# 13

Eradication means....everything

The Dutch Elm blight visited America and, once identified, there wasn't a thing any government or International body could do to avert the loss of Dutch Elm trees in the United States.  Some believe that a blight or pest should be unleashed on the globe to target poppy and coca production.

North America

Certified arborist removing infected elm in Saint Paul, Minnesota

The disease was first reported in the United States in 1928, with the beetles believed to have arrived in a shipment of logs from The Netherlands destined for use as veneer in the Ohio furniture industry. Quarantine and sanitation procedures held most cases within 150 miles of metropolitan New York City until 1941 when war demands began to curtail them.^[24] The disease spread from New England westward and southward, almost completely destroying the famous elms in the "Elm City" of New Haven, Connecticut, reaching the Detroit area in 1950,^[25] the Chicago area by 1960, and Minneapolis by 1970. Of the estimated 77 million elms in North America in 1930, over 75% had been lost by 1989.^[26]

Coca eradication is a controversial strategy strongly promoted by the United States government starting in 1961 as part of its "War on Drugs" to eliminate the cultivation of coca, a plant whose leaves are not only traditionally used by indigenous cultures but also, in modern society, in the manufacture of cocaine. The strategy was adopted in place of running educational campaigns against drug usage.^[1] The prohibitionist strategy is being pursued in the coca-growing regions of Colombia (Plan Colombia), Peru, and formerly Bolivia, where it is highly controversial because of its environmental, health and socioeconomic impact. Furthermore, indigenous cultures living in the Altiplano, such as the Aymaras, use the coca leaf (which they dub the "millenary leaf") in many of their cultural traditions, notably for its medicinal qualities in alleviating the feeling of hunger, fatigue and headaches symptomatic of altitude sicknesses. The growers of coca are named Cocaleros and part of the coca production for traditional use is legal in Peru, Bolivia and Chile.

.... 

Geopolitical issues

Given the above-mentioned considerations, many critics of coca eradication believe the fundamental goal of the U.S. government is to constrict the flow of income to the Colombian Marxist rebel movement, FARC, which is heavily funded by the illegal drug trade, rather than combating drugs per se. Few if any such critics have anything favorable to say about the illicit drug trade, but they point out that under the current coca eradication policies, poor campesinos bear the brunt of efforts to combat it, while North American and European chemical companies (which supply chemicals needed in the manufacture of cocaine) and banks (which annually launder hundreds of billions of dollars in illegal revenues) continue to profit from the trade. (Although it should be noted that it is illegal in the United States for banks to hold funds from drug cartels - such as FARC - that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations.)
Article 26 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, a treaty promulgated with U.S. backing in 1961, states that "The Parties shall so far as possible enforce the uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild. They shall destroy the coca bushes if illegally cultivated."
The US-based Drug Enforcement Administration, along with local governments, has frequently clashed with cocaleros in attempts to eradicate coca across the Andes. This map shows the Chapare region in Bolivia, which has historically been heavily targeted for coca eradication. Human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch have accused the US of human rights abuses in the "coca war".^[8]
Meanwhile, the US-based Stepan Company is authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant^[9] which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use.^[10]

Why Eradication Won’t Solve Afghanistan’s Poppy Problem

January 3, 2012

by Azmat Khan

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world’s illicit opium, bringing billions of dollars a year into the country’s economy, fueling the global heroin trade, funding both the Taliban and government-linked warlords, and exacerbating government corruption. But international attempts to suppress opium production have often been ineffective and even counterproductive to “other objectives of peace, state-building and economic reconstruction.”

FRONTLINE talked to Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a leading expert on drug interdiction efforts and counterinsurgency, to learn more about the widespread effects of opium production in Afghanistan and the outcome of efforts to curb it.

How did Afghanistan become the supplier of 90 percent of the world’s opium?

“If you want to be a political actor in Afghanistan, much … is dependent on being able to distribute some profit to your community. There are two ways to get access to get such access to money: one is to get access to foreign aid; the other is to get profits from opium poppy.”

In the 1980s several important changes took place in the international market and in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan in the mid-80s, the Soviet Army ended up adopting a “scorched earth” policy [to systematically destroy agricultural resources]. That is because while the Soviets were able to control the cities, they were never able to control the countryside. The insurgency was always [launching] attacks from the rural areas on the cities and generating instability. The Soviets tried military operations in the countryside, which didn’t control the problem, so ultimately, they decided to destroy the agriculture in the countryside with the idea that this would drive the rural population into the cities, which they could control.

The effect was the complete collapse of the agricultural production of Afghanistan: the destruction of orchards, irrigation canals. The only thing the population could grow was opium poppy, which didn’t require [so much] irrigation, fertilizers or transportation, because Pakistani traders would come to the farm and pick up the opium. So this really unleashed the first systematic cultivation of opium poppy at the time.

