MADISON, Wis. — There have been more than twice as many suspected opioid overdoses in Wisconsin during the coronavirus pandemic than during the same period last year, which likely can be attributed at least partially to the added stress and isolation many are feeling, health officials said Wednesday.
Preliminary figures from Wisconsin emergency departments show that there were 325 suspected overdoses from March through July 13, compared with 150 during the same time span in 2019, according to the state Department of Health Services.
Easy fix, get out of Afghanistan. All foreign Government forces accomplish in Afghanistan is creating channels for smuggling more product into the invaders home country. Heroin usage has skyrocketed in every single country that ever invaded them back to the Mongols in the 13th century.
I have seen stats that only 1% or so of Heroin in the US is from Afghanistan, but pull up your chair and grab your popcorn jjf, that is a straight up conspiracy.
90% of all heroin in the world is produced in Afghanistan, our usage has increased over 500% while we have been there and anyone believes there is no correlation?
Now the 500% is old from around 2011 and it had been steadily increasing back then. I used to be able to find graphs by year, but I could not find any today as if that info may be ‘an inconvenient truth’. All I could find is that it has continued to rise since 2000. It is much more likely to be 8 to 10 times the numbers today of prewar US users. The exact same thing happened to the Soviets when they invaded. They went into Afghanistan and heroin use jumped 5 times the number pre-war. They got out and heroin user/death numbers immediately began to subside.
As Le Roi has sai, it’s their own fault.
No doubt these deaths will be added to CCPvirus count, then.
It sure is mar, unless you can give a detailed explanation of how taking opioids isn’t a choice.
And while you are at it, tell us all the circumstances of Justice Alito’s passing
Tuerqas – so who makes the money on that?
Simple solution… give them a safe and clean place to administer their drugs with a registered nurse on staff 24/7 to assist them. Keep more narcan freely available for them as well.
There’s a lady in my area that gets emt administered narcan 3+ times a week. Thanks Liberals, your solutions are wasteful, harmful, and stupid.
jjf, my first guess would be elements of the military and the ruling political party. Obama was emphatic “We will get out of the wars in the Middle East”. He was emphatically anti-war and played very well with the Dem voters who had been kept in a frenzy with the daily death counts, the Mom whose name I have forgotten but got hourly coverage about her blaming Bush for her dead son, etc. Obama takes over and the Iraq removal goes on apace, but the Afghan war doesn’t end or even continue in a downward trend, it gets ratcheted up and the news doesn’t touch the subject during his terms. By a man who hated war and swore he would end the two costly wars? Costly to the people perhaps, but not, I think, to the US Government.
I am not in any way blaming only Obama, it is just that his prior opinion was in stark contrast to his actions after his election. He was adamantly opposed to both wars and strongly promised an end to both, but once in office the Iraq war had already ended and was winding down, yet he allowed the US military to continue the power struggle in Afghanistan to no strategic end (unless you can believe that it was solely to make a difference in the level of world terrorism)…why?
Republicans have a long record of using war to make profit. It is not beyond most people’s imaginations to believe that the Bush admin and the Trump admin would turn down a significant revenue stream, but Obama? I think it telling that we still have virtually no real strategic purpose to be in Afghanistan in such significant numbers, but there we are still.
I wouldn’t doubt there were people within the military on both sides who profited from producing or smuggling or selling. I think it’s less likely that the money was funneled directly to our political parties.
Way to brush all that off to the side Foust. This is why we deride you and your stupid comments. Someone comes in with some thoughtful commentary and presents them nicely, and you ignore it all with your blazing bias.
Tuerqas, you are citing the work of a professor who (inter alia) authored The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity
Hmmmm.
It’s his contention that the US military is–somehow–profiting from opium trade. While it’s likely that SOME officers and/or enlisted are dirty here, it’s not likely that “the military” is “profiting.”
That said, Bush, Obama, and (so far) Trump seem to have an irrational interest in fighting a war that has no defined end-goal. Bush, at least, had an excuse for the first few years if one believes everything his Administration said about Afghanistan. After that? Nope.
The US will not EVER install a government meeting ‘Western’ standards, nor will it be able to stabilize the country with an honest ‘friendly’ at the top of the government there.
Just bring in the Hercules fleet and bring out every damn thing we own. If there are some friendlies who will get erased when we leave, take them, too.
Then wheels up and goodbye.
Sounds like an interesting read. I didn’t cite it, I never heard of it, but it sounds like we have similar beliefs and I heartily agree with your comments. Is it that yours or that author’s, or both? While it may be less likely that the military profits, I believe the modus operandi would be something more in the manner of secretly pre-guaranteed allocations rather than cash payments of any sort.
