Issues Under Fire: Death Penalty for Drug Dealers
Donald Trump recently announced he's considering the death penalty for dealers caught selling dope in America. After visiting China and chatting with Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party and now lifetime ruler of the Chinese people, Trump said he was told China just executes those who deal drugs. And according to Wikipedia, he's correct. Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the People's Republic of China and it's mostly enforced for murder and drug trafficking. Those executions are carried out by lethal injection or gunshot. Tough stuff to be sure, but that policy will never become a reality in the United States and we all know why.
As soon as Xi Jinping got elected, he went after corruption from the very start. No matter how rich or well connected the accused was, they faced arrest, trial, jail and even execution for the crimes they'd been convicted of. Sure, some say Xi was simply eliminating adversaries and consolidating power, but the criminal class got the message loudly and clearly. Nobody is too big to escape accountability. That doesn't happen in the United States. In fact, it's the exact opposite in this country. When crimes are committed by corporate elites, they never even see a courtroom, let alone a jail cell. And since the biggest dope dealers in the United States are the CEO's of Big Pharma, it's highly unlikely the true culprits that caused this opioid epidemic will ever be brought to justice.
Operating like a Colombian drug cartel, Big Pharma developed the opioid products. Working with physicians and other medical professionals, they set up a nationwide distribution network. With sales and marketing teams providing irresistible incentives for doctors to prescribe the highly addictive products to their patients, Big Pharma could sit back and watch the billions roll in. When trusting patients came in for treatment, they had no idea they were being hooked on dope. And why should they? Doctors promise to do no harm. It's part of the Hippocratic Oath. So, when a primary care physician or pain management specialist recommended an opioid to relieve severe discomfort, the patient rarely thought twice. Especially, when the "treatment" felt so good.
Unfortunately, the opioids feel so good, the patients just gotta have more. And although they wouldn't agree, the lucky patient's medical provider would cut them off long before they were addicted. But many patients aren't so lucky. Their medical providers are addicted to the incentives. Bonuses, trips to beautiful vacation spots around the world and even cash awards turned many medical practices into pill mills. Anyone looking to ease their pain could be prescribed as many pain pills as they want with few if any questions asked. Friends, family, and employers are generally the first to recognize the problem. But that's only after the lying, cheating, and stealing has gotten out of hand. And it's pretty much nothing but downhill from that point on.
After friends, family, and employers get fed up and start distancing themselves from the addicted, it's not long before the low-level street dealers come to the addict's rescue. Having an unlimited supply of cheap alternatives to the "good stuff", fentanyl and heroin dealers can meet anybody's needs. The addicts can feed their insatiable hunger on a nickel and dime budget. But by now, the addict is scrounging around with the scummiest people you can imagine. Many times these dealers are selling dope to feed their own addictions. These are the people that'll go to jail. These are the people Donald Trump wants to execute. Not white collar criminals who manufactured, marketed and distributed these addictive and deadly opioids all over America.
Bottom line: CBS News is reporting a recent yearlong study offering solid evidence that over-the-counter pain medications like Tylenol and ibuprofen have proven to be just as effective, if not more so, in treating stubborn backaches or hip and knee arthritis. According to the lead author of this study, Dr. Erin Krebs, a physician and researcher for the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, although opioids have gained a reputation as being really powerful painkillers, that's not what the research found. To the contrary, opioids actually provided slightly less pain relief to chronic sufferers than over the counter products. And even though you can bet your bottom dollar Big Pharma knew this all along, you'll never see a pharmaceutical CEO get a lethal injection of his own medicine or a bullet to the head. Podcast below
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