with the “epidemic” in NH,VT,ME – basically ‘New England’ – or in the Florida to Kentucky/Tennessee ‘corridor'(area?)… Fine.

      But if the make it an harder for people in places where they’ve already “turned it up to 11” = They may as well start prescribing single-use double-barrelled, buckshot loaded, *cranium aerators*…

      Because, God forbid people might possibly abuse opiates they are prescribed – Nevermind that people with chronic pain take them on a schedule around-the-clock, and trying to get any sort of high from them would mean going long stretches without them = Not only in pain they’re being treated for, But with the added *bonus* of nasty withdrawal = (Like a big olde’ cherry on top!)

      No even remotely normal Person would never do that more than once, if at all – for average people living with chronic pain for any length of time. They simply aren’t that *flavor* of stupid!

      IDK, maybe the idiot kids in High School or Jr. College that would huff spray paint when they ran out of weed and beer/alcohol, or cough syrup, or whippets, etc.
      I meet a few people that fell into that category like a dozen maybe, that was 15-20 yrs ago.

      I’m pretty sure that these days – they would be happy using some form of cannabis if possible – Actually those particular idiots are likely dead.

      BUT, if the next generation of those people could get weed (seemingly much easier nowdays) & maybe some beer, I fully believe they wouldn’t have been messing with anything else.
      There’s always an anecdotal exception or two – Still, we shouldn’t plan society around future Darwin Award winners.

  6. DonDig says:

    .
    Isn’t it somehow likely or at least possible that in this day and age, life tends to be demanding enough that we very well may as a culture need more pain killers than previous generations.

    Surely that is possible. Productivity über alles or whatever. If use is trending that way, there are better alternatives than declaring criminality.

    • darkcycle says:

      It also has to do with an aging population. The boomers are advancing in years, and they represent a pretty big percentage of the U.S. demographic.

  7. Servetus says:

    The Age of the Opioid Alert Has Arrived.

    A press release from the College of Emergency Physicians cites a new warning:

    Washington—Nov. 9, 2015–“Our electronic health record warning system on opioids is overwhelming providers with unnecessary and clinically inconsequential alerts,” said lead study author Emma Genco, MS, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. “The danger here is that medical providers may develop ‘alert fatigue,’ leading to compromised patient safety. It is well established that clinical decision support prevents adverse drug events, but it is essential that alerting systems be refined to highlight only the clinically significant alerts.”

    It’s a signal-to-noise ratio problem:

    Overall, 98.9 percent of opioid alerts did not result in an actual or averted ADE and 96.3 percent of opioid alerts were overridden. Opioid drug alerts were more likely to be overridden than non-opioid alerts and opioid drug allergy alerts were twice as likely to be overridden. Opioid duplicate therapy alerts were 1.57 times as likely to be overridden. Pharmacists and physicians assistants most frequently overrode opioid drug alerts and residents overrode them the least.

    Who would have thought opiates could result in computers ODing? Powerful stuff.

  8. Mr_Alex says:

    The DEA is doing nothing about opiate abuse, what a surprise

    • claygooding says:

      Nobody came up with the idea of buying the opium crops from the AFG farmers and napalming it which would stop 80% of the worlds opium supply from ever reaching the public..

  9. DdC says:

    Allison Park was an old stomping ground of mine. I was a bit North, but knew a lot of people. Good parties. Where the city met rural, and then development, shopping centers, malls and hamburger joints. Instant neighborhoods of ticky tacky among old Mansions and Estates that were really cool to sneak on the grounds to get high. Around where the Deer Hunter Movie was shot. Plenty of pheasant hunting. Night of the Living Dead too. I had a teacher in that one. Closed down coal mines, steel and glass factories. All white suburbia due to the Real Estate Market segregation, at least in the 70’s. Good home grown last time I visited. Not much of a white powder market. But a likely spot, if reefer or Iron City Beer became scarce. The proper way to medicate, with Fat Pharm White Powders. As the DEA claims its the same classification as pot. Cold winters, hot summers and more than a fair share of yankee rednecks. As I remember it.