At the same time, there was a growing demand for opiates in the world. Production from the traditional supplier — the golden triangle of Burma, Laos and Vietnam — was significantly suppressed. None of the agricultural infrastructure was rebuilt in the 1990s, following the Soviet withdrawal and civil war, and this trend continued through the Taliban era.

What effects did opium production have in Afghanistan?

From the mid-80s through the mid 2000s, opium poppy was the main source of livelihood for the population.

Even today, when you have a growing legal GDP, opium poppy production is still very important. It is still, at minimum, around 20 percent of the GDP, and that might be significantly underestimating the actual value of opium poppy because it also has repercussions in other sectors. … It is one of the big sources of economic activity in Afghanistan, along with foreign aid. If foreign aid diminishes significantly post-2014 [when U.S. troops are set to withdraw], it will be a very important driver of economic activity.

But there are other effects beyond economic effects. One of them is that since the mid-80s, political power is heavily associated with access to both foreign aid and opium poppy. If you want to be a political actor in Afghanistan — whether you call that a warlord, power broker or politician — much … is dependent on being able to distribute some profit to your community. There are two ways to get access to get such access to money: one is to get access to foreign aid; the other is to get profits from opium poppy. So political power, at least until the mid-2000s, and in a more covert way since the mid-2000s, has been very strongly associated with access to the drug trade. …

# 12

Alternative Crop Subsidies

The United States DEA and Department of State, as well as other agencies, have acknowledged the crop production of harmful substances destined for US citizens and they have attempted to reduce - while not seeking eradication - various crops in far-off lands.  For example, farmers in Mexico can have a financial "carrot" dangled in front of them if they will discontinue cultivation of poppy and convert to corn.  Poppy growers in Turkey can be provided a similar incentive but the crop may be peanuts or soy beans.

Alternative development continues to be recognized by Member States as a fundamental pillar of a comprehensive drug control strategy and plays an important role as a development oriented drug control approach. […] Let us not forget that behind the policies, we have hundreds of thousands of farmers affected by poverty, food insecurity, lack of land, instability who as a result engage in illicit drug cultivation. It is our common responsibility to continue addressing the livelihood of these people, despite the challenges that the international community is faced with today, including the financial constraints.
Yury Fedotov at the opening of the side-event "Outreach to new Stakeholders in the Field of Alternative Development"57 th CND, 2014

One of their slogans reads:  Coffee instead of Coca.

Strangely, our U.S. government recognizes that cocaine produced in South America from a natural plant is what was brought into America and is the substance which caused the death of Basketball star Len Bias...however, the government does not seek absolute eradication of the plant.  Our government seeks a reduction of the availability of the substance while they recognize that limitations on availability will drive-up costs and fuel an increase in crime.  All of this has been captured in Nobel Economist Milton Friedman's

Prohibition and Drugs

by Milton Friedman

From Newsweek, May 1, 1972

---

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."
That is how Billy Sunday, the noted evangelist and leading crusader against Demon Rum, greeted the onset of Prohibition in early 1920. We know now how tragically his hopes were doomed. New prisons and jails had to be built to house the criminals spawned by converting the drinking of spirits into a crime against the state. Prohibition undermined respect for the law, corrupted the minions of the law, created a decadent moral climate-but did not stop the consumption of alcohol.
Despite this tragic object lesson, we seem bent on repeating precisely the same mistake in the handling of drugs.
ETHICS AND EXPEDIENCY
On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yes. But for responsible adults, I, for one, Would answer no. Reason with the potential addict, yes. Tell him the consequences, yes. Pray for and with him, yes. But I believe that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs.
I readily grant that the ethical issue is difficult and that men of goodwill may well disagree. Fortunately, we need not resolve the ethical issue to agree on policy. Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse-for both the addict and the rest of us. Hence, even if you regard present policy toward drugs as ethically justified, considerations of expediency make that policy most unwise.
Consider first the addict. Legalizing drugs might increase the number of addicts, but it is not clear that it would. Forbidden fruit is attractive, particularly to the young. More important, many drug addicts are deliberately made by pushers, who give likely prospects their first few doses free. It pays the pusher to do so because, once hooked, the addict is a captive customer. If drugs were legally available, any possible profit from such inhumane activity would disappear, since the addict could buy from the cheapest source.
Whatever happens to the number of addicts, the individual addict would clearly be far better off if drugs were legal. Today, drugs are box incredibly expensive and highly uncertain in quality. Addicts are driven to associate with criminals to get the drugs, become criminals themselves to finance the habit, and risk constant danger of death and disease.
Consider next the test of us. Here the situation is crystal clear.  The harm to us from the addiction of others arises almost wholly from the fact that drugs are illegal. A recent committee of the American Bar Association estimated that addicts commit one-third to one-half of all street crime in the U.S. Legalize drugs, and street crime would drop dramatically. Moreover, addicts and pushers are not the only ones corrupted. Immense sums are at stake. It is inevitable that some relatively low-paid police and other government officials-and some high-paid ones as well-will succumb to the temptation to pick up easy money.
LAW AND ORDER
Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?
But, you may say, must we accept defeat? Why not simply end the drug traffic? That is where experience under Prohibition is most relevant. We cannot end the drug traffic. We may be able to cut off opium from Turkey but there are  innumerable other places where the opium poppy grows. With French cooperation, we may be able to make Marseilles an unhealthy place to manufacture heroin but there are innumerable other places where the simple manufacturing operations involved can be carried out. So long as large sums of money are involved-and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal-it is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others in our image.