It seems a very low probability to me that the Government knows nothing about the trade. If they didn’t, why are we still there, they control military actions and it makes no sense to still be there except for individual or small collective profits. And if they did know about it, Obama had two choices when he became aware of it. Bring it to light and blame it on the Republicans, or take over appropriations. And yes, it might not have gone all the way up to the President’s office, but of the branches of Gov’t, the Executive branch actually has the most knowledge of and control over the military from an operations stand-point. I think it is more likely that the President knows than large parts of Congress. It may also be one of those ‘Don’t tell me about it’ for deniability reasons.
jjf, first ‘profit’ current tense, second I don’t have to guess whether there is a direct line to our political parties. That may be the dumbest comment of yours I have read to date. It most likely goes through 10-15 shells before it is ‘donated’ by a private party. I am fairly certain heroin stained bags of cash from the street sellers aren’t brought directly to the Pentagon or the White House.
Tuerqas – means, motive, opportunity. The military isn’t just the members of one party. Nor would I think it would be common to find someone so dedicated to party that they’d engage in criminal enterprise (with all the risks that entails) just to funnel it to their favorite party. I’d think it would be more likely they’d be willing to do it if they themselves received the benefit. I think self-interest is stronger than party.
So you are saying that non-political individuals are making crap-tons of money, the Government is getting none, but they are leaving the war going to…what? Let those individuals keep getting richer while more and more people they represent get addicted, ruin the lives of those around them and ultimately die?
Self interest is definitely stronger than party and I am sure everyone actually involved gets a healthy taste. But you are missing the point. The self interest of a few individuals wouldn’t keep this pipeline going for a generation, it has to be institutional. It is not about dedication to party, it is about having a powerful enough ally protecting the pipeline. The self-interest of a group of individuals isn’t going to keep the US in Afghanistan for 20 years fighting nothing and everyone, unless the self interested parties have some say or leverage that keeps us there. Even the entire military high command can’t bullshit our blind idiot Government that long, Government elements must be present, and I believe it goes all the way to the top because of Obama’s strong peace stance. He promised ending both wars right up until his first Presidential briefings and we never heard of Afghanistan again from mainstream media.
I would love to hear your self-interest scenario, where no Government officials are involved, yet the private self interested individuals kept the war going for 20 years under the Government’s unknowing nose. How did they stop Congress or the supposedly strongly peace-loving Obama from pulling out?
I have the popcorn, will there be aliens?
There’s easier ways to make more money in a war than selling drugs, no? Cui bono?
No, Afghanistan is a special case. 35% of their entire GDP is from the drug trade. In the Middle East, the easiest way to make money during war or peace has involved oil in the last 75 years. In Afghanistan the easiest way to make money has been opiates for at least the last 9 centuries. There is quite a bit of history on how opiates affected the Mongol empire. Maybe gun-running could hold a candle to it…
Drugs are also a big talking concern for Government. If they were not complicit, an honest politician just might question why the Government is killing its own people through association (even a war association) with Afghanistan, by keeping the war going.
So we spend $2 trillion over there, and the party – which party, both? – got how much for selling drugs?
So now self interest is gone again. What is it with you? The people of the US paid 2 trillion in taxes, not the people making money from the drug trade. If anyone were offered a part in a drug trade and were told beforehand that the people of the US will unknowingly spend trillions of dollars to cover you making a half million, I bet more than half would say sign me up, because if I don’t somebody else will anyway.
Both parties.
Their share of the approx. 40 billion dollar a year opiates trade.
I merely mentioned how much we’ve spent over there, and asked you a separate question about how much you thought the party(ies) made.
You think the parties made on the order of only $500,000 and that was worth it to them?
$500,000? The pipeline share of the 40 billion dollar a year trade is a bit more of than 500,000. That dollar amount was a fiction of what some lower level person like you or I might get for doing whatever very small part we might have played. “If anyone” is singular, what one official might make, not the full value of what I suspect the entire ring of Americans are making a year. Read it again. My words concerning the fictional $500,000 were:
See how I used ‘anyone’ singular and ‘part’ as in a portion of…Either you have serious comprehension problems or you don’t read before you write.
I think the parties make on the order 15-20 billion a year. How much goes to any specific individual is obviously just speculation and I speculate that a portion of all individual (or corporate) pay outs come back to the Government in some manner, possibly as prearranged contributions to the coffers of Gov’t officials or the party funds.
Here is my bottom line on this:
The people who can end the war are being compensated for not ending it and that includes Presidents. Clear enough?
Do a study on the wealth increase of individuals before and after they became President. 8 year Potus increase their wealth many fold, 4 year Potus less. War year Potus somehow make disgusting gobs of wealth. If you stay 12 years and have a world war under your belt, well, FDR had about $300,000 to his name when he entered the Presidency and left with a 60 million estate at his death (200 times his pre-Potus wealth). Obama had 30 times more wealth than when he entered the the Presidency. That wasn’t from his salary.
Isn’t Jimmy Carter something of an exception to the rule? Other than earnings as an author he doesn’t seem to have leveraged his time in the White House like so many of the others. I seem to remember reading somewhere that he was actually in substantial personal debt when he left office.
Yes, he is almost a singular modern exception (I believe Truman is the other in the 20th century and beyond) to the rule and I think it was because he was honest, not because he had no opportunity. It is the most commendable part of his Presidency.
It’s called “The Deep State.” BTW, trying to talk common sense with Jiffy is much more difficult than herding cats. Not really worth the time.
I have come to this conclusion, too, but I love cats!