    The “partners” participating with ole Tuggles are all clinging to the sinking ship. Each making a living persecuting people. The last of the perverts selling the same snake oil and seem too stupid to even change the label on the bottle. Tuggles is a “Special” agent, and in case no one can tell. They emblazon “in charge” into Tuggles title. More like “Special Needs” agent. Sounds like Barney Fife when Andy leaves town. Or Alexander Haig when Rayguns was shot. I’m in charge. This is how its gonna be, see.

    DEA Set To Announce Comprehensive Strategy
    To Deal With Heroin, R/X Abuse, Violent Crime

    A news conference announcing Pittsburgh’s selection as the first pilot city for the DEA’s new strategy is scheduled for Tuesday, November 10th between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. at the UPMC Passavant Hospital Foundation Conference Center, located at 700 Cumberland Woods Drive in Allison Park, Pennsylvania.

    Speakers at the announcement include:
    • Gary Tuggle, Special Agent in Charge, DEA Philadelphia Field Division
    • U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton, Western District of Pennsylvania
    • Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald
    • Bridge to Hope Family Member

    National partners who are participating in the DEA’s new strategy include the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Pennsylvania, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, DEA Educational Foundation, U.S. Department of Justice’s Violence Reduction Network, The Elks Club, U.S. Department of Health & Humans Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids.

    Here’s a noval approach…

    Ky. group to train kids on how to use heroin antidote

    Should Children Be Taught To Administer Naloxone? 10/28/15
    An opioid activist has already taught her eight-year-old how to administer the life-saving antidote.

  10. jean valjean says:

    Is it possible that Chucky could prove to be an even bigger bs artist than Michele? I haven’t read anything so brazen in ages….it has the fingerprints of Kevin all over it.
    Despite that, there is an element of desperation here.

    Meanwhile, more drug war theater in Indonesia. Kevin must be thinking ‘if only.’
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/10/indonesia-plans-to-use-crocodiles-to-guard-death-row-drug-convicts

  11. Servetus says:

    No discussion of increased heroin production and sales should fail to mention Operation Gladio, the covert operation begun by Allen Dulles in the summer of 1947, whereby heroin was funneled into black neighborhoods via jazz clubs in the US to fund government covert operations in postwar Europe, black-ops that included assassinating socialists.

    The question must be asked, could the alleged rise in heroin importation and/or consumption be the result of some kind of Operation Gladio 2.0?

    The future of Gladio and other covert ventures was no longer in jeopardy. Helliwell’s analysis had been correct. The jazz clubs were the perfect spots to peddle heroin. Soon some of the country’s leading black musicians-Billie Holiday, Theodore “Fats” Navarro, and Charlie Parker-became hopeless junkies, some of whom would die by overdose. Regarding this development, Harry Anslinger, then head of the Bureau of Narcotics, said: “Jazz entertainers are neither fish nor fowl. They do not get the million-dollar protection Hollywood and Broadway can afford for their stars who have become addicted-and there are many more than will ever be revealed. Perhaps this is because jazz, once considered a decadent kind of music, has only token respectability. Jazz grew up next door to crime, so to speak. Clubs of dubious reputation were, for a long time, the only places where it could be heard.”(57)

    Police Protection

    Col. Albert Carone, a New York City policeman, served the new drug network as “a bagman for the CIA,” paying law enforcement officials to “look the other way” when drugs were being distributed in Harlem and other black communities.(58) A made man within the Genovese crime family, Carone also collected money for drug payments and, later, for money to be laundered by the Vatican from Mafia families in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In recognition of his service, the cop /bagman became a Grand Knight of the Sovereign Military of Malta, which has been described as “the military arm of the Holy See.”(59) Protection of the drug trade would become reflected in the fact that not one major drug bust was conducted by US officials from 1947 to 1967, despite the rise in heroin addicts from 20,000 to 150,000.(60)

    The success of the drug venture heightened the CIA’s concern with secrecy surrounding its ties to organized crime. At the insistence of Rear Admiral Hillenkoetter, the archivists at the Office of Naval Intelligence collected and burned all records concerning Lucky Luciano, including the terms of his parole. ONI agents now insisted that Lucky provided nothing to the war effort. Anyone attempting to unearth the history of the heroin trade in America would be hard pressed to find facts. — from Paul L. Williams, Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia, p. 42.

  12. pricknick says:

    If it aint fixed, don’t broke it.