Why control (as the UN suggests), why not eradicate?

# 11

Ethical Questions

One doesn't have to dig very deeply to discover the debate with continues in treatment circles regarding a non-Physician counselor who purports to be secure in his position as counselor while maintain an accurate awareness that he too is/was an addict.

What Happens When Addiction Counselors Relapse? By Jeff Forester 08/30/11

https://www.thefix.com/content/when-counselor-does-coke4050?page=all

        

Relapse plays a familiar part in the lives of many recovering addicts. And even longtime drug counselors are not immune from the occasional slip.

Image: 

Relapse among recovery professionals are not uncommon.

AA began with “one alcoholic talking to another.” Bill W. at his darkest moment was only able to stay sober by talking with another drunk, Dr. Bob. The message is simple: if addicts want to stay clean, they must help others to sobriety.
That was 74 years ago, when AA was the only support available to most substance abusers. Since then, the recovery movement has become has become a billion-dollarvocation. These days, close to 100,000 people in the United States work in recovery-related jobs, earning their living as drug counselors, "techs" or social workers at hospital treatment programs or at thousands of rehabs across the country. In general, most people who enter the field of chemical dependency have some kind of personal connection with the problem—many have friends or family members who are or were addicts. But according to recent studies, well over 50 percent of the social workers, counselors, therapists, administrators and others who help addicts achieve sobriety were once addicts themselves—a strange twist on the famous Hunter S. Thompson quote, “When the going get weird, the weird turn pro.”
While this personal connection to their clients tends to mean addiction professionals are incredibly passionate and dedicated, there is a down side as well. It's no secret that many addicts, even those with significant sober time under their belts, relapse. And when addicts or alcoholics working in recovery stumble, the consequences are often more dire than for the pedestrian—that is, non-professional—drunk.

....  While relapse of a counselor or other addiction professional poses dangers to patients, the biggest threat is actually to the person who relapses. “Anecdotally, the recovery rate for people who work in the field that relapse is abysmal,” says Rice. Leonard, who drank for three months before “heading south,” says, “They were really tough on me and told me the outcomes were not good. We’ve had a number of clinicians and counselors come through The Retreat, and they’re difficult to work with because they tend to be in a lot of denial.”

One of many Ethical Codes for counselors appears below and, clearly, the industry acknowledges that it is a "briar-patch" having few clear paths.

http://www.naadac.org/code-of-ethics

In some future post, we may explore Physicians as addicts.

# 10

The Disease Theory of Alcoholism

In 1956, the American Medical Association, gave a green light to the insurers while also attempting to remove a stigma of alcoholics-as-weak-willed-people which drove the thinking for hundreds of years.

The general case supporting the theory as well as the subsequent recognition for treatment by insurers follows:

The modern disease theory of alcoholism states that problem drinking is sometimes caused by a disease of the brain, characterized by altered brain structure and function.

The American Medical Association (AMA) declared that alcoholism was an illness in 1956. In 1991, the AMA further endorsed the dual classification of alcoholism by the International Classification of Diseases under both psychiatric and medical sections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_theory_of_alcoholism

A counter view to the Disease Theory appears below:

Alcoholism: A disease of speculation

        "In 1976, the writer Ivan Illich warned in the book, Limits to Medicine, that 'the medical establishment has become a major threat to health'. At the time, he was dismissed as a maverick, but a quarter of a century later, even the medical establishment is prepared to admit that he may well be right. (Anthony Browne, April 14, 2002, the Observer)" History and science have shown us that the existence of the disease of alcoholism is pure speculation. Just saying alcoholism is a disease, doesn't make it true. Nevertheless, medical professionals and American culture enthusiastically embraced the disease concept and quickly applied it to every possible behavior from alcohol abuse to compulsive lecturing and nail biting. The disease concept was a panacea for many failing medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies, adding billions of dollars to the industry and leading to a prompt evolution of pop-psychology. Research has shown that alcoholism is a choice, not a disease, and stripping alcohol abusers of their choice, by applying the disease concept, is a threat to the health of the individual. The disease concept oozes into every crevice of our society perpetuating harmful misinformation that hurts the very people it was intended to help. Remarkably, the assumptions of a few were accepted as fact by the medical profession, devoid of any scientific study or supporting evidence. And soon after, the disease concept was accepted by the general public. With this said, visiting the history of the disease concept gives us all a better understanding of how and why all of this happened.

See more at: http://www.baldwinresearch.com/alcoholism.cfm

As students, or as people affected by alcoholism directly or indirectly, it is important that we review the two positions with more reason than emotion.

During the escalation of Kennedy/Johnson's Vietnam effort, they found support in a theory advanced by Clark Clifford; the Domino Theory.  Clifford, who later admitted that his theory was false, suggested that once Vietnam fell, its neighbors would fall at the Philippines would not be far behind, then maybe Australia, etc.  As Clifford acknowledged the errors of his theory, he agreed that one of the clear indicators was that those countries lying closer to Vietnam did not send a higher percentage of its male population into combat.

As rationale students of alcoholism weigh the two major positions they can learn from the Clark Clifford example:

Why aren't Physicians exclusively treating alcoholics if alcoholism is a true disease; like liver disease?

If the AMA says that alcoholism is a disease, why has a cottage industry developed in America where the true persons attending to alcoholics persons who are not physicians and, rather, themselves recovering alcoholics with Master's degrees?

The same test can be put to the so-called medical approach to addictions which create a cottage-system for counselors who are not physicians and who almost always carry the baggage of their previous addictions.

Next, Ethical Questions! 

# 1 b.

Why now?

As a Baby Boomer, born in the 1940s, my generation was too young to identify with Jack Kerouac and his death (1922-1969) resulting from prolonged abuse of the licit substance known as alcohol (ethyl alcohol).  But Boomers have observed the years record the following pop deaths, resulting from choices made by adults and involving licit and illicit substances, beginning in 1970:

Janis Joplin (1943-1970) Heroin and Alcohol

Jimi Hendricks (1942-1970) Barbiturates

Jim Morrison (1943-1971) Heroin and Alcohol

John Belushi (1949-1982) Cocaine and Heroin

Len Bias (1963-1986)  Cocaine (provided by a friend the day Boston Celtics contract inked)
Michael Jackson (1958-2009) Propofol and Benzodiazepine

Whitney Houston (1963-2012) Cocaine

Bobby Kristina Brown (1993-2015) Marijuana, Alcohol, Cocaine and Morphine (the metabolite of Heroin)

Prince (1958-2016) Fentanyl Overdose

When these pop stars and musicians are joined by other general Americans who have also made adult, fatal decisions (below), I have concluded that straight talking and scientific proof regarding licit and illicit substances needs to be disseminated in order that more wise decisions can be made, fewer fatal decisions will be made and fewer deaths will occur.

Adult (sic) Eighteen-year-old Logan Stiner of LaGrange, Ohio, died in May after consuming it. The coroner's report said Stiner suffered cardiac arrythmia -- irregular heartbeat -- and a seizure, and was found to have more 70 micrograms of caffeine per milliliter of blood in his system, CBS Cleveland reported.  (caffeine substance abuse of a licit substance) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/powdered-caffeine-death-fda-legal-action/

Nicotine poisoning           

Nicotine is a bitter-tasting compound that naturally occurs in large amounts in the leaves of tobacco plants.  Nicotine poisoning results from too much nicotine. Acute nicotine poisoning usually occurs in young children who accidentally chew on nicotine gum or patches.  https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002510.htm

By Annie Gowen April 16, 1999 Follow @anniegowen

The man and woman found dead in their Mechanicsville bedroom Wednesday were wearing clear respiratory masks over their noses and mouths that led to large canisters of nitrous oxide, the St. Mary's County sheriff's office said yesterday.

Police said the bodies of Carol J. Smith, 29, and Mark A. Trowbridge, 40, a paramedic for the D.C. fire department, were found lying lifeless in bed Wednesday afternoon when Trowbridge's 14-year-old son arrived home from school.

Although the cause of death had not been confirmed, police said the pair may have overdosed accidentally while using the gas to produce a euphoric high. One drug expert suggested they may have passed out with the masks on and continued to inhale the nitrous oxide until they suffocated.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1999/04/16/accidental-overdose-suspected/75a9bac5-b9be-42cc-af11-96015c58bd8d/

Note: Adult substance abusers who commit suicide by any means having nothing to do with the particular substance(s) they abuse, have their autopsies and death certificates accurately and scientifically reflect the true cause of death. 

Children and adults across America continue to make Fatal decisions.  By informing as many adults and youth as possible, the effort of this Blog can find success if only one death is averted.

Next Post:  Why the emphasis on the word adult and let's discuss the legal concepts of licit vs illicit.