  13. Mr_Alex says:

    Does anyone have any good info or evidence on Kevin Sabet’s position at the University of Florida being brought by Melvin Sembler, Russ Belville is willing to report on it but he wants more information or proof

  14. Duncan20903 says:

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    .

    Alright boys and girls it’s time for your lesson in Spanish. Today we’re going to learn the word autocultivo. Just to help out any prohibitionists who might have wandered in through the wiggle dude’s doggy door that link is to pictures rather than text. Since the best way to learn is to figure it out for yourself, have at it. This will be on the mid-term.

  15. Windy says:

    OT this post but figured you’d want to know. Got this email today (even though I’m NOT a Californian):

    Windy –

    You spoke, and we listened.

    You said you wanted an initiative to protect small and medium sized businesses, and take even stronger steps to protect the environment. You told us to remove the “snitch clause”. You said that restoring our communities and protecting the disadvantaged needed to be at the top of any good initiative’s to-do list, including a path for individuals with non-violent drug-related offenses to work in the industry.

    And in our revised filing with the Attorney General, we accomplished all of those crucial goals, and more. Now, I want you to be the first to see it.

    Click here to view our revised initiative.
    https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ccpr/pages/315/attachments/original/1447118146/Revised_ReformCA_Ballot_Measure.pdf?1447118146

    It’ll soon be public on the Attorney General’s website, but as part of our growing movement of Californians dedicated to commonsense reform, I wanted you to be the first to know. Not every suggestion could be included, but all were considered. We’re thankful for your time and support.

    With your help – along with more than 80,000 other supporters – we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we look forward to a successful campaign in 2016.

    Onward,
    Dale Sky Jones

  16. MJ Verite says:

    Oh joy. It couldn’t come at a better time. Just when Chuck “Doc” Rosenberg was getting tired of being lampooned for schooling the world about the “intellectual dishonesty” of medical cannabis.

    http://tinyurl.com/nc72wdw

    • jean valjean says:

      “There are pieces of marijuana — extracts or constituents or component parts — that have great promise. But if you talk about smoking the leaf of marijuana — which is what people are talking about when they talk about medicinal marijuana — it has never been shown to be safe or effective as a medicine.”
      Thus spake “Doc” Rosenberg, official, fully paid for and owned rep for Sativex.

      • Duncan20903 says:

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        I’m really getting tired of being teased about the alleged imminent FDA approval of Sativex because “the fix is in” or whatever words the local conspiracy theory nutcakes here prefer. For the love of money, isn’t 10 1/2 yeas (ten and one half YEARS) enough time for those who subscribe to the nut cake conspiracy theories to say, hey, maybe we were wrong about this one? 1.05 DECADES?
        http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/andrea-barthwell-snake-oil-salesman/

        You people don’t even care that Dr. Barthwell hasn’t been associated with the company for years. Come on, you people really don’t think that half baked conspiracy theories don’t hurt our credibility? It’s time to make up some new nonsense which hasn’t been thoroughly discredited with the passage of time. The prohibitionists can’t insist fiction into becoming fact, and neither can you.

        Toodles!

        • jean valjean says:

          Leaf marijuana…. Bad!
          Extract or constituents or component parts….. Good!
          I can see no reason for DEA/NIDA insisting on this other than to give an advantage to big pharma…that’s their raison d’etre, the one thing that differentiates them from mom and pop.
          Sorry though, to hear you’ve had such a long wait to cash in Duncan. Maybe you need to review your portfolio, because as you know, you are not dealing with the rational when it comes to US drug policies.

  17. Here is the question that really needs examining:

    Do We Really Need the Drug Enforcement Administration? http://tinyurl.com/p6lba3d

    • kaptinemo says:

      Isn’t it interesting how many ideas (how to politically de-fang and neuter the DEA courtesy of Congress finally doing what it always should have about The DEA’s many scandals) and even phrases (Kevvie ‘whistling past the graveyard’) wind up in articles only a few days after being published here?

      Yea, verily and forsooth, ’tis the truth: this is a major nexus of thought on reform. Always has been, though mainly unacknowledged by better known voices…who then use our comment material in their own works.

      No matter. The great thing about the ‘Net is that you can see who said what, and when. When the history of reform is written, this place will have to figure prominently.